Bull Rush

I, like many Bucs fans I imagine, was fired up during the first half of the game on Sunday about how turrible the Bucs looked playing the run against the Redskins. I figured, hey I just bought this new webcam and I have a lot to say so screw it, I'll just do a vlog!

Well after several attempted installations and troubleshooting I'm pronouncing that effort an EPIC FAIL.

I was so frustrated I just about said to hell with it and refused to blog about the game, especially since the Bucs won. But I figured that would be kind of trifling this late in the season to just drop the ball like that.

Which is why I'm up at 1:30 blogging right now instead of sleeping.

SMDH!

Anyway this will be another one of those instances where I just get it all off my chest in one post and then move on so get ready for a long post and probably a good bit of rambling thoughts.

I figured first off I might as well address the dismal performance by the Bucs defense in the first half. No diagrams this time but I'll give you the short version of what happened and who was at fault.

Keep in mind that in most of the Bucs' base defenses every guy has their own gap. It's why they call it a "one gap defense"(!). So all it takes on any given play is one guy to screw up and the running back can be out of the gate. But if you compound it with people in the secondary screwing up then you turn a good gain into a 54 yard run.

Other times however a team just runs a better scheme than your defense. This actually was the case several times as I will point out. Even when everybody essentially did their job the defense was still at a disadvantage.

You will notice many of these plays were back to back. It was truly unbelievable to see so many screwups in such a short period of time but the good news is the Bucs were still able to overcome it.

13:09 1st and 15 The Redskins just run a simple one back zone play. The first problem is that Roy Miller, who played a lot better in the second half, went up field and got reached by the center. Its the same problem he has had in other games and this time the defense paid for it. The ball ran in what was his gap after the guard went up to block the linebacker Barrett Ruud. Now Ruud is in decent shape to make the play about 6 or 7 yards up the field or at the least turn it to the safety, in this case Corey Lynch, who SHOULD be filling the ally. What ACTUALLY happened was that Lynch took a poor angle and ran right into the back of Ruud taking them both out of the play and opening the flood gates. 54 yards latter the Bucs at least kept the Redskins out of the endzone which although underplayed by many in the media, was really the catalyst for them winning the game. If they gave up TDs then there never would have been those missed field goals and the game would have been out of hand early.

Just thought I'd point that out.

6:48 1st and 10 The NFL being a copycat league, the Redskins featured that Saints play I drew up a while ago with a new twist. Instead of using two tight ends they used two wide receivers. And instead of both of them going to the flat on the snap, this time the receiver that was wide and the one that was close to the tackle in the slot criss crossed. The effect this had was the slot receiver still took one defender, usually an outside linebacker, out of the box while heading out to the flat, but the receiver that was out wide had the opportunity to come back in the box and help double team the middle linebacker.

Let me say this, I watched those plays over and over and tried to come up with a defense to stop it and short of calling a blitz, which obviously you can't do every play, I had a hard time coming up with an obvious way to stop it. So kudos to the Redskins for their ingenuity. (of course I STILL wonder why the Bucs aren't using the same play which gives their own defense fits)

This particular time the problem was Tim Crowder not getting under the kickout block along with the fact that Miller allowed himself to be pushed too far inside by the guard. The result was a lane big enough to drive a Mac truck through and the Redskins ended up picking up 12 yards. The WR didn't make it to double Ruud but he didn't have to because Ruud went with his correct fit inside of the offensive tackle which walled him off from being able to make the play.

6:13 1st and 10 The Redskins ran a zone iso strong. I've wondered several times this year why the Bucs line up with a 3-4 look a few times a game. It hasn't really hurt them most of the year but I can't remember it ever being some huge help either.

Well this time, it hurt. The Bucs tried a cross blitz with Ruud running up in the A gap and Geno Hayes crossing behind him to the B gap. Unfortunately the guard was waiting on Geno and grabbed him and kept him from getting over the top. Up front Gerald McCoy was lined up in a 5 technique outside of the offensive tackle but on the snap he went inside to try to make a play. Instead he missed the tackle and gave up the C gap between the offensive tackle and the tight end.

Now Quincy Black was on the line outside of the tight end but he isn't a true 3-4 linebacker obviously so he got pushed off the line and wasn't able to squeeze the hole at all. At that point there is nobody on the second level to tackle the running back and there are blockers in front of him damn near like a screen.

End result, 23 yard gain.

5:29 1st and 10 Redskins run that Saints play again. This time the defensive line does a decent job. McCoy gets enough penetration to get a hand on the running back but can't bring him down with the offensive tackle still hanging on his back. Crowder did a good job of playing the kick out block which was a cut block and makes the ball bounce a gap wider. Unfortunately Ruud is doubled by the WR and offensive guard and Black is being blocked to the outside by the slot WR. That creates another natural lane and the running back finds it for another 10 yards.



2:22 1st and 10 The Skins run a zone cutback. Michael Bennett at left end decides not to try to get under the kickout block and instead go for the tackle on the running back. Unfortunately he missed and allowed the running back to continue basically going north and south instead of having to cut behind him. That was really unfortunate because this time the Bucs played a defense where Strong Safety Sean Jones was in the box to Bennett's side and was a free hitter to make the play if it has to bounce. Instead the free hitter was wasted and the running back gained 12 more yards.

2nd Quarter

13:53 3rd and 5 Redskins run a zone cutback with the tight end coming across the formation to kick out the end man on the line. Because its 3rd down the Bucs have their pass rushing group up front in and they blitz. Everyone is in their gap for the most part but Geno gets held by the offensive tackle and can't come off the block to tackle the running back coming straight through his gap. It was a pretty obvious hold to me but I'm not making any excuses.

What killed me about this play though was that Corey Lynch flew up into the box on the snap but instead of going for the running back he basically just ran blindly into the pile. He was a free hitter who could have, in theory at least, stopped the running back short of the 1st down marker. Instead there was nobody home and the Skins picked up another 8 yards and the 1st.

13:13 1st and 10 They ran the Saints play yet again. This time Alex Magee is at defensive end and he doesn't get under the kick out block. Also Jones comes flying in trying to get a knock out blow on the running back and instead misses the tackle. Instead of a gain of maybe 5 yards or so, it becomes a gain of 12 yards and another 1st down.

2:17 1st and 10 This was just a simple zone play. I'm sure the Bucs were in 2 minute mode though and they had Magee in at nose tackle I presume for pass rush. Well just like Miller, Magee got reached and the ball ran right into his A gap. Ruud had to give a little ground to play the cut block but he maybe could have been a little faster over the top but not by much. Everyone else pretty much played it correctly but one guy getting reached was the catalyst for a 20 yard run.

So lets do the math.

54
12
23
10
12
8
12
+20
131

7 8 runs for 131 yards. Not a good look at all but mostly fixable. Not sure about that Saints play though.

Injuries

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge all the injuries the Bucs have been hit with of late. It sucks when you lose 6 starters in 3 weeks. It hurts doubly when you are the youngest team in the league. And yet the Bucs still are finding ways if not to win, to at least stay in pretty much every game.

And I'll be honest with you, my biggest complaint and concern heading into the season was what I thought was a lack of quality depth behind most of the starters. I am officially eating my words now.

I'm not saying every guy that has gone from the bench to starting or contributing has been a world beater, but at the least they have been good enough to keep the train rolling. If there is one reason in my mind that most personifies why I think Coach Morris should be up for coach of the year in the NFL, its how he has been able to keep this team together and playing well in the face of all of losing so many key people. I may not agree with every decision or every scheme, but you would have to be a blind man not to see the phenomenal job he has done with, and I don't mean this as a knock, somewhat average talent in a lot of spots.

The one thing I do worry about though is how some of these players will come back next year off their injuries. For the Bucs to take the next step guys like McCoy and Brian Price etc will have to take big leaps forward next year and that's hard to do without having a full season of game experience and also trying to just get your body back to 100%. But I'm hopeful that they will dedicate themselves to their rehab and come back ready to roll by training camp.

- One thing about injuries is that it gives other guys opportunities as I kind of alluded to before. One such situation is Bennett potentially being the undertackle the rest of the season. Coach Morris was kind of coy about who would be at that spot today in his press conference but as I look at the roster I don't really see anybody else that fits the position.

Roy Miller CAN play undertackle but at this point he is more off a bulky run stopping guy than a pass rusher. And make no mistake, an undertackle has to be an up the field disruptive pass rusher in addition to being a terror against the run. Al Woods seems like more of a nose now too. And although I don't know a lot about Frank Okam, 330 pounds doesn't exactly sound fast and agile.

Could be wrong though.

The only other guy that I think might be a good match for the position is Magee. He played a little inside in the second half and when he wasn't at nose he looked decent. He has some pretty good pass rush awareness about him too.

But having said that I still think Bennett is the best option for now. I don't think it will be a long term place for him, but this is a chance for him to become a huge factor on the defense. I'm sure teams will run right at him and test his ability to play a double team or a slip block and that's fine, as long as he plays with reckless abandon I don't think it will matter.

But that's just it though, he NEEDS to play with reckless abandon. Its pretty obvious by now that I'm a big fan of who I think Bennett COULD be. He has every tool you could want in a defensive lineman. But its also obvious to me that he is still feeling his way through.

Last year and the beginning of this year Bennett's get off was so much better than everybody else's on the defensive line that he put them all to shame every time the ball was snapped. But here recently his get off has been average at best. When he plays blocks the way he is supposed to he makes plays, explosive tackles, against anybody. But he still tries to free lance a little too much. On pass rush his speed and power should be giving offensive linemen fits. But instead he has started relying way too much on finesse moves and head fakes instead of just smoking a guy around the corner or going right under their chin.

Or hell a combination of both!

If I could get that kid in the lab for a week or two I guarantee you I'd turn him into a monster. Basically I'd just teach him to unleash the beast that he already has shown he has in him and he would end up destroying people.

But since I don't have that kind of contact with him let me write one piece of advice for him at the under tackle position in hopes that somehow some way he gets to see it.

When in doubt, haul ass!!!

One of the things that drove me crazy about McCoy here lately is that he started relying too heavily on inside moves. For one they rarely worked. For two he was basically running himself into a double team if the center had any awareness about him.

With the undertackle you want a guy that pierces the heart of the offensive line's pass protection. That means a guy who is getting upfield and making the quarterback move in the pocket. It doesn't always matter if the undertackle gets a hand on the quarterback or gets the sack. If he can get around the guard and make the quarterback feel him then more than likely he will give the other three defensive linemen an opportunity to get the sack or force the throw.

I've talked before about a natural game where the undertackle gets up field and the defensive end sees the quarterback stepping up and just falls back inside to make the sack. Well that will never happen if the undertackle is never trying to get around the corner on the guard. And so you end up with everyone just stuck on blocks and the only guy really having a legitimate shot at pressure being the backside end who could possibly have a one on one.

This is where Bennett can really shine though, especially against play action pass. If he can start back flying off the ball and getting up the field as an undertackle he will be able to help not only his fellow defensive lineman but the secondary tremendously.

And really, if he isn't hauling ass and using his speed and quickness which are his best assets, what's the use of having him in the game anyway?


- It appears that Mike Williams has caught a mild case of the butter fingers here lately. Thankfully fellow rookie Arrelious Benn has caught fire to take up the slack. Imagine what will happen if both of them start balling out. I asked a question on twitter Sunday and I didn't get a response but I'll ask it again here. Has there ever been too rookie wide receivers on the same team that were both as dynamic as Benn and Williams? I'm not engraving their names in Canton yet, but those two guys are explosive as hell, even though they aren't mirror images of each other. If they can stay healthy......DAMN!!!

- I expressed concerned about Derek Hardman starting at guard last week but I thought he played pretty damn well. I know some folks will blame him for the fumble on the goalline but it wasn't his fault. Either you don't call that play on the goalline, OR you don't have Josh Freeman reverse out for the handoff. One of the two. But aside from that play and another when he got knocked on his ass on a pass rush where Freeman got sacked, he held his own in there.

- Speaking of Freeman I thought he bounced back well from two "slump" games. He wasn't perfect but the biggest thing he did in my opinion was not turn the ball over (even though he came close a couple of times). And he still took his shots down the field and burned the Redskins with the big play a couple of times. His TD pass to K2 was one of the best throws he has made all year. Indefensible.

- Cadillac Williams made so many little plays in the game yesterday to help the Bucs win that its hard to point them all out. The one handed grab that moved them close enough for a field goal. The catch in the flat where he makes a move for the first down. He continues to be an asset and he has accepted his demotion with as much class as I think anyone could. I don't know what the future holds for him but I for one wouldn't mind seeing him continue here in the third down role he has carved out for himself.

- I have to give it up for Ronde Barber again. All he did was go out and make 10 total tackles by my count, get a pressure, a PBU and and hit on the quarterback. The old guy continues to be the glue that holds the Bucs young defense together.

Here are the defensive line breakdowns:

Tim Crowder: I had him with a tackle for loss, 1 other tackle, 2 assists a pressure and a pass broken up. Very good game for a guy that was questionable heading into Sunday with a bad shoulder.

Gerald McCoy: Only had him with 1 tackle before the injury. Thought he was getting good penetration though. He also tried another bullshit spin which made my head start spinning.

Roy Miller: As mentioned before Roy had a rough start to the game but he got better as the day went on. I had him with 4 tackles and 2 assists and I have to point out that on Crowder's tackle for a loss it was Roy who PWNED the center and drove him back into the running back which made that play possible in the first place.

Now he just has to work on getting off to a better start.

Stylez G. White: I had Stylez with 1 tackle for loss, 2 other tackles and an assist. He didn't get the pressure we are used to seeing from him per se, but I will say I was encouraged to see him working a lot more inside moves. He needs some help from the rest of his line mates though.

Mike Bennett: He wasn't always perfect but he made some nice plays. 3 tackles an assist and a pressure by my count. That one tackle he made down at the goalline was just ferocious. Hoping to see more consistency out of him in these last three games though.

Al Woods: I thought Woods played well at nose tackle. I had him with 1 tackle and two assists. He seemed to play the center reach block as well as anybody on Sunday.

Alex Magee: Magee continues to show flashes that intrigue me. He only had one assist by my count but I saw him make some pretty nice pass rush moves. In particular he had a nice hands move when rushing inside and he had a good long arm when rushing at defensive end. He, like Bennett, has to be more on the details but I'm hoping to get to see more of him the next few weeks to see how he progresses.

Well my eyes are glazing over so that's all for now. See you in the comments section!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Not going to go through any of the categories this time just going to give some thoughts on the game.

- Several people have asked me in the comments and offline whether I agreed with Coach Morris' decision to punt late in the third quarter. My answer is an unequivocal YES! I understand that people may have the opinion that we should have gone for it there but I'll explain my thinking on it.

First we were up 3 late in the third quarter and our defense this year has been very stingy in the second half. We were already on the Atlanta 41 true but that meant that if we didn't convert on 4th down we would give the Falcons the ball close to midfield only down a field goal. Also we had just tried to convert a 3rd and 1 and we were stuffed. Better to punt the ball, pin the Falcons deep and hopefully get them to punt backed up and play the field position game. In that scenario we get the ball back after the punt somewhere close to midfield which in theory would put us in better position to score.

Now the punt did indeed pin the Falcons back at the 3. Unfortunately we let them get two first downs so they were able to punt from their own 29 instead of from inside the 10, but we still got the ball back after the punt at our own 37 which is pretty good field position. And in fact the drive got off to a decent start but we had a penalty on 3rd and 6 when we had converted for a 1st down and ended up not converting on 3rd and 11. Our punter then booms a punt into the endzone so the Falcons got it on the 20 instead of it being again inside the 10.

So that part didn't work out. But hindsight is always 20/20. Punting on 4th and 1 in that situation and knowing our team was exactly what most coaches would do. And its definitely what I would have done in the same situation. And lets keep it real here, the Falcons ended up throwing an interception and we ended u scoring a touchdown to go up 10. It still worked out and I doubt anybody would be second guessing the call now had we not given up a touchdown on the subsequent kickoff.

- Speaking of that kickoff. I know that Mo Stovall has taken responsibility and that's admirable, but he should have been far from a lone in owning up to that play. Hell Stovall missed the tackle and at least got up and ran his ass off to try to get the return man from behind. Let's talk about the other guys responsible.

Elbert Mack, Myron Lewis, Sammie Stroughter, Vince Anderson and Adam Heyward ALSO all had opportunities to tackle Eric Weems, the Falcons' return man. Although in fairness Stroughter was blatantly blocked in the back WHILE HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE THE TACKLE!!! There is no excuse for the officials missing that call, it was egregious and definitely effected the outcome of the play and the game.

I will say though that the media shouldn't have just taken Stovall's word for it and stopped looking for who was at fault because there was a LOT of blame to go around.

- The injuries to Jeff Faine and Aqib Talib were of course huge. I will say though that E.J. Biggers stepped up big time to fill in for Talib against Roddy White. He played like a starter and there wasn't much of a drop off at all. Myron Lewis however, who was pressed into Biggers' role, played like...well a rookie. He had some good plays but everyone will probably focus on the game winning touchdown he gave up to Michael Jenkins. I'll point out though that the kid was in really good position and I really think had he stretched out his close arm which was his right arm to knock down the ball instead of his right he probably would have gotten a PBU. That's not to say whether the Falcons would have scored or not, but it just shows how something that small technique wise can be a huge thing during the game.

Faine going down however kind of exposed a quirk of the Bucs' decision to keep Derek Hardeman, a tackle, up for the game instead of the Brandon Carter, a guard, whom they had just brought up off the practice squad to take Davin Joseph's roster spot after he went on IR. Now I don't pretend to know what kind of week of practice Carter had last week, but I do know that with Trueblood up the Bucs didn't really need another tackle active. At least not on paper.

Now I'm not trying to knock Hardeman because I thought he came in and held his own, but you could tell that the offensive line was missing something with all the shuffling. Maybe ultimately Hardeman will be a decent guard, but it just makes me wonder if Carter would have been the better backup option on the interior on Sunday.

- The Bucs have not one but the top two steals of the draft this year in my opinion. Mike Williams is obviously supremely talented but Legarrette Blount going over 100 yards was huge on Sunday. I really believe his running was the main reason the game was so close to begin with. If these young guys we have that are performing can stay healthy the foundation has been set for many years to come.

- I really wish the 3-3-5 would die a spectacularly gruesome death. Check the comments section on that post also for my answer on how successful it was, or rather wasn't on Sunday against the Falcons.

- Josh Freeman was pretty bad on Sunday, but at the same time he made several outstanding plays both with his arms and his legs. But the interceptions including the one that was overturned, just appeared to be cases where he stared down the receiver and tipped his hand. In fact it appeared that the Falcons were sitting hard on all of the Bucs' short routes which made it curious to me that Freeman didn't take the shots downfield against them like he did against the Ravens the week earlier. I hope he didn't lose some of his aggressiveness. What he has to do is find that happy medium where he hits the open guy to keep the sticks moving but once he has an opportunity down the field he takes it and makes the opposing defense pay. But that last interception was picked practically before it left his hand. He gave himself no chance of success throwing at Grimes who was in tight coverage when staring down Mike Williams whom its apparent he favors a lot.

- The defense fell apart on the drive where the the Falcons scored the game winning touchdown, but not in the way some probably think. Yes they gave up the 3rd and 20 which should have been a gimmie, but they also committed two very costly penalties to keep the drive alive. On 3rd and 1 Ronde gets called on a PI on a pass that I think was probably uncatchable by Tony Gonzales. And in reality I think it looked worse than what it was because Gonzales fell down after stepping on Geno Hayes who had fallen down covering someone else. That was another spot where we could have gotten off the field. And then of course the horse collar by Quincy Black on 2nd and 8 from our 31. With a horse collar you can't grab a guy by the back of the shoulder pads BUT if you let go and don't take them down by the back of the shoulder pads its not a penalty. Black on the other hand didn't just grab Michael Turner by the back of the shoulder pads, he grabbed him with one hand and then grabbed him with the other to make it painfully obvious. And the tragedy of it all was at that point Turner was already headed out of bounds, Barrett Ruud was right there to help out on the tackle, and it was going to bring up an 3rd and 8. Instead it turned into 1st and 10 at our 16 and well...we all know the rest.

- Arellious Benn had a fantastic run after the catch on a simple smoke route to set up the Bucs just shy of the goalline in the fourth quarter. To be honest I can't understand why he doesn't get more of those opportunities when corners are 7 to 10 yards off him pre snap. I'm not talking about a WR screen which tends to bring defenders over with the blockers. I'm talking about Freeman getting under center, raising up and throwing it to Benn and letting him work to make the corner miss in a one on one situation. It's what I thought was missing from the game plan against the Ravens and I thought the Bucs could have used it more against the Falcons as well. I'd definitely try to use it more going forward if I were them.

- Speaking of plays I'd use on offense, remember some weeks back when I drew up the Saints' running plays? Well diagram number 7 is a damn monster. With the variation of sending both tightends out to the flat at the snap it makes it hard as hell for a defense to stop that play because of the angles and the rules most defenders have to follow. If I were the Bucs I would run that play 4 or 5 times a day if not more. I can tell you this much, damn near every opponent they have faced this year have run some variation of it and they have all found some degree of success too. Hell what's good for the goose is good for the gander and that's one way to get Blount up into the secondary with a full head of steam on a consistent basis.

Well that's all for this week. See you in the comments section.

One Stop Shopping

Ok so I'm a little under the weather today so obviously no Bull Rush post. So I have made an executive decision to just write everything I'm going to write about the Bucs vs Ravens game in one post almost in a stream of consciousness style and then put the individual D Line break down at the end. I expect it will be longish and I expect some folks may not like it. And I expect I don't care all that much at this point but I'll still do my best.

I think its best if I go by offense/defense and then the breakdowns so guess what, that's what I'm going to do.

Offense

-After the game I had an interesting back and forth with one of the Bucs fans who follow me and has been a loyal reader of my blog since last year. His contention was that Greg Olsen's offensive game plan was lacking and that it played a major part in the loss.

I didn't agree with him and in fact I thought it was one of Olsen's better game plans of the season. Understand that I'm not really an Olsen fan and I have called him out previously on this very same blog, so me giving him any props isn't what you would call normal. But watching the game live I thought he committed to running the ball and he called down hill runs which our O Line is much better at blocking. I also thought he dialed up some good play action passes that they just didn't end up converting. It was my belief right after the game that it was the execution that was lacking, not the game plan.

Turns out others evidently also were questioning Olsen's playcalling judging by local sports talk radio and questions lobbed at Coach Morris by the papers. Obviously this was something worth looking into more closely.

So I watch the game again and...

I haven't changed my mind AT ALL. In fact if anything I'm even more convinced now that the game plan was sound. But I also realize that if people watched the game on TV the announcers kept harping on the game plan and offering up the opinion that the Bucs should have gone to a no huddle or a "sugar huddle" (what ever the eff that means) to change the tempo of the game.

Well first let me address the no huddle deal. It's true the Bucs could have gone to a no huddle offense and I can respect people who have that opinion. But here are the facts about that. Fact number one is that the Falcons who were most effective at it DID IT AT HOME. Obviously its going to be easier to run a no huddle offense when you in a dome and your fans aren't screaming at the top of their lungs to disrupt your communication. Fact number two is that the Bucs started going no huddle with 7:43 left in the game. They had an opportunity for a touchdown with 6:19 remaining when Michael Spurlock dropped the touchdown. If they score with that much time left would anybody be saying they should have started the no huddle sooner? Fact number three is that the drive preceding the one that started with 7:43 left in the game started with 14:15 left in the game. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Bucs didn't think it would be wise to go no huddle for the whole fourth quarter. And fact number four is that the Ravens are a team that is built around defense. If you think that running a no huddle is some kind of magical cure to beating them or that they can't still dial up blitzes against a no huddle you are out of your mind. Going no huddle earlier may have helped but it also could have gotten Josh Freeman killed, especially if the offensive linemen had bad communication.

Now that we got that out of the way let me also talk about Freeman's performance. I know Coach Morris and Freeman himself said he was "off". But I don't know if fans or even some media knows what they meant by that. I would guess that some would take it to mean his accuracy was "off" and in a few circumstances it in fact was. But after watching the game three times what was really off about Freeman was his reads.

Understand that Freeman was getting pressured most of the day so he wasn't always able to go through all of his progressions downfield. But there were times when I felt like presnap he should have had a good idea of who would be open but either didn't hit them or scrambled at a time when the rush didn't really call for it. Of course its easy for me to say that from my couch and I know its different when you are in that pocket and a bunch of 300 pound guys are trying to rip your head off, but I can only go by what I see on the tape.

And this goes back to the argument about the game plan. People see Freeman take a shot down the field on 3rd and 2 and they figure "why in the hell is the Olsen calling that play?!". Not realizing that there were other routes being run, and many times other guys who were open for a first down but Freeman just chose to go for the deep ball.

Now I like Freeman a lot. I think the maturity he has shown this year has been amazing. I also believe he is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league already. But I want to go through some plays during the game, not to throw him under the bus at all, but to illustrate to people who may not know what other options there were available to him.

-10:10 in the first quarter, 3rd and 3. Freeman feels some pressure so he rolls right and throws deep to Mike Williams but it goes incomplete. Nothing wrong with taking a shot early in the game but he over threw Williams who was indeed open. At the same time Michael Spurlock is running a shallow crossing route from his left and he is open for a first down. Don't know if he would catch it but he is open. Whether it was the roll or the read Freeman chose not to throw it to him though.

-6:44, first quarter, 1st and 10. Freeman takes another shot downfield to Arrelious Benn but again over throws the receiver. At the same time Ryan Purvis was wide open in the flat as the Ravens did not adjust when he motioned out.

-2:58, first quarter, 1st and 10. Its a play action pass but damn near every offensive lineman gets beat and once again Freeman has to roll to his right. He ends up throwing the ball away which I have NO problem with. But at the same time John Gilmore slipped out into a route and he was open for a nice little dump off.

-8:56, second quarter, 1st and 10. The left corner for the Ravens was giving the wide receivers a lot of cushion all day. On this play he was at least 7 or 8 yards off. Benn runs about a 7 yard stop route and is wide open. But instead Freeman throws a swing pass to Cadillac Williams which nets about 2 yards. Now this is a play where I believe good quarterbacks see that cushion and automatically hit the WR and let them work. Its definitely what the Ravens did to the Bucs when they played off coverage. But again maybe that wasn't the read.

-6:18, second quarter, 2nd and 7. This was an opportunity for a touchdown. Williams and Benn lined up on the same side with Benn in the slot. Benn ran a skinny post and Freeman tried to hit him in the seam but he couldn't come down with it. However Benn attracted the underneath coverage and the safety while Williams was running his own skinny post. Williams ended up inside the corner and WIDE open. I honestly don't know how he doesn't score there if the ball is thrown to him.

-2:15, second quarter, 2nd and 13. The Ravens blitz and Mo Stovall runs a hot route at about five yards and he's wide open because the corner has once again given a lot of cushion. Freeman however throws to the other side to Williams who is bracketed by underneath and over the top coverage. Thankfully he saw it and made sure it wasn't an interception by throwing it low and outside. But Stovall was good for at least 8-10 yards.

-10:51, third quarter, 3rd and 2. This was the one time all game when I thought Freeman ran when he didn't actually have to. The Ravens ran a pass rush game against the right side of the Bucs' offensive line but it appeared they had it picked up. But for whatever reason Freeman decided to roll to his right again and he tried to hit Caddy in the flat but couldn't. Now it may have been that the play was designed to go to Caddy to begin with because they had both WRs on the right side run crossing routes and then he snuck through the line to go to the right flats. Maybe it was their way of getting him open in space. I don't know.

What I do know is that Ray Lewis ended up picking up Caddy which I'm sure made Freeman nervous about throwing to him and at the same time Sammie Stroughter was open for a first down running the shallow crosser the other way.

-7:04, third quarter, 2nd and 6. Once again the left corner is in off coverage. This time its Williams that runs about a 5-6 yard stop and is wide open. But Freeman decides to try Stroughter in the slot on a skinny post. In fairness Stroughter was open but the pass was a bit off. Still Williams probably gets a first down and then some with his ability to run after the catch.

-2:30, third quarter, 3rd and 2. Bucs line up in a trips bunch formation and it appears that Stroughter is open at the sticks after they all scatter. But Freeman once again feels the pressure and rolls right and almost throws an interception trying to flip it to Caddy.

-12:16, fourth quarter, 3rd and 2. Freeman takes another shot downfield to Spurlock. And Spurlock is once again open on a go route but the ball is just a bit over thrown. At the same time Stroughter gets inside the safety who is lined up on him in the slot man to man and he is absolutely open for the first down.

Now this is the ultimate in Monday Morning Quarterbacking and I understand that. I don't mean to say that Freeman was wrong in all of these situations or even in any of them. The point is that while he may have taken shots down the field that doesn't mean Olsen wasn't calling plays where guys were open for the first down. You never want to take away a quarterback's aggressiveness as long as he isn't throwing into coverage. But the fact remains that just because a bomb was thrown it doesn't mean that was the only route being run.

I personally thought we ran the ball better than expected against the Ravens. We didn't get a ton of yards but LeGarrette Blount and Caddy made their presence felt several times. One thing that killed some drives was penalties though. For whatever reason Kellen Winslow jumped several times and when he wasn't getting penalties he was getting abused by the Ravens defense when he tried to block in the running game. He had a couple of nice catches including a touchdown but overall I thought he had a pretty bad game.

For the offensive line to be as patchwork as it is I thought they performed at a decent level. I thought Donald Penn was outstanding most of the day both run and pass blocking. I thought James Lee held his own at right tackle as did Jeremy Zuttah who was pressed into service at right guard. Ted Larsen did get over powered a bit by Haloti Ngata but hell who doesn't? The offensive line wasn't great but I thought they played winning football for the most part.

Defense

I don't really know what to say about the defense. On the one hand they held the Ravens to 17 points and they had an outstanding interception by Aqib Talib and they also came home with 4 sacks including 3 by the defensive line.

On the other hand they blitzed something like 25 times and many times those blitzes were ineffective. There was one situation where Stylez G. White went to drop and ran right into Ronde Barber who was trying to blitz. And of course there was the blitz and the end where somehow Tim Crowder ended up one on one in space with Ray Rice with the game on the line and the defense needing a stop which ended up with Rice getting a first down. Not only did the Bucs go back to using the 3-3-5 extensively, they even went to a 2-4-5 with only two defensive lineman in the game several times. Now I can't say it wasn't somewhat effective but it just drives me crazy seeing Gerald McCoy getting two sacks rushing from an undertackle position but then getting limited reps there because of all these other formations they are sticking him in. But it is what it is at this point.

On another note Barrett Ruud is a guy whom I have defended from what I feel like are baseless knocks against him. But at the end of the game, again when the defense needed a stop, he inexplicably was not in his gap on a one back trap and the result was Rice cutting back where he should have been for a first down. He had a decent game otherwise but you can't be out of position like that when the game is on the line.

I have watched the play where the Ravens tight end Todd Heap catches the 65 yard touchdown and in my mind there is only one explanation. Everyone in the secondary appears to be playing cover 2. Everyone that is but Sabby Piscitelli. He rolled up in the box and then kind of stood flat footed at the snap while Heap ran right by him. I don't know how he ended up that out of position but with both corners rolled up and with Sean Jones on the opposite hash at cover 2 depth its hard to see how the call was anything but cover 2.

No matter what it was an embarrassing play on a day when the defense didn't play bad at all otherwise.

The pass interference on Myron Lewis was a horseshit call. But at the same time I think Coach Morris losing his cool about it might have had a negative effect. We have all heard by now about the verbal altercation between Talib and a ref after the game over the call. I can't help but wonder if Talib felt he was taking his cues from his head coach. Now I love Coach Morris' enthusiasm and see nothing wrong with it, but there are times when adversity hits and in my opinion the head coach has to stay calm so the rest of the team will follow suit. Just my two cents.

Again, it WAS a horseshit call though.

On a positive note the Bucs held the Ravens to less than 100 yards rushing. So there's that.

Now to the individual defensive line breakdowns.

Tim Crowder: I thought Crowder played well with a sack and 3 other tackles. He had to drop so many times he probably felt like a db by the time the game was over. One thing I did notice is that when the Bucs were going to blitz with their four defensive line rush package in with Crowder, White, McCoy and Michael Bennett in they put Crowder at end instead of defensive tackle. That's a tip off that other teams may end up being able to pick up on. Not a good thing.

Gerald McCoy: McCoy had the first multiple sack game of his young career and both rushes were outstanding. On the first sack he beat a double team by the offensive tackle and guard for the sack. On the second he bullrushed and then came off the block inside for the sack. I honestly don't think they could have blocked him one on one all day but again unfortunately he didn't get all that many opportunities to rush from a 3 technique. Still there is no denying that the young man is coming on strong and I think folks who were calling him a bust early on will end up with quite a bit of egg on their faces. Oh he also contributed another tackle by my count and held up well against several double teams.

Roy Miller: Gotta say that Roy is back on track now. He isn't getting pushed around near as much as he was earlier in the season and by my count the guy had 4 tackles and 3 assists on the day. That's damned impressive for a nosetackle/part time 3 technique. He even had a good rush through a double team. The only negative on him for the day was the offsides penalty but I'll take that as a trade off for all that production.

Stylez G. White: Stylez had 2 tackles 2 pressures and 2 hits on the quarterback by my count. I thought he played well but he probably could have made a couple of inside moves to get more pressure on Joe Flacco. Another reason why it was frustrating to watch all the blitzing and 3-3-5s and 2-4-5s was that the starting offensive tackle Michael Oher got hurt and I thought White could have really taken advantage of his backup if he had some more one on one pass rush opportunities. I'll let it go one day I suppose lol.

Mike Bennett: Bennett had a really good physical tackle coming off a tight ends block a couple of good rushes and a hit on the quarterback. One thing I wish I could say to Bennett is to lay off the finesse stuff. He is a guy who I believe should be throwing fastballs just about every play. I'd love if he would just stick to one of three moves. A speed rip around the corner, a bull rush to a rip, or a quick inside move. The last couple of games he has started doing all these stutter and go moves which look good but aren't really all that successful. He should be putting tremendous stress on every right tackle he faces because most of the time they aren't all that athletic. I guess I just see so much of what that kid could be that its hard watching him not doing it every Sunday. But I have a feeling that his time is coming soon.

Al Woods: I had Woods down for 2 tackles. I thought he played extremely well in spot duty and held up well at the point. Its funny because the Ravens were supposed to out physical the Bucs but I personally didn't see it at all.

Alex Magee: I had Magee with an assisted tackle on a really good hustle play. He didn't have a whole lot of production but it appeared that he did his job while he was in there.

Well that's all for now. I'm still a little sick so I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing the rest of the week so hopefully this will tide you over. If not...oh well lol.

See you in the comments section!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good

- The Defense: Two turnovers, six sacks, hold the 10th leading rusher to less than 25 yards and a shut out on the road. That's what you call an ass whupping!

- LeGarrette Blount: 26 rushes for 82 yards and two more highlight reel runs. If he can just fix that fumbling problem he is going to be a monster.

- Cadillac Williams: He didn't start and only got 7 carries but he gained 51 yards and scored a touchdown. People who think Caddy is washed up are sadly mistaken.

- Donald Penn: He kept Josh Freeman clean for most of the day and he caught a touchdown. Nuff said!

The Bad

- Fake punt: Don't mind the idea but the execution was horrible. I don't think that play had a chance in Hell of working.

The Ugly

- Fox's closeups: I'll keep complaining about this until it changes. I don't want to see a closeup of the quarterback or whichever player the announcers feel like talking about before the snap. I DO want to see the whole got damn play from the wide angle well before the snap. I can't understand who Fox is trying to appeal to with that bullshit.

Extras

- About that run defense: Not sure what it was about their offense that gave it away but it appeared the Bucs had a really good handle on when they would be running or passing. And because of that you saw a LOT more 8 man fronts with one of the safeties either walked down in the box presnap or coming down from a cover 2 look at the snap. Cody Grim obviously had a big day with by my count 6 tackles and 2 assists but everyone seemed to be a lot better with their gap discipline from the front four to the back line. That's why there weren't many places for Frank Gore to find to run. Its also possible that the Bucs just didn't fear the 49ers downfield passing game and so they felt more comfortable with a rolled up safety on most early downs.

The only problem of course is that every team won't be as easy to read and so it may be hard to duplicate that success when they aren't able to play as much 8 man front. But hey, I'll take it especially in a win.

- Mike Williams' arrest: I made a decision not to blog about the arrest or the Bucs' decision to play Williams until after more information came out. I know personally that the area he was pulled over in is an area where you can get pulled over for DWB. I have been pulled over at least 3 times but thankfully never charged with anything. And it turns out that all of the most recent information is pointing to Williams not being over the legal limit for alcohol and not having been on any other illicit drugs. So it appears he was only guilty of speeding late at night, hardly worth a full blog post.

- James Lee/Jeremy Trueblood: When Trueblood went down I said that he might end up getting Wally Pipped. Well he was healthy and dressed for the game on Sunday but Lee started and played every snap. Now the Bucs' twitter feed says that they will decide who starts based on who practices better during the week. From my experience there aren't enough reps to go around at practice during a game week for one guy to beat another guy out unless one of them falls completely on their face. So who does a tie go to? Worth watching...

- Ted Larsen: Did Larsen get hurt during the game? I missed it if he did but I noticed that Jerremy Zuttah played the end of the first half and all of the second half. What's up with that?

- Don't forget to check out my Bull Rush post to find out how the Bucs got all of those sacks.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good

- Josh Freeman: So at this point aren't we talking Pro Bowl? Yes I'm dead serious. This kid has impressed me more than any young quarterback in a very very long time.

- Gerald McCoy: Very good day for the rookie and you can read all about it in my Bull Rush post.

- Offensive Line: They kept Free clean for most of the day and opened up some huge holes in the running game. If they can play consistently like that I'm sure the wins will keep coming.

- Sean Jones: I thought it was Jones' most productive day since joining the Bucs. I had him with 3 tackles, 5 assists, a fumble recovery and a pressure. It appears the Bucs are getting him more involved in the game plan and blitzing him more and he is taking advantage of it.

- Kellen Winslow: What a sick touchdown catch! And as usual K2 helped the team keep moving the chains on several key drives. For as much as Mike Williams and Arrelious Benn have been praised this year, and rightfully so, I don't know where this team would be without Winslow's clutch catches. He is still a matchup problem for any defense.

- Geno Hayes: A tackle for loss, 6 other tackles and 2 assists, and a pressure made for a very good day from Hayes. But the real reason he's on the list is because it appears from the TV copy that he was the person primarily responsible for stopping the Panthers on the two quarterback sneaks at the end of the game.

- Cadillac Williams; They way Caddy picked up blitzing linebackers against the Panthers he should be an honorary lineman. Of course linemen don't run for 65 yards and a touchdown on only 6 carries. There was also the big time first down he made on the screen pass. He may not be the starter for the rest of the year but he continues to play a vital role on the team doing the little things to help them win.

- Barrett Ruud: 6 tackles and 4 assists plus a sack and a pressure, Ruud showed up big time against the Panthers. And that's a team that normally has his number.

- John Gilmore: His numbers weren't earth shattering but for Gilmore catching 3 balls for 52 yards is HUGE. Maybe the only reason Jerramy Stevens lasted on the roster so long for the Bucs is that they didn't believe they had another receiving option after Kellen Winslow. Now Gilmore is showing that he has the total package and teams can't just assume the Bucs are running because he is in the game.

The Bad

- 3-3-5: I don't really get what the Bucs are supposed to be getting out of this alignment but statistically it appears to be pretty hit or miss. I really wish they would tear it out of the playbook and throw it in the incinerator but it appears I will just have to get used to seeing it.

- Penalties: I can deal with aggressive penalties like a holding penalty or a facemask penalty, something that just happens while a guy is trying to make a play. But on Sunday there were too many illegal procedure penalties from the offense. They are clicking on all cylinders now but penalties can end up derailing even the most potent of offenses. Hopefully that gets cleaned up quick as its generally only a lack of concentration that's the culprit.

- Special Teams returns: Michael Spurlock is really starting to make a name for himself as a receiver for the Bucs. But the guy looks like a catastrophy waiting to happen on kickoff return this year. I don't know who can replace him but he makes me nervous every time I see him. Not only were the returns unproductive on Sunday, there was also a turnover due to the ball hitting one of the Bucs blockers. I really blame Spurlock for that because he wasn't forcefully telling guys to get away from the ball when he saw it would fall short.

Can't have that.

The Ugly

- Fox videography: I damn near pulled my hair out having to watch the replay with these clowns doing close ups on different players, mostly the quarterback, and then missing the wide shot of the play starting. Its enough to give you vertigo trying to figure out what is going on after they flash from a close up on Jimmy Clausen to a running play already in progress. I ask again, who in the HELL thinks that's a good way to shoot the game???

Extras

-After what I thought was a pretty disappointing game against the Falcons, James Lee bounced back well against the Panthers. He was really impressive and thing you have noticed over the last three games is that the running game has picked up and the pressure after Freeman has cooled off. I don't know how much longer Lee will be allowed to start for Trueblood but I really don't see a need to switch back.

- Another player Bucs fans should be voting in to the Pro Bowl is kicker Connor Barth. Every weekend a team loses a game they should win because of their kicker missing a chip shot. Barth is money and I don't know of a kicker in the NFC that I would take over him right now.

- Al Woods appears to be fitting in very well so far to our defensive line. You can read about my positive first impressions of him over on my Bull Rush post.

- I thought Adam Heyward and Dekoda Watson filled in well for Quincy Black. Neither guy had a monster game per se but neither were a liability either as far as I could tell.

- I know players don't normally lose their position due to injury but I would think the Bucs are at least considering continuing to let Tim Crowder start or giving Michael Bennett a shot. Make no mistake, the left end position was better yesterday with Moore out. The question at this point is if the Bucs are willing to admit it.

- Even though I put the offensive line in the good category I do have to point out that if there is one offensive lineman who has been getting beaten this year pretty regularly its Davin Joseph. He gave up a sack on Sunday and it wasn't pretty at all. But for most of the day he was ok. It's just kind of odd to me that even though he has a couple of plays a game, every game, where he gets abused badly that nobody in the local media is saying anything about it. I mean hell I like Davin and I think he has been and hopefully will continue to be an important part of the team. But there is no doubt in my mind that he hasn't looked like the same guy this year. Whether that's because of injury or something else, it is what it is.

- I can't be the only one that's really curious as to why Elbert Mack continues to be active while Myron Lewis is deactivated. I mean is he THAT much better than Lewis on special teams? Jeeeeeeeeez

- One of my pet peeves last year about the defense was that in short yardage and goalline situations they used a five man line with a guy over the center rather than a six man line with the A and B gaps filled. This preseason however the Bucs showed that they had gone back to a six man line and to me it was a major reason why they didn't give up that touchdown right at the end of the game. At that point it likely wouldn't have mattered anyway with so little time on the clock but still a goal line stand on the one inch line for two plays is damned impressive.

Alright, that's it for this week. See ya in the comments!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Normally I would go right into the categories of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly but I wanted to start the post off this week with somewhat of a reality check. We have all heard about how young the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are compared to the rest of the NFL but sometimes that measurement can be deceiving. It could be that you have a team with veteran starters but a bunch of rookies and young guys as back ups to skew the average. Coming out of the preseason we pretty much knew for sure that the Bucs would have two rookie starters in Gerald McCoy at undertackle, and Mike Williams at receiver which in and of itself could make a coach nervous. But lets talk about the starters in the game on Sunday. In addition to McCoy, you had rookie Cody Grimm starting for the third time after Pro Bowl caliber free safety Tanard Jackson was suspended for the year. In addition you had E.J. Biggers, a second year player who didn't play a down last year, starting as the nickle back. They also had Kyle Moore another second year player starting at left end and second year player Roy Miller starting at nose tackle.

On the other side of the ball in addition to Mike Williams they had Arrelious Benn start for the first time opposite him at the other wide receiver spot. The slot receiver position was manned by second year player Sammie Stroughter. The Bucs also started rookies Ted Larsen at left guard and Erik Lorig at fullback. And of course while rookie running back LeGarrette Blount wasn't listed as the starter, he got the majority of the carries on Sunday as well. And even though he is playing far beyond his years so far we can't forget that Josh Freeman is still a second year player as well.

Even our punter is a rookie.

And that's not even talking about our backups.

Add that up and 12 out of the starting 22 players on offense and defense have less than a full two years in the NFL. And remember that two of those guys weren't even on our team until after the preseason ended.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a BIG deal.

The fact that we are 4-2 right now says a lot not only about front office the past two years but also the coaching. Don't get me wrong, I have and will continue to be critical of some of the coaching decisions made in the first 6 games. After all there are always areas of improvement. But you HAVE to give credit where credit is due in this situation. Look around the NFL and you would be hard pressed to find another team starting that many guys with less than two years experience having success let alone only having two losses. Now the two losses were definitely ugly, there is no doubt about that. But the four wins were pretty awesome when you factor that in.

It remains to be seen how successful the Bucs will be with their remaining schedule but so far I would have to say they are out performing most people's expectations heading into the season.

Now on to my observations.

The Good

- Josh Freeman: You just can't say enough good things about the guy. He continues to be clutch in the fourth quarter of close games and he never seems to lose his confidence no matter what the conditions during the course of a game. He threw a couple of balls that were almost picked off but you didn't see him shy away from sticking the ball into tight spaces in big moments. His numbers didn't jump off the page this game but one thing did, this guy just knows how to win. No interceptions and some huge runs to pick up first downs win the protection broke down. Its pretty apparent at this point that Freeman is the franchise quarterback that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been looking for for a very long time.

- Ronde Barber: Ronde does so many things for the Bucs that its easy to over look him at times when he isn't getting picks. But he literally lined up as a linebacker several times in nickle on Sunday and he ended up with 7 tackles and 5 assists by my count. He also had a pressure coming in on Rams quarterback Sam Bradford on a blitz. Even as the elder statesman of the Bucs, Ronde continues to go out there and make plays all over the field every Sunday. And he was a big reason why we won the game.

- LeGarrette Blount: Blount had a very impressive debut as the featured running back for the Bucs. The fact that he gained 72 yards on just 11 carries is impressive, but even doubly so when you factor in the long runs he had that were called back due to penalties. And he even had a pretty good blitz pickup.

Now realistically the Rams were pretty basic on defense and the offensive line opened up huge holes that we hadn't seen in previous games so we can't assume that Blount will have the same kind of success the rest of the way. But if he can. If he can go out there and give us 70 or 80 or even 100+ yards the rest of the way our chances of winning will go up significantly.

- Stylez G. White: Coming off a Saints game where his improved pass rush was overlooked by the demoralizing lopsided loss, White continued to show improvement against the Rams. You can check out my critique of Stylez and all the other D Linemen in my Bull Rush column.

- Cadillac Williams: I know some fans are ready to discard Caddy in favor of Blount and it does look like Blount is going to be the man carrying the load for the foreseeable future. But its important to note Caddy's contribution to the win against the Rams. It wasn't just that he caught the game winning touchdown, but also he was the guy who made several catches right before half time that helped us move the ball down the field and get in position for a field goal which cut the lead to 17-6 at intermission. Because the game was decided on a single point his contributions on that drive are magnified. He ended up with 8 catches and I would say that's pretty damned good for a guy that most people said couldn't catch just a few years ago. He also had a key run for a first down on 3rd and 3 on the game winning touchdown drive to keep the drive alive.

I don't know what his role will be going forward but we aren't a better team with out him.

- Mike Williams: Williams continue to make the case for being the steal of the draft. With his 5 catches for 82 yards on Sunday he now has 28 catches for 365 yards and 3 touchdowns for the season so far. The Bucs aren't even half way through their schedule and he has almost as many catches and yards as our leading receiver last year. The play that he made on the catch at the end of the game moving the ball to just shy of the endzone showed off his impressive combination of speed, quickness and strength. He has seemed to have picked up a nasty fumbling habit which needs to get fixed ASAP but aside from that he has been everything the Bucs could have asked for and then some.

- Kellen Winslow: K2 had one of the biggest plays of the game with his catch for a conversion on 4th and 3 on the game winning drive. I know other tight ends get a lot more hype than Winslow but I can't think of another guy I would want on my team if we HAVE to have a first down.

- James Lee: I don't know how severe Jeremy Trueblood's injury was on Sunday but he might want to familiarize himself with the story of Wally Pipp. I have been shouting out Lee since the preseason because he is the perfect combination of athletic and mean in my opinion. He doesn't just try to block guys, he tries to dump them on their head! You saw it early on in the game when he came in to play tight end for a few plays. And you saw it after he came in for Trueblood at the end of the game. Lee did have that stupid penalty for jumping on the pile and that is simply unacceptable. But he moves people in the run game and he also shut Chris Long down on pass rush after he had given Trueblood fits for most of the game.

Now I don't really believe that the Bucs would replace Trueblood at the moment if he is ready to play. BUT if he can't go this week against Arizona and Lee ends up starting and turning in another strong performance the move could end up being a permanent one. Trueblood did have a stupid penalty of his on after all which negated a long run by Blount. And the truth of the matter is I'm not so sure that Lee isn't the better player hands down. Its a situation that is worth watching over the next few weeks. One thing is for sure, the Bucs now have to have some confidence in Lee that they may not have previously had.

- Connor Barth: After a rough day against the Saints Barth bounced back to go 4-4 on field goals including a 53 yarder as well as making all his extra points. Its easy to overlook how important he has been to the Bucs success but just look around the NFL at teams that lose because of poor kicking every week. Better yet just think back to last year before we had Barth and the Redskins game where with better kicking we had a legitimate chance to win. If he doesn't have any more blips like he had against the Saints Barth may well get a Pro Bowl nod at the end of the year or at least serious consideration.

The Bad

- Aqib Talib: Its not that Talib gave up a lot of passes to the guy he was covering and he didn't give up a bomb against the Rams like he did in previous weeks. But down at the goal line he had two separate opportunities for interceptions and dropped both of them. By no means were either one of them an easy play but for a guy with his talents he has to come up with at least one of them. Especially because the Rams went on to score touchdowns on both drives. To be considered one of the best cornerbacks in the game you have to make the most of every opportunity that comes your way. That is how Talib has to be judged at this point and he didn't get the job done in that regard on Sunday.

- Sean Jones: If you would have told me before the game that our starting Strong Safety would only have 1 tackle and 1 assist against the Rams and running back Steven Jackson I would have told you that you were nuts. But that's exactly what happened. I can't say that it all falls on Jones though because one thing that I've noticed about our defense is that they rarely line up our safties in the box when we want to have an 8 man front. Instead the safties usually roll into the box on the snap. I understand the need to disguise the coverages at times but I'm not a fan of doing it as much as the Bucs do it because I think it makes it harder for the safties to get their correct run fits on the run. But even having said that I just don't understand how Jones could be that invisible against a running back that went for over 100 yards on us.

Some how, some way that has to change right away.

- Michael Bennett: I have been a Bennett fan and I still am but he had a very forgettable game on Sunday. Again you can check out my Bull Rush column for the details but to put it short and sweet he needs to pick it up if he expects to continue getting playing time.

The Ugly

- Penalties: 12 penalties for 92 yards is unacceptable and losing football. The Bucs were able to over come them against the Rams but just barely. That can't happen against a better team or they will get embarrassed. As I pointed out they have a lot of young starters on the team but at this point there are no excuses. It hasn't been a problem for most of the year and hopefully this was just a one off.

- Fox's game production: I continue to be frustrated with whomever at Fox it is that believes fans want to see close ups of the quarterback or any other player before the snap at the expense of seeing the whole field before the play starts. You have to shift your focus from a helmet to all of this action happening at the same time and try to find the ball all in a blink of an eye. Its friggin horrible and I don't know of anybody who likes it. You don't see the same thing on CBS or NBC so I have to believe its a Fox production issue. I really wish they would cut it out though because it makes it a helluva lot harder to evaluate what happened on any given play.

In addition, can we get some better announcers please??? I almost want to poke myself in the ears listening to the games unless its the radio broadcast because the commentary is so boring AND wrong. For instance the announcers for our game at one point kept harping that we were "in an 8 man front" and therefore the Rams shouldn't have been able to run the ball on us. Well we WEREN'T in an 8 man front any of those times. We were either in nickle and Ronde was out of the box on the slot receiver, OR we had base in but there wasn't a safety rolled down.

I mean they are showing REPLAYS and STILL calling it an 8 man front when it obviously wasn't. And the effect is some fans who don't know any better take them at their word and start grumbling about teams running the ball against our 8 man fronts and it gets echoed all over the place until it becomes conventional wisdom when from the get go it was bullshit. And really and truly this isn't just a Fox issue, I have beef with a BUNCH of football announcers. But Fox most consistently brings the stupid in my opinion.


Extras

Between the Bull Rush column and then one I don't actually have any extras this week lol. I'll look for your remarks in the comments section.

Have a great one.

Who Done It???

Normally the day after a game I do my Tampa Bay defensive line critique "Bull Rush" post and my "The Good The Bad And The Ugly" post about the performance of the Buccaneers team as a whole. I decided not to do that today in light of how ugly things got yesterday against the Saints. Instead I wanted to highlight a few of the running plays on defense so as to place blame where necessary. Plenty of people will be blaming different people for the Saints gaining more than 200 yards on the ground against the Bucs defense yesterday but I thought maybe people would want to know exactly what happened.

Here are 8 plays that gained a total of 134 yards on the ground. You can look at the diagrams and follow along by the numbers. You can also go back and watch the game online at www.nfl.com for the next couple of days to see the plays for yourself.

1. First and 10, 11:49 in the 1st quarter and the first time the Saints touch the ball starting at their own 6 yard line. They come out in a one back set with a tight end and wide receiver to each side of the formation. The run a zone cutback that bounces outside for 18 yards. The Saints doubled the left end, Tim Crowder, with a tight end and the right tackle. The nose tackle, Roy Miller, is lined up in a G alignment just inside the right guard and the center and guard double him up to the Mike linebacker Barrett Ruud. The undertackle, Gerald McCoy, is double teamed by the left guard and left tackle up to the Sam Linebacker, Quincy Black. The tight end to his side tries to cut Stylez G. White off from the C gap between the tight end and the left tackle. The wide receiver to the defense's right blocks Ronde Barber.

Everyone fits up pretty well into their gaps but Barber gets a little too heavy into the wide receiver and isn't able to come off and make the tackle on the running back. Because he is the contain element of the defense, once the running back bounces it outside of him there is no one else to make the tackle until the Safety gets there. If Ronde keeps leverage and is able to either make the tackle or turn the running back inside to his help, the play probably doesn't gain much of anything. Instead the run gets the Saints off to a good start on the day.

Another note on the play is Roy Miller got pushed around and that would be a recurring theme all day.

2. First and 10, 8:27 in the 2nd quarter from the Saints' 24 yardline. The Saints come out in the same formation which they used quite a bit all game. This time they sealed the left end, Michael Bennett with the tight end, and they cracked on the Strong Safety, Sean Jones with the wide receiver on the defense's left side. When the wide receiver crack blocks the corner on that side is supposed to replace the Strong Safety's fit to the outside. Instead E.J. Biggers continued following the wide receiver and there was no one to turn the ball back inside. The Saints running back bounced it outside and gained 33 yards before he was taken down.

3. Second and 6, 7:05 in the 2nd quarter at the Bucs' 39 yard line. The Saints came out with one receiver to the defense's left and two to the defense's right with two backs in the backfield. The fullback was offset to the right. This was essentially an ISO running play with the fullback leading up on Ruud. The center and guard double teamed Miller up to Black and there was a lane between the fullback and the center. Jones had an opportunity to make the play but missed the tackle. The Saints gained 8 yards on that play.

4. First and 10, 6:33 in the 2nd quarter at the Bucs' 31 yard line. The Saints go back to a one back set with a tight end and wide receiver on each side. This time the Bucs used a line stunt where McCoy rips into the A gap from the B gap and Miller rips from the A gap to the B gap. The tight end on White's side gets inside of him and cuts him off from the C gap. The Left Tackle goes up to seal Black inside. The Saints running back starts to the defense's left and then cut's back to the C gap where White is supposed to be. Even though White isn't there, Jones has an opportunity to make a play on the running back but he loses sight of him and over runs the play. The result is the play earns the Saints another 16 yards.

5. First and 10, 12:10 in the 3rd quarter at the Bucs' 46 yard line. Same formation again with the one back set and a tight end and wide receiver on each side. The Bucs are in an under front this time with Black walked up on the line to the defense's right side. The Saints run the zone that way and once again Miller gets pushed around by the guard and center. McCoy gets a slip block with the guard and right tackle and the left end gets a cut off block by the tight end to that side. The truth is everyone is in pretty good shape on this play as far as being in their gap, but the Will linebacker, Geno Hayes, decided to try to run through his B gap to make the play. Instead the right guard cut him and the Saints' running back cut back into the hole he was supposed to be in. Instead of little to no gain, the runner ended up with 9 yards.

6. Third and 4, 3:07 in the 3rd quarter from the Bucs' 27. The Saints came out with a trips bunch set close to the formation with one running back and one wide receiver on the opposite side. The Bucs were in nickel personnel. It appears that because it was 3rd down Ruud and Black expected pass and didn't read the run right away. The tight end in the bunch formation closest to the right tackle came across the formation to kick out White which he did. The left tackle was able to get up to Black and seal him inside. That created a lane for the running back to run through for 16 more yards.

7. First and 10, 5:35 in the 4th quarter from the Bucs' 45 yard line. The Saints came out with two tightends and two running backs with one wide receiver. Both tightends lined up to the defense's left and the wide receiver lined up to the opposite side of the formation. This was actually a play that the Saints had success against the Bucs with last year. So much so that the Carolina Panthers copied the play and ran it against the Bucs last year after the fact. But its still a good play design and its hard to defend.

The tightend furthest from the ball and off the line of scrimmage takes off for the flat giving the impression that it is a passing play and pulling the corner away from the formation. The tightend lined up on the ball avoids the defensive end inside to get up on the linebacker but to the defensive end it looks like a pass route. For that reason the defensive end's first instinct is to get up the field and pass rush. But the fullback takes a step to the defense's right and then runs right behind the offensive line almost hiding till the last moment to kick out the defensive end. And that's exactly what happened to Bennett. He has to get under that block and either make the play or make it bounce outside. Ryan Sims was in at undertackle and he is also partially at fault because they initially double teamed him with the right tackle and guard but the right tackle eventually came off to block Ruud. Sims however had been knocked out of his gap at that point and couldn't get back in it in time to make a play on the running back. This play netted the Saints another 7 yards.

8. Second and 3, 4:52 in the 4th quarter at the Bucs' 38 yard line. The Saints keep the same personnel but this time they start off with a tight end on each side and the wide receiver to the defense's right. Before the snap the tightend on the defense's right side steps off the line and motions all the way across the formation. Once the ball is snapped he goes out to block the corner. The stationary tight end comes off and base blocks Bennett. Sims gets double teamed by the right tackle and guard. The fullback comes to kick out the Free Safety, Cody Grimm. The left guard pulls to block Ruud. Hayes' fit is inside the fullback's block and he actually gets there. But the running back ran inside off the fullback's block and for whatever reason Hayes wasn't able to make the tackle on him. That one was all on Geno and I'm sure he knows it. Unfortunately because he didn't make the play in his gap and because Jones and Black also weren't able to bring the runner down, the Saints picked up another 27 yards at the end of the game.

So what do we make of all this? Well first of all aside from Roy Miller getting tossed around on several plays which is unacceptable, we mostly gave up the big yardage because guys weren't on the details or missed tackles rather than having been physically manhandled. Second of all there are some problems that we are having that are recurring. Our defensive ends aren't getting underneath kick out blocks like they should and that's all about technique and using your eyes. That's something that can definitely be fixed but you have to wonder why it hasn't been to this point. Thirdly you will notice that aside from the one line stunt, these were plays where the Bucs just lined up in front of the Saints like it was drawn up on a chalkboard. I don't know that movement or blitzes would have solved all of our problems but I have to wonder when we will at least TRY to start helping ourselves on early downs with a few zone blitzes to give offenses a different look to block.

It was a terrible day for our defense, make no mistake about it, but in watching the replay online I didn't get the sense that we were physically dominated anywhere but our nosetackle position. The Bucs tried to play a lot of G with Miller which is something I thought might be useful, but with his outside hand down and outside foot back I think he was going to have a hard day regardless. Still you can't make any excuses, he HAS to play better. Otherwise I'm pretty sure that it won't be long before Price is out there with the starters. After all if we are going to suck on defense against the run we might as well suck with our rookie 2nd round pick in there getting some good experience.

I have some other random thoughts about the game in general so here goes.

- I thought Josh Freeman was off just a little all game. He made some nice throws but at times his accuracy wasn't what I was used to seeing this year. I did love it that he went after the Saints player who went after his knee. That's the kind of fight you have to have to lead a team.

- The 3-3-5 may be a useful tool but we are using it too damn much. And Coach Morris can't keep using the excuse that Quincy Black is a good rusher because he isn't. As I have said time and again he is a good BLITZER not a good rusher and there is a helluva difference. I went back and looked at my notes and aside from that sack against Carolina, Black has only had two pressures by my count. And those were on plays where he ran a pass rush game with Gerald McCoy. I don't believe that I have seen him win a single one on one pass rush against an offensive lineman this year. And I doubt I WILL see him win one because he for as strong and as fast as he is, he doesn't have any moves. Every time he is out there as a rush end that is a play where a true pass rushing defensive end is on the bench, our two rookie defensive tackles aren't pass rushing from their normal alignments, and there is zero chance to run a pass rush game unless its on his side.

We are cutting off all of that potential pressure just to get Black on the field. Hey, I have a novel idea. Why not just sub him in for Ruud or Hayes? If he is really THAT indispensable then why not allow him to play what he is best at? Hell you can blitz him from those positions too! You can even call Bark and have a FIVE man rush!

But here's what you CAN'T do. You can't say you want more pressure on the quarterback if you continue to refuse to use four defensive lineman for a four man rush. You can't say you want more pressure when you refuse to call overload blitzes to either side. You can't complain about not getting pressure when you aren't allowing guys to pass rush from their more natural positions.

You can't, you simply CAN NOT. Oh you can tell a few beat writers here in Tampa but its not going to fly with me. I SEE what's happening on the field and what isn't. McCoy didn't have a great day but he did make one helluva move when he was rushing from his undertackle spot and got a pressure. I can only wonder how many more times that happens if he gets more opportunities to rush from that position. Or hell maybe he gets to run a true TEX game with a defensive end instead of being a crash test dummy trying to free everything up for Black. Or maybe he can run a TOM game inside with Price where they create pressure up the middle on the quarterback who now can't step up and gets sacked by our defensive ends coming around the horn.

Or.....maybe we keep running that bullshit 3-3-5 and then complaining after the games about how much time the quarterback had.

- I am still waiting to determine what our bread and butter running plays are. One thing that makes watching a team run up and down the field against the Bucs defense even more frustrating is then watching our offense and never or rarely seeing them use similar blocking schemes. I know it isn't actually that way, but I swear at times it looks like every running play we run during a game only gets run once. A zone, then a split belly, then a sweep, then an iso, then a counter (if we're lucky). Never any rhyme or reason to it. Almost like we are just pulling running plays out of a hat.

We hardly ever double team defensive linemen up to the second level, we hardly ever cut block the backside defensive tackle or defensive end, we hardly ever just punish people in our running game. And that's the major problem we are having right now. People can say its Caddy all the want to. I want y'all to watch the replay of the game and tell me where you see any holes that he's missing. Better yet I want you to tell me what he's supposed to do when he keeps seeing the defense in the backfield play after play. Yeah maybe he could get another yard or two a game, but I can tell you this much unless we sign King Kong, nobody we put back there is going to put up big numbers on the ground until we fix our schemes and play calling.

Period.

- I'm really sad to hear about Kareem Huggins tearing his ACL and being out for the rest of the year. The kids worked his way up from the bottom and was finally about to get his chance to shine. Hopefully he takes his rehab seriously and can come back next year in time to give it another shot. Also we are really thin at running back now with Earnest Graham hurting his hamstring. Along with the fact that Huggins was our only true "scat" back I would say we are in the market for a guy with some speed. It will be interesting to see who the Bucs bring in, if anybody.

- Connor Barth...WTF MANNNNNNN?!

- Not sure what Aqib Talib's deal was yesterday but his effort both times he got bombed on left a lot to be desired. I believe Talib is a Pro Bowl player but he has to PROVE it every week.

Welp that's all for now, As always if you have questions just leave them in the comments section.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good:

- Redemption: It was so impressive to see at least four guys who had bad plays yesterday come back and make HUGE plays to helps us win. You have Aqib Talib who gave up the early bomb to TO. All he does is come back and pick off Palmer at the end of the game to give he offense and opportunity to score the game tying touchdown. You have Sabby Piscitelli who got trucked a few times in the run game and gave up a touchdown to Jermaine Gresham. All he did was pick off the ball AND return it with mere seconds left down to give our offense an opportunity to score the game winning field goal. You have Michael Spurlock who fumbled a kickoff return. All he did was catch a highlight reel pass on he sideline with mere seconds left to move the team down closer to make the game winning field goal. And you had Mike Williams who fumbled the ball deep in Cincinnati territory come back and make just an unbelievable touchdown catch to tie the game.

These weren't the only guys who atoned for bad plays I'm sure but they are the first one to come to my mind. Most of last year there's a good chance players would have gone in the tank after making some of those bad plays. This year there is a definite change in attitude and its great to see.

- Connor Barth: Don't want to jinx the guy but its great to have a kicker that is so consistent and accurate, especially in tight games like yesterday.

- Cody Grim: I obviously had a lot of questions about the kid but he came up HUGE yesterday. By my tally he had 10 tackles and 2 assists to go along with that pick six that got us on the scoreboard early. It seems like they are playing him a lot more in the box like a strong safety than a free safety thus all the tackles, but either way the guy had a monster game. If he likes playing closer to the line of scrimmage then by all means keep him there because you can't beat that kind of production. I actually didn't have him down for a bad play or a missed tackle.

- Brian Price and Michael Bennett's pass rush: Check out my Bull Rush column to get the goods on this one. Both guys justified their playing time yesterday.

- Kellen Winslow: Sometimes its easy to over look Winslow's contributions because he is just so consistent. Its almost like you get used to it. But yesterday he made some outstanding catches all day and especially on third down. I'm not sure what our offense would be without him.

- Earnest Graham: You simply can not say enough good things about EG. The guy excels on special teams, blocks guys 30 pounds heavier than him or more, barely gets any opportunities with the ball in his hands after being our leading rusher just a couple of years back. And yet he does it all without complaint. It was great to see him get that big 60+ yard run yesterday and also the 1 yard touchdown. The NFL needs more guys with his kind of attitude.

- Josh Freeman: He did have that one questionable throw that was picked off but other than that Freeman with stood a Bengals team that blitzed him like there was no tomorrow. I'm sure after all those hits he took he's sore today but he still found away to win the game for us both with the touchdown throw to Williams and with the laser he threw to Spurlock on the sidelines. He even ran for a first down earlier in the game in the face of a 7 man blitz. Impressive stuff especially on the road.

The Bad:

- Roy Miller: Again just go read my Bull Rush post.

- Davin Joseph: Not sure what's going on with Joseph but he is having major problems blocking movement on both run and pass. He's definitely not looking like the guy we're used to seeing that was Pro Bowl character. I wonder if its lingering effects from the leg injury he sustained in preseason. Whatever it is the team needs him to play better if we want to get our running game going.

The Ugly:

- Chris Bryan: If this guy keeps his job it will be a miracle or he has pictures he is blackmailing people with. The Bucs partially blocked one of the Kevin Huber's, the Bengal's punter, punts and he still ended up with a better average by damn near 20 than Bryan on the exact same number of kicks. The 15 yard punt? Yeah that should be the nail in the coffin. Sorry bruh, but no country for punters with low averages.

Extras:

- On first glance it seemed like the offensive line was terrible against the blitz again, and don't get me wrong its not like they had a banner day, but the truth is the Bengals kept sending one more than we had in to block. They were sending six or seven guys on a regular basis and as much as anything they were overloading one side (something I said we should be doing on defense more). What happens is that generally when you keep a back in to block the center slides to the opposite side to where he lines up. So that leaves the guard, tackle, and back to block that side. Well if a defense blitzes four what do you do? Generally you try to block the inside guys and let the end man on the line go because it should in theory take them longer to get there. But it doesn't always work that way.

Now we could have gone more max protect leaving a tight end in but that means Winslow likely wouldn't be out in as many routes and he is too big of a part of our passing game. We also could take those opportunities to try to hit homeruns which is what we started to do in the second half. The one thing we didn't do that I felt like we should have done is run more running back screens. We attempted one in the first half but it was a bad throw and Caddy dropped it. I kept thinking we would go back to it since they blitzed so much but we never did.

- It was good to see Arrelious Benn out there making plays. He made two nice catches for 25 yards but he also made a couple of tackles on special teams. I think fans will learn to love this guy the more he gets opportunities.

- I thought Ronde Barber didn't have his best game. He got caught peeking in the backfield one time and his guy caught a long pass on a seam route. He also dropped a pick in the first half which he seemingly never does. He still ended up with 6 tackles so he didn't have a bad game per se. He just didn't seem to be all over the field like normal.

- I don't know if anybody else noticed but I don't think I saw Jerramy Stevens in for a single snap of offense. And further more we didn't miss him. John Gilmore did a good job of blocking and even had a catch which is rare for him. I think as Erik Lorig comes on as a blocker this will become the norm.

- Coach Morris said Sean Jones just had back spasms and should be ok. Its worth noting that it appeared we played the first play with 10 men though I can be sure because of the camera angle. During the game several Bucs beat writers said Jones was hurt on the first play but now I wonder if they meant on the kickoff. Either way we got away with one there as we were about to play second down with only 10 as well until we called a timeout as Sabby was running on the field late.

- Not that it means he isn't going to be a good runner but I wonder if folks will now temper their enthusiasm about LeGarrette Blount taking over for Caddy after his 4 carries for 3 yards. He didn't have that many opportunities but everyone needs to stop crowning guys the next big thing after one decent outing. Just my opinion.

- I do worry about how Earnest Graham will hold up if he is the full time lead blocker. With Chris Pressley inactive yesterday EG took just about all of those reps and although he did a good job I just have to wonder how much pounding his body could take.

- Question: Does anybody know what our bread and butter running play is? I certainly don't. And that's not a good thing. Every offense should have one running play that they rep so much they can run it in their sleep and get a couple of yards. But with our offense our running schemes seem so disjointed and unconnected. I'll tell you this much, we ran a Ram Belly/Split Belly yesterday and Caddy got good yardage out of it. Its a play that I think is perfect for him but we hardly ever call it and after we had success on the one play yesterday I don't think we ran it again all game. Its hard to run the ball when you don't have that bread and butter play you can always count on.

- Jeremy Zuttah subbed in decently for Jeff Faine yesterday but he still isn't able to get movement on a nosetackle unless he has help from a guard on a double team. It looks like he is going to have to start there for a couple of weeks and we had better stay away from plays where he has to single block or its going to be trouble.

- I thought Donald Penn came back and played well after a bad game against the Steelers. He had a highlight block on a defensive back on a wide receiver screen play. In the immortal words of a former Bucs tight ends coach "Break out the syrup!"