Bucs Secondary Marching Toward Record Book
December 14th, 2012It’s amazing that the Bucs are allowing only five fewer yards per game than in 2011. It’s a stat that seems almost impossible given how spectacular the current Bucs are against the run and how the Raheem regime made second rate running backs look like Hall of Famers, from Ryan Torain to Maurice Morris, Jason Snelling and beyond.
But what’s even more sobering is that the Bucs are on pace to have the statistically worst secondary in NFL history, so reports ESPN NFC South blogger Pat Yasinskas.
A record they don’t want: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are allowing 311.6 passing yards per game. At that pace, they would give up 4,986 passing yards by the end of the season, which would be an NFL record. The current record was set last season when the Green Bay Packers gave up 4,796 yards.
Joe’s going to play math geek here and re-arrange the ESPN data. Bucs opponents over the next three games only need an average of 249 passing yards per game to give the Bucs the dubious honor of the most porous secondary in league history.
Ouch!
This mark shouldn’t stain Ronde Barber’s Hall of Fame credentials, but it sure could offer ammunition to a contrary Hall voter when Barber’s name comes before the voting committee one day.
Also, Joe has to believe Bucs’ cornerback play must at least improve soon, otherwise there’s going to be a warm seat under defensive backs coach Ron Cooper come January.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
C’mon Joe….do you seriously mean to imply this could damage Ronde’s chances at the HOF?? HOF is established on individual stats and those are just fine this year and every year. He has his Super Bowl ring.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
I’d actually like to see them dump Cooper and bring on Barber as the DB coach.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I disagree about Ron Cooper. He’s doing the best with what he has to work with. Sometimes undrafted FA’s and 7th round picks play like undrafted FA’s and 7th round picks – it happens.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Bobby, potentially, if Barber is under head-to-head consideration in the Hall of Fame voting room with another cornerback or DB, it is something that could come up. This year, for example, John Lynch and Steve Atwater (so far) are under consideration for the final group. Negatives do come up in debate. Remember, only five inductees get in per year.
This shouldn’t “damage” Barber’s overall chances, but any negative can hurt the speed with which you get in.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
According to Profootball Focus Barber is an absolute beast back there in coverage. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the Corners or Mark Barron (who is horrible in coverage). That is probably why Ronde was noticeably frustrated with the way things were after last week’s loss. He is doing his job it just doesn’t help when there are 2 – 4 people out and 1 – 3 are in affect wide open to varying degrees. For instance here is future franchise quarterback Nick Foles line against the Bengals
16 of 33 for 182 YDS 1 TD and 1 INT (at home)
against BUCS:
32 of 51 for 381 YDS 2 TD and 0 INT (in Tampa)
We got relatively the same amount of pressure (6 Sacks for Tampa, 6 sacks for Cincy).
What is the difference OUR SECONDARY SUCKS (other than Ronde). What should happen ?? I am no expert by any means but I think heads will roll in the off-season we will get lots of new blood in the secondary either FA or Draft Picks perhaps a new D Coordinator and D Backs Coach perhaps both. The future hopefully looks bright but one can never tell.
After all isn’t the world ending in a few weeks ??
GO BUCS !!!
December 14th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
The Truth is our cornerback talent wise suck. Some play calling is also not helping the either. If the talent isn’t there then it’s on the player and GM. I’m diffinitely sure that’s our focus this off season. They are the real reason for our record being what it is. We had the Giants on the rope and Manning had a field day. The Defending Champ was going to lose to the Bucs. Most games this season was agianst great to above average qb. Meaning why run when you can pass and get big gains in the process.
This isn’t on Cooper. You can make Crap into a statue, but it still disgustion and not beautiful. I’m hoping we get 3 more corner this off season. Hopefully Tyrann mathieu fall late in the 3rd or 4th to the Bucs. Or if Barber returns, get a safety and return barber at cornerback. These safety blitz and single high is getting us killed it the passing game.
The corner that we shouuld keep is Gaitor, Wright, Biggers, and Johnson. Johnson need to improve his foot work. He look a little unsure not confident in what he see, that make him look stiff and clumsy with his footwork. Also I don’t get why he don’t bump the Wr when he line up directly in the wrs face. Gaitor IMO look like he can be one of our top cover guy. Biggers is a decent rolew player.
December 14th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Bobby,
I was going to post the same thing, but Joe has a point… only 5 get in every year and when you get down to the nuts and bolts, ALL is considered when voting. There are quite a few players that belong in the HOF, but its a numbers game and they are having to wait to get their name called. Will Rhonde get in? ABSOLUTELY in IMHO! It is just a matter of when.
December 14th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
The Saints might push The Bucs to that record this week! The only hope is that Nicholas Bradford and Tears of McCown( if they sit Matt Ryan) don’t light them up the final 2 weeks. What a dubiuos record it would be!
December 14th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Still a bit mystified why Barber was not switched back to CB 4 or 5 games ago. i realize he may not be able to cover like he could 10 years ago, but it would still be way better than the stiffs that are trying to do it
December 14th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
@lightning buc – The Bucs played 3 LBs only 8 times last week. Barber was playing nickelback most of the game.
December 14th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Not a great reflection on our pass rush either.
They did fix up the run defense though.
Gonna have to score 38 to beast Drew and the boys Sunday, which is doable as their defense is butt awful too.
December 14th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
A couple things; one, the Bucs are breaking this record and it’s possible that it’s broken before the last game of the season. The secondary is that bad. Having said that, if the record is broken or not, I think this will only strengthen Ronde’s HOF case. For one, he’s playing at a near Pro Bowl pace his first year removed from CB. Two, while Ronde has had some bad plays here and there, he’s easily (and I mean it’s not even close) the best player in the secondary, he still makes impact play, forces turnovers and is playing incredibly well for a player of his age, having changed positions and paired with the worst secondary in NFL history. For goodness sake, Ronde is likely to make the Pro Bowl (he’s the leader in the FS spot in the fan vote) and this is with the worst secondary in the history of the NFL. Imagine having another young inexperienced player in Ronde’s spot all season, we might be talking about a secondary on pace to give up 6,000 yards for the season and that’s no joke.
Ronde will be fine. I hope to have him back, at least for one more season, and if he returns, I hope he has two new starting CB’s joining him on defense. As for Mark Barron; he’s a rookie, he’s making mistakes. From what I remember, John Lynch wasn’t setting the world on fire his rookie year, so I’ll be patient while this season concludes and hope for a massive improvement in 2013. We need CB’s, though, as we have a team full of nickel CB’s and no clear cut starter, let alone impact player, and I’m including Eric Wright in this conversation, who aside from that beautiful pick six against Eli Manning, hasn’t played up to the level of his contract.
December 14th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
I can’t imagine it hurts ronde. Lots of guys had bad endings who got in hall of fame, I still remember the sad sight of seeing Unitas play for the chargers, and Namath for the rams.
And ronde is still at a very high level, it’s the rest of the secondary responsible for the debacle.
But how many will make the Hof from that defense? Brooks and Sapp surely, then who is next? Lynch maybe, but ronde is gonna be a few years removed from that greatness, having lived through the Rah travesty. Man deserves it but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
December 14th, 2012 at 7:17 pm
The only seat that should be hot and getting hotter is our great GM. With the the ridiculous run D we had last year and now our passing D setting records where is the Dominik? He’s front and ctr when national media members are handing out positive stuff but when the chips are done I don’t hear a peep. He created this crap and not only made it worse by trading Talib too soon he didn’t find players that could improve our secondary. With these guys how hard could that be? One thing a D tries to do is make a team 1 dimensional. We do that every game and still can’t figure out how to slow down the pass. That’s pretty sad.
December 14th, 2012 at 7:24 pm
This won’t be uncommon in the coming years. We keep noting how this is turning into 7 on 7 flag football and becoming a “passing” league, even if we break this record it won’t stand too long.
On another note, we may be playing with inexperienced corners now, but I remember seeing Aqib Talib and Eric Wright getting lit up the first half of the season, no?
December 15th, 2012 at 9:48 am
We were actually getting turnovers with Talib and Wright, though. Now we’re not getting the turnovers and losing. Check out the pass defense our DC created in new york in his last job. Terrible!
December 15th, 2012 at 10:38 am
So our secondary will be the worst in NFL history? Wow! It’s to bad nobody could see this coming, and started screaming about how horrible our corners were going to be. It’s too bad no one pointed out that you’d have to be an absolute fool to count on Aqib! First , because you can’t count on him. Second- because he was a lousy CB anyway.
Oh wait!! I did! I screamed it all preseason! And argued with all the ” Talib doesn’t suck” clueless guys.
And the Bucs answer was to waaaay over pay Wright. Who also is undependable. And also is a lousy CB!
Well, they doomed us to failure with those moves. The good news is that everything else is looking good. We draft two young stud CBs- all is well
December 15th, 2012 at 10:43 am
Jsmalls- lol! No. When Talib and wright started- we were the worst ranked Pass defense in the league. Talib sucked. Always did. Wright is bad. Always has been
December 15th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Didn’t take you long to get back to form Captain!
December 15th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
I guess you were right Have, we aren’t the worst pass defense in history…. yet.
December 15th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Eric- lol! Nope, back to form!
December 15th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Cleaning up pass D, fortunately, is a lot easier than fixing run D. I am very optimistic that this can be straightened out in 2013.