“They Can Bring It”
November 29th, 2010
It was said the Ravens defense would try to intimidate the Bucs and crush them in the trenches.
Clearly that was not the Bucs’ problem Sunday.
LeGarrette Blount only had 13 carries, but he and Bucs running game showed enough to draw heavy praise from the physical Ravens defense, per The Baltimore Sun.
“In the NFL, everybody has high-profile backs. They’re not the most high-profile backs, but those kids bring it,” [linebacker Jaret] Johnson said. “That kid [Blount], I was real impressed with how hard he ran. A big kid, physical guy. They can bring it. We always take it as a personal challenge. Especially last week, giving up all those yards, that was [baloney].”
Joe thought overall the offensive line was up to the task against the Ravens.
They blocked well enough versus the most physical unit they’ll see the rest of the season. Jeremy Zuttah stepped right in effectively for Davin Joseph. Ted Larsen made a huge hustle play to break up Josh Freeman’s ugly shovel pass that was nearly intercepted. Jeff Faine seemed like he got his legs back.
As Joe wrote yesterday, the gameplan and playcalling is what really let the team down.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Somebody should let Greg Olson know…
November 29th, 2010 at 10:19 am
It’s funny how everyone jumps on the Olsen bandwagon when we execute well and win, but then Freeman has a horrible day and nobody executes well and all the sudden the play calling sucks.
On a day when Freeman was running for his life immediatly after the snap and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn….how do you even know what plays were being called? They all got blown up and looked the same to me.
We lost due to piss poor pass protection and Freeman having a horrible day with no accuracy. Blaming Olsen for the play calling is weak sauce.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Field position dictated the outcome of that game you cant start from your five yard line every drive and win away games against good teams. with that said the defense held it’s own for all but three plays this team is getting better every game look at Mccoy 2 sacks
November 29th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Sorry Joe, I think you’re wrong here…the OL was getting beat regularly and it threw us off enough to create problems. Often Freeman was running for his life right off the snap. We battled hard though, I’ll give them that.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:35 am
@JDouble- exactly right.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Agreed JDouble.
Praising Larsen’s hustle for breaking up a potential interception on a horrible shuffle pass when the only reason for the pass was Freeman was running for his life from 3 or 4 Ravens that broke straight through the line… that’s a bit ridiculous. Sure, don’t give up on the play, even when you failed in your initial task of blocking… get back in and do something… I’ll give a minuscule amount of credit for that, but it doesn’t deserve praise.
We’re gonna hear about “Freeman had a bad day” but it’s not the norm, so he gets a break. We’ll hear about how the play calls should be different (when we don’t actually know what was called, with the pressure out there, looked like sand-lot football) and Olsen will get blamed. When plays are being made up as we go because of failed protection, that’s not the OCs fault. The line has to execute. They have to block.
If you wanna point to the two 3rd and short plays… look at how much pressure Freeman was under on both plays. I haven’t watched the game a second time yet, but I’ll be curious whether I can see if WRs broke off routes and came back or just ran downfield, because the only pass available seemed to be the bombs that were missed.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:57 am
@JDouble,
You’re asking why fans applaud the play calling after a 21-0 shutout and then criticize when the offense can’t get into the endzone until the end of the 4th quarter??
Seems about right to me.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:05 am
With the field position we had all day I would have expected to see Blount quite a bit more. That play in Raven’s territory early in the game was very disappointing to say the least. We were driving and there was no need to throw it deep on 3rd and 2. Get us in field goal range and then let it loose. Not scoring on that drive took away some much needed momentum.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:08 am
The quality of competition is a major component. The breakdowns seem to occur at the same time the bucs face a team with a winning record.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:09 am
JDouble:
As you correctly pointed out, Freeman was off all day. It happens. Pitchers some times don’t have their curveballs.
If you could see it and Joe could see it, why couldn’t Greg Olson see it and further, why continue to have him throw low-percentage passes when Freeman couldn’t hit high percentage passes?
Oh, and Freeman admitted they were calling for deep passes in his postgame comments. Yes, the play were there, but Freeman wasn’t going to hit them being so off target and as you point out, running for his life.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:09 am
HGO,
We, as fans, can only guess what the play call was. We can look at long off-target throws on third and short and assume it was the play that was called. Or, we can look at the situation on the field, the pressure in Freeman’s face, the time he has to release the ball, maybe think about what we’ve all heard about outside coverage on blitzes (man to man, no over the top help), remember what was said about the Ravens CBs all week and say… “Maybe it was Freeman’s decision on those plays to throw the deep route instead of the #1 read on that play.
I don’t know if it was poor play-calling by Olsen or if it was Freeman’s on-field decision based on what he was seeing to take the shot downfield. Maybe it was a combination of both. Maybe the shorter routes were covered and that was all he had (either that or take off and run with it). Both times I recall, the deep WR had an opening, but the ball was off target. So, Freeman could have run or thrown, and both times he chose throw.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Joe,
We’ve been hearing all week long about how Ngata is a beast, Suggs is a beast, Lewis is a beast, the run game will struggle to be consistent (which it was, Blount was often hit at the line and sometimes got a few yards out of it). We’ve also heard all week that the weakness of the Ravens is the CBs and the strength of our team is Freeman. It’s about as low a percentage chance of making that run for the couple yards as it is to have our “strength” take a shot at their “weakness”.
If it’s a 50/50 proposition either way, maybe they could have mixed it up more, but the odds aren’t any better.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Freeman was off against a good defense. You can’t really blame Olsen 100% on this loss. If the 2 third and short long passes were completed, everyone on this site would be praising Olsen. Also, the dropped passes in the end zone didn’t help us win the game either.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Despite Olson’s bizarre play calling, our young Bucs went to arguably one of the best teams in the AFC, and managed to go toe to toe with them.
I did not get the impression that the Bucs got overwhelmed, and I honestly do think that if given another shot, the Bucs could win against the Ravens.
In short, the Bucs are improving, even if they did lose this one.
November 29th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Cannon, I got the same impression against the Falcons a couple weeks ago. Nothing I’ve seen lately has me feeling like I did against the Steelers or Saints earlier in the season. The team is getting better and competing against good teams. They just need to get a win or two against these good teams to really get these guys believing.
November 29th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I agree with Cannon and BamBam.
Further, if it was REALLY that bad, HGO would be back to calling himself FGO!
November 29th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
As far as people criticising olson for having freeman throw deep balls when his accuracy was even bad on the short stuff on Sunday. Thats exactly the point. If you haven’t noticed that Freeman has better accuracy on the longball then he does on short touch passes then you haven’t been paying close enough attention. Even on his worst day he’s going to be good for a nice longball or two. The second deepball to Spurlock was right on the money.
November 29th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Really, some of the short stuff is probably biggest weakness in Josh’s game. His HB screen passes are ugly. His WR screen passes are ugly. I don’t know if I ever want to see him attempt a shovel pass again. Freeman’s is at his best launching rockets downfield. It might seem counterintuitive but Freeman is not the first QB to be that way. Sometimes these big rocket armed QB’s are just so strong that its hard for them to develop that more delicate touch for some of the short stuff.