An Outcoached Admission?
August 6th, 2015
The Buccaneers weren’t the worst team when it came to notching sacks last year. Tampa Bay was 21st in the league with 36.
However, the Bucs’ pass rush was anemic.
Lots of quarterbacks were extraordinarily comfortable and threw for tremendous percentages against the Bucs. Take Matthew Stafford of the Lions. He was a stunning 26-of-34 with three touchdowns and no picks. Stafford was sacked four times, but they were irrelevant in a game dominated by a balanced Detroit offense.
Evan Panthers backup Derek Anderson was extraordinarily comfortable, completing a whopping 66.2 percent of his passes in two full games against the Bucs.
Puking Andy Dalton? He completed better than 70 percent of his passes against Tampa Bay. Aaron Rodgers? Try 77.5 percent. Joe Flacco checked in at 75 percent. There were others.
Lovie Smith was asked about generating a pass rush the other day and delivered a somewhat odd answer for the head coach.
“Well, you evaluate what you do every year. We, Coach Frazier, our defensive staff did that of course, like we normally do. Again, how are we going to get more sacks first is the four-man rush. From that we can do an awful lot of things,” Lovie said. “Yes, and of course, I can’t really talk about what we are going to do, but trust me, we realize we didn’t get enough pressure last year and we’re going to do some things to make it better this year, whatever we need to do.”
That sure sounds like Lovie admitting he was outcoached last year when it comes to his pass rush. Lovie saying “we can do an awful lot of things” sounds like a guy who knows he didn’t do them in 2014.
The Josh McCown-Jeff Tedford nightmare was one thing, but what deeply troubled Joe last year was the Bucs’ inability to adjust defensively. Just the fact Anderson burned them twice — in nearly the same way — was inexcusable.
It’s a new year with some new bodies and a head coach and defensive coordinator intimately familiar with the personnel. No more excuses for the Bucs’ defense. It’s got to at least be average.
August 6th, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Good job keeping the pressure on opposing QBs down. WINSton was a necessity.
August 6th, 2015 at 12:10 pm
Wow, the head coach takes a year to make an adjustment??? This year will not turn out well,
I cannot wait to hear that Lovie is tanking for some DE before Oct. so “HIS” defense can finally work!!!!
And don’t be surprised if Frazier is the fall guy and Lovie takes over play calling for His Defense!!
August 6th, 2015 at 12:18 pm
Sounds to me like we are finally gonna start blitzing… Hopefully so
August 6th, 2015 at 12:22 pm
Joe’s, Lovie is saying you can do more when you can get pressure with a 4 man rush. We didn’t have a rush last year so he couldn’t what he wanted. It’s not that he didn’t, he couldn’t. The last line though, Lovie saying they will do whatever it takes this year, says to me that they didn’t do whatever it takes last year. That part is depressing.
August 6th, 2015 at 12:25 pm
Well the only thing to try and create pressure off a 4 man front is…. Stunts and twists… Rather then sticking to designed gap rushes. Those are things you wouldn’t stop whining about with Schiano.
August 6th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
Since it looks like he is the HC for this year until he is fired by the owners and they put Captain Kirk in charge, we may be in for a strange ride.
Lovie bllew the offense, the defense was not good and the special teams sucked.
What did he do good as a Head Coach Joe?
August 6th, 2015 at 12:36 pm
QB what he did good if you can call it that , was tank for winston
August 6th, 2015 at 12:47 pm
I think he alluded to blitzing David more this year a couple day ago. I’m sure they realized he’s to fast to not blitz.
August 6th, 2015 at 12:48 pm
These are the names that beat Lovie’s passive defense last year. Not exactly murders row is it!!!
1) Derek Anderson
2) Austin Davis ( who??)
3) Matt Ryan ( Blowout)
4) Drew Brees
5) Joe Flacco ( Blowout)
6) Teddy Bridgewater
7) Brian Hoyer
8) Matt Ryan
9) Jay Cutler
10) Andy Dalton
11) Matt Stafford (Blowout)
12) Derek Anderson
13) Aaron Rodgers (Blowout)
14) Drew Brees
August 6th, 2015 at 12:54 pm
@OB:
Looks to me that you summed it up pretty well!
tickrdr
August 6th, 2015 at 1:02 pm
Lovie sounded like he was blowing some invisible smoke like the invisible pressure push evidenced last year resulting in the high completion percentage numbers.
August 6th, 2015 at 1:42 pm
Lovie is a perfect example of the Peter Principle. Regardless of players and assistant coach’s abilities, the Bucs will never reach their potential while Lovie is the head coach.
August 6th, 2015 at 2:02 pm
You guys are ridiculous. As long as Lovie is the coach why don’t you go cheer for the Belicheats? He’s your kind of coach any way.
August 6th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
The only reason Green Bay blew us out was because our offense could only muster three points! That fourth and goal was damn impressive by our defense. When your offense goes three and out three and out turnover three and out, very few defenses would not tire down exponentialy each quarter.
We certainly need to establish a pass rush. That would help our defense, but with the circumstances surrounding our offense last year, it wouldn’t have helped much. You can bring up Andy Daltons compltion percentage and that alone makes it look bad. It doesent mention our defense only gave up 14 points. Our offense couldnt put up more than 14 points? Thats the maddening part. And we were in position to win a gritty, fist fight game thanks to our defense. And the whole 12 men on the field just ruined it. How do the players not know who supposed to be on the field for a field goal? I would think that falls on the special teams coach, and ultimately Lovie because he hired him! But despite little pressure and Dalton completing so many passes, our defense was still able keep that game more than winnable.
Or the Bears game. Our defense kept us in it for three quarters. But again, our offense could do little. After a fumble that put the Bears in great field posistion, our defense finally collapsed. They kept us in the game and just wore down. Two straight turnovers put Cutler in great field posistion. Again, our defense gave us a chance but our offense not only did nothing to help, but they gave Chicago hreat field posistion and lost it for us.
Against the Vikings, both defenses fought hard. Glennon was close to leading us to an overtime victory and somehow, ASJ fumbles! Another wasted defensive effort!
The defense needs some work, obviously they have flaws. But especially from November on, our defense gave us plenty of chances to win. But our offense wasnt having it! Sad circumstance but thats just the way it went down. With no one to replace Tedford, we were doomed from the start.
And btw, Lovie didnt literally mean football dosent start til November. But you guys already knew that, regardless of how many time you misrepresent the quote. And no, im not talking about Joe.
August 6th, 2015 at 2:15 pm
I’m not looking at last year anymore, I don’t believe in ( living in the past) 2014 is in the past and we can’t re-live it. But I am glad that Lovie and Leslie have found our weakness from last season and are ready to address them.But our pass rush wasn’t that bad after the bye, we got 26 sacks in our last 9 games and that is what we will feed off this season.Our weakness in our pass defense wasn’t the O-Line, it was the secondary( especially the safeties and linebackers) we was getting beat in the middle of the field. And that’s where the QB’S was killing us at, and we have address that problem, Mason Foster, Dashon Goldson,Mark Barron, Leonard Johnson, Isisah Frey are either gone or will be or benched.I’m excited for this season, I have zero doubt that we will win the NFC South this season. We have the talent, we have the coaches, we have the motivation, and we will get it done.
August 6th, 2015 at 2:16 pm
And we will not be scoring 17 points a game this season, you can bank on that.
August 6th, 2015 at 2:19 pm
I have an correction I meant our D-Line (not O-Line) wasn’t our problem for our poor pass defense.
August 6th, 2015 at 4:40 pm
The only thing I can forecast with any certainty is that we will play 16 games this season. That’s what makes watching them so much fun. If you are so certain of wins (or losses), why bother?