Ayers Revival Bodes Well
November 12th, 2017
Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Guilty!
Joe is guilty of writing off defensive end Robert Ayers as a 32 year old winding down a nice nine-year career that earned him a bundle of money. The former first-round pick of the Broncos looked sluggish and declining in the first half of this season, and he was battling multiple minor injuries.
It was a reasonable assessment, but Ayers came alive today and looked like he might just have more juice to squeeze out of his body.
Ayers officially recorded four quarterback hits on Josh McCown. He got a sack, but Joe is confident NFL scorekeepers will change the record on that this week to give the sack to Gerald McCoy.
Regardless, Ayers looked like a new man today, and he was fired up in the locker room.
Joe asked Ayers about his revival and Ayers gave Joe quite a stare (perhaps the word “revival” struck a nerve?), but Ayers broke that quickly and gave Joe a detailed answer about grinding and believing and loving the game of football.
Maybe, just maybe, the Bucs defense can recapture the magic it found seemingly out of thin air last season. A revived Ayers would go a long way toward making that happen.
November 12th, 2017 at 5:53 pm
Probably the same stare that he gave Kwan.
November 12th, 2017 at 5:54 pm
*Kwon
November 12th, 2017 at 5:56 pm
He looked a tad upset with kwon on the sidelines. Any info?
November 12th, 2017 at 5:58 pm
Not buying it. He’s been a noshow consistently.
Miami will attack us a lot differently. Let’s see how that goes.
November 12th, 2017 at 6:02 pm
I’d rather have a story about Kwon calling him out on effort theblast series
“Come get his ass beasted. Trying to come out here, some young killas out here,”-Kwon Alexander
November 12th, 2017 at 6:06 pm
Don’t know where it’s been, but Ayers played hard today
November 12th, 2017 at 6:26 pm
Most notable today with the pass rush was they were sending a lot of LBs in. Not always on a outright blitz but once the play started to develop. For the first time since the Pats game I saw a D that was really inspired. On the commercial breaks they were pumping each other up. They looked like did about game 10 last year. It was good to see.
November 12th, 2017 at 6:43 pm
Meanwhile, Adrian Clayborn has 6 sacks against the cowboys so far smh
November 12th, 2017 at 6:43 pm
adrian clayborn 5 sacks today
November 12th, 2017 at 6:46 pm
Meanwhile…Adrian Clayborn has 5 sacks against the Cowboys w/one of them being strip sack with fumble recovery. Man we can’t catch a break with our defensive front players. wth
November 12th, 2017 at 6:47 pm
On a side note, former Buc first rounder Adrian Clayborn, just got sack number 5 on the season to lead the NFL. Sure wish we had Bennett and Clayborn rushing the passer for the Bucs. Sad when we celebrate one sack and a few quarterback pressures because our defensive play is so below average. Getting to the quarterback is so important and the Bucs have go to successfully address this in the upcoming draft and offseason free agent market if possible. Go Bucs
November 12th, 2017 at 6:49 pm
Adrian Clayborn has 5 sacks
6 QB hits
Mark Barron has 4 tackles, INT
How bad do Dominik look
November 12th, 2017 at 6:50 pm
Adrian Clayborn has 5 sacks today
7 for the season
November 12th, 2017 at 6:59 pm
Clayborne always had a high motor for us.But he was a gholston ,he didn’t
quite finish when he got near the QB. Glad to see him having success.
November 12th, 2017 at 7:02 pm
Lakeland, therein lies the problem with the Bucs since Jon Gruden got fired. Look at all the players we’ve ‘lost’ (or dumped) since 2009 who are still playing at a reasonably high level today or at least were last year. Just a few we could’ve used:
LT Penn
C Zuttah
RB Blount
DE Bennett
DE Clayborn
OLB Barron (who we took instead of taking Luke Kuechly I might add)
CB Talib
MLB Foster
As a consequence, we ended up having to spend high draft selections to fill those slots. Wonder why we have no depth today.
November 12th, 2017 at 7:10 pm
Adrian Clayborn has 6 sacks, 7 QB hits, FF, FR
November 12th, 2017 at 7:12 pm
My bad, two forced fumbles, 6 sacks, 8 on the year. Full beast mode. Not good enough to play for the Bucs lol
November 12th, 2017 at 7:28 pm
AYERS is still a busy signing. Kwon was getting in his a$$ on the sidelines
November 12th, 2017 at 7:48 pm
Clayborn was playing against a backup. While it looked impressive let’s keep that game in perspective. I doubt he would have done that against Tyron Smith
November 12th, 2017 at 8:27 pm
@Defense Rules and whoever else is talking foolishness
Stop with this Clayborn garbage. Today was the first day in 7 years he actually looked like he deserved to be picked where he was. He had MORE than enough chances in Tampa gtfoh. How many of you were screaming for him to stay when they cut him?…dont worry, I’ll wait…nobody did, because he WAS NOT productive in Tampa, period. I’ll give you Bennett, Talib and maybe Penn , but Clayborn, Barron and the rest of who you named…Really? Mason Foster? So you’d take Foster over the LiTiRilla? Really? Stop they are average players at best, just because they have a nice game every now and again doesn’t mean they were bad cuts, hell they were first round picks, mustering up a good performance once in a while being shocking to the world let’s you know just how unproductive they were here.
November 12th, 2017 at 8:41 pm
Go bucs!
November 12th, 2017 at 11:34 pm
Clayborn had two years where he had 7.5 and 5 sacks,not too shabby.But he also had two years thathe barely played.
Now in todays game he had the advantage of playing against backup.Either way I’m happy for him.It was one heck of an effort.
November 13th, 2017 at 12:32 pm
lets not get to .am excited. we were playing the Jets. beat a real quality team then we can say our Defense did something special. Ayers had one..decent game. There are 16 games you know.