Sloppy, Sloppy Backups
August 21st, 2021
Dropped shot at sticking?
Joe wanted to be depressed after the game got out of hand tonight with the Titans winning the second worthless preseason game of the summer 34-3.
Then Joe remembered that much of the horrid play came from guys who, at best, will rarely see the field in the regular season (aside from special teams).
If Kyle Trask is taking snaps in a game this fall that isn’t a blowup, the Bucs have significantly more problems than a lousy play here or there.
Jaelon Darden? He looked like practice squad material. He’s been regressing the past few days not stepping up.
What disappointed Joe so much is that guys who had a chance to secure a roster spot shat the bed. With O.J. Howard looking no better if not worse than he has in his first four underwhelming seasons (when is the last time this guy made a contested catch?), all Tanner Hudson had to do was hang onto the football tonight and he might make the team.
Instead, he might just send Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht to the film room to study tape of bubble tight ends on other teams who may get cut.
Outside of the great NWA wrestler of the 1960s and 1970s Pat O’Connor, Joe Tyron, Khalil Davis and Bradley Pinion, there was a whole lot of suck out there tonight. Eh, Ke’Shawn Vaughn had some nice moments too, but nothing really special.
The Bucs have a cutdown date Tuesday to whittle five guys off the roster (to reduce the roster to 80 players). Unfortunately tonight, a fair number more than five players stepped forward to the guillotine.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:08 pm
Totally agree. It looks to be that when the practice squad is formed most of the players would have been with other teams.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:09 pm
Tryon not “Tyron”… Yeah, bunch of guys just made the cuts that much easier. Would have liked to see Trask playin before Griffin.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:13 pm
Kyle is our franchise QB next season. Be very afraid
August 21st, 2021 at 11:13 pm
This game means nothing. Decisions are made from practice.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:14 pm
I wish they would stop trying to make scotty miller a short yardage receiver–stick to what works
August 21st, 2021 at 11:20 pm
This team is nothing without Brady.
Once he is gone we will be losers again.
But that doesn’t mean enjoy it while it is happening.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:23 pm
Remember this is like the 4th preseason game in pre 17 game years
They are hard to watch
Thought we had a little more depth
But just disappointed that it seemed no one cared. They got down and guys just gave up
Thats on arians
Camp cupcake
But team will be fine…well as long as brady doesnt go down
And when Trask doesnt step into throws its obvious his ball flight wobbles. Hope that changes.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:24 pm
I’d cut OJ before Hudson.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:31 pm
Personally, I more than agree with Joe. G-d forbid any one of our starters get injured. Not one of these guys (including O.J) played like they were even fully awake. I think it was the most boring, sloppy game I have ever seen from the Bucs and there have been some awful ones. My high school football team (Plant Panthers) could have easily beaten these backup players and I am completely freaked out that Arians was not livid.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:40 pm
Firethecannons
I’ve never seen Miller make a defender miss. I think they’re giving him a chance to show what he can do, but he’ll never be that guy.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:40 pm
Yeah. You gotta physically try to find the bright spots for tonight. But I will try anyway…….Tyler Johnson rebounded really nicely after a forgettable game last week. Blaine looked sharp as well. I think if we had to he could beat Carolina. Hamiliton was the best on defense that Joe didnt mention and Succop scored all our points.
As meaningless as preseason is I would lie to say a strong performance by the starters next week doesnt go a long way
GO BUCS!!!
August 21st, 2021 at 11:43 pm
The Bucs have no depth at WR good thing we got AB as our backup WR don’t get open
August 21st, 2021 at 11:44 pm
It’s games like these that remind me why I dislike the preseason tilts. Hudson might not be ready for prime time after all. He’ll fool you now and then…and end up soiling the sheets just when he appears to be legit.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:46 pm
We returned 22 starters this year. By my count 21 sat the bench. 1 played. Free beer to whoever can name the one starter.
August 21st, 2021 at 11:49 pm
I think Tommy retires after this season and Aaron Rodgers takes over. Trask stays as the developmental QB , Bridgewater will be the backup !
August 21st, 2021 at 11:50 pm
We need to keep our starters healthy. tyreek have hamstring injury, Clyde also injured
August 21st, 2021 at 11:50 pm
I said my opinion on the Open Mike thread. Two games in I don’t see many excellent backups. Tyron stood out. So did a couple defensive line and defensive backfield backups. Bucs look thin after starters. If we have more than a few injuries to starters the Super Bowl is doubtful. I do think Trask has potential. Arm strength looked decent. Probably needs two years to be ready. Our “stud” tight end had hands of stone again. Looks like Gronk and Brate are our only dependable guys at that position. Tanner makes some nice plays in preseason but hardly shows up in the regular season. If Gronk or Brate get hurt we have nobody else that looks ready for a starting role. If I was Arians I would be very worried about depth. Oh ya, and the kick return and kick coverage both stunk. Could have skipped the first two games and not missed much at all. We need a dam good first half with the starting players next week to clear the stench. Arians must be pi…. off. The wip comes out next week!
August 21st, 2021 at 11:52 pm
Bucs will become the pre-retirement team. Spend your last 2-3 years of stardom in the sunshine and not pay state taxes ! Then seque to the villages (STD capital of the country ).
August 21st, 2021 at 11:55 pm
Stinnie
August 21st, 2021 at 11:56 pm
We returned 22 starters this year. By my count 21 sat the bench. 1 played. Free beer to whoever can name the one starter.
Stinnie?
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:08 am
Cappa was one starter
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:30 am
Succop kicked a FG. He is a starter.
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:33 am
Stinnie started at left guard and Cappa started at his normal right guard spot.
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:35 am
tonight the scrubs said in the huddle “let’s do our best impression of garo yepremian, for an entire 4 quarters”
and they pulled it off
lol
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:37 am
next week is the dress rehearsal, all should hopefully be good…
coach was def not happy tonight
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:49 am
NO way in hell we should cut OJ. Guy is a freaky athlete. He’s still coming off injury, but yes, he does need to step up both the mental and physical aspects of the game. If that happens, he’s a perennial pro-bowler. Light came on for RoJo a couple years ago, and I’m hopeful the same happens for OJ.
The Bucs are clearly bad right now once you talk about depth. That’s why I really didn’t see Jason Licht being anointed The Savior after he was such a mixed bag all those years prior to Brady.
This team desperately needs to start think about life post-Brady.
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:53 am
Embarrassing. Protect TB and pray for no major injuries
August 22nd, 2021 at 1:01 am
Scotty Miller
August 22nd, 2021 at 1:35 am
I thought Nacho played a bit but I guess I am way too disappointed. To me, seeing one or two good plays doesn’t make up for all the bad ones. To me, Tryon, Darden, O.J.–they made too many mistakes, A few people BA mentioned made a few good plays. So what? There were not enough of them to even pique my interest, and to me, the whole game and everyone playing just sucked.
August 22nd, 2021 at 1:53 am
The starters when they have their limited play better look good or we might start worrying.
A Super Bowl champion returned all their starters. Hasn’t happened since the 70s. I wonder if the 2nd stringers are secure in their placement and the rest think they have no chance at making the cut?
Maybe the Titan’s as a team wanted to exact some revenge for the practice shuffles.
Maybe the players including the starters better realise as defending Super Bowl Champs we are the hunted until we get the mindset of being the hunter.
I do not want this team to rely on breaks like Dax not starting Week 1 of if he does it will be his 1st live snap since last year.
When will the coaches break out the bottles of STICKUM to put on the WRs hands?
August 22nd, 2021 at 2:29 am
Hudson caught the ball, had possein going to the ground after contact, a complete BS call. Calling him out for that, give me a break.
August 22nd, 2021 at 5:58 am
It’s a team game people. Some of these guys will do fine when they have the rest of the starters around them when they sub in.
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:28 am
Thank God we have good starters but you can see how much our second and third string players needs improvement especially when compared to say the Titans second and third string players. Trask look bad and like he did in last years Oklahoma playoff game without his #1 receivers that run routs with precision and will go up and get the ball. Tennessee’s a good team with a good offense and defense and this weeks practices with them and last nights game will give enough info to the coaching staff who to send packing. One more thing, hair guy on defense get it cut.
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:37 am
@Bbro. Apparently BA saw something different from hair guy(Stuard) . BA said he made the team last night in his post game interview.
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:40 am
BTW. It’s easy to win these games if your agenda is to win a preseason game. Slip some ones in against the 2s. Slip some 2s in against the 3s. Results in these games mean nothing.
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:48 am
IMO,OJ is in need of some tough love. Let him recover from his achilles injury, but much like ASJ before he crapped all over himself make him a blocking TE so he get back to basics. If he can’t catch the ball over the middle
or in contested situations, he is not dependable enough to start as a receiving tight end.
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:55 am
Trade OJ to the Jags they need to replace Tebow!
August 22nd, 2021 at 6:59 am
Keep complaining about OJ and replace him with Hudson, huh. I will first answer Joe’s question about the contested catch OJ made, was his last regular season game against the Chargers, it was a sideline catch. Tanner Hudson this preseason has caught the ball, but when going down, you have to secure it, in other words, take it out of the refs hands, that’s how you fix controversial calls. I thought the nickel, Hamilton played well, Khalil Davis and Tyron. Not too worried about the young guys, the team will be Dallas ready.
August 22nd, 2021 at 7:03 am
We were beat in the trenches…..they ran on us….we couldn’t run…..WRs didn’t get open…..Oline didn’t block…..
In defense of Trask….he was in a game where they knew he had to pass and he had players that will be cut to pass to.
Whoever the player is that lined up offsides will likely be cut just for that.
Our ST got romped…..
August 22nd, 2021 at 7:04 am
I don’t get the NFL network so i just watched the play by play on ESPN. I love analogies. I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been watching for 60 yrs and i’ve been a career fan of Brady. He never ceases to amaze me but i’m sure if they put him in the game, we still would have gotten our ass kicked. I had to turn it off at halftime. It turned into a comedy like Benny Hill. They reminded me of Forest Gump when he was running from the bullies and his braces came off. They need to beat Houston 150-3 next week or this game will be in their heads. I pray i’m wrong
August 22nd, 2021 at 7:36 am
OJ Howard. There is a difference between a football player and an athlete trying to play football. What’s Jeff Demps up to these days.
August 22nd, 2021 at 7:56 am
One thing I noticed…
Those were the worst snaps and blocking by #60 (I forgot his name) I have ever seen. Might of been two seconds in the air before it got to the QB. He’s also like the backup, backup, backup, backup C. Once again, defense missing tackles. That was ugly.
People getting their butt chewed out and won’t remain on the team much longer.
You see the backups run the other direction than JTryonK off the snap. Can’t wait to see him playing the same time as JPP.
August 22nd, 2021 at 8:21 am
Did you all see Cyril Grayson though? He balled out in the 4th
August 22nd, 2021 at 8:30 am
Dutchman.. that also happened on a picture with Lefty last week, which I mentioned it in a post. Seems we all have that one name that is a challenge for us to get right. I’m sure Joe Tryon will have some fun with that later. He might have Joe use his full last name. LOL.
August 22nd, 2021 at 8:57 am
The one thing we can all agree with about O.J. is, he should’ve been taken in the 3rd round. Licht as a whole has done well in the first round, but no way O.J. is a first round talent.
August 22nd, 2021 at 10:09 am
Painful. Brutal.
Remember the days when winning a PS game was a moral victory?
A couple of guys stood out: JTS, Davis, Taco, decent DB coverage, Johnson, some underwhelmed, like Darden & Vaughn.
Trask was meh-I would like to see him with the starters, though. He looks like he could have “it.” I hope he showed he has a solid arm, contrary to what casuals lamented after the draft.
Hard to look good behind future UPS drivers.
I had forgotten how much I hate PS football, an ugly necessity.
August 22nd, 2021 at 10:10 am
Stuard made the team last night? Huh?
August 22nd, 2021 at 10:10 am
I went to bed at halftime.
August 22nd, 2021 at 10:36 am
@T REX
All NFL teams are nothing without their starting QB, your point is mute.
August 22nd, 2021 at 11:22 am
Trask wasn’t that bad. It is tough being a QB when the receivers aren’t even trying to gain anything on their defender.
Trask threw a few balls into the ground rather than have them contested. When there was some space, nobody could catch the ball. Neither interception was really Trask’s fault.
He has enough to learn without people calling him out for the problems the receivers created.
August 22nd, 2021 at 11:41 am
JollyRoger. I agree with you 100% about Howard. He really sucks. IMO there were a few players that looked good enough to make the team. O’Connor, Davis, Grayson, Hudson, Stuard & Hamilton. I may have missed one or two.
August 22nd, 2021 at 11:45 am
Oh, I forgot. T. Johnson has made the team hands down no matter what Barber said. Darden will be lucky to make the PS.
August 22nd, 2021 at 11:55 am
A horrible outing.
The Bucs should send Howard and Trask, hand in hand, out the gate on Tuesday.
This would prevent wasting resources, on Players who dont have it.
Both seem like nice guys. Lots of us are. That doesn’t mean we can make linin the NFL.
Howard has never had the intensity an NFL PLAYER NEEDS. Cant coach that.
Every long pass Trask threw, floated embarassingly like a ballon in the breeze.
The interception to Hudson( that they didnt replay) was overthrow. More importantly- the there was a Db right in front of Hudson, like a centerfielder.
Light doesnt have to worry about a couple missed picks. He has done an Extrordinary job of building a SuperBowl champ team.
Cut our losses
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:01 pm
The missed tackles was not acceptable from NFL players.
Todd Bowles is a great Defensive Coordinator, but he aint teaching these guys how to tackle- and thats a pretty basic skill for an NFL player.
Brady is the Goat, Gabbert shows a talented arm
Griffen has sat too long. Hes gone bad. Trask has a noddle arm. Always has.
We need to look for a 3rd string QB.
I wonder what Garappalo is doing these days?
August 22nd, 2021 at 12:07 pm
Trask has played two preseason games. No reason whatsoever to pile on him yet.
Say what you will about Tanner Hudson, he’s getting open and catching balls. That bounced up ball that was returned for a TD was a freak play. Get over it.
Howard can’t get separation on his routes because he’s a stiff, and he can’t bring down contested balls because he has bad hands. So those two things don’t go well together. He was a stiff player before the achilles injury, and he had both of these issues before that, so don’t blame it on the injury.
It will be amazing how much better some of these guys will look if they have to get sprinkled in with starters at some point. It’s pretty hard in some positions on the field to stand out if everything around you is crashing to the ground.
August 22nd, 2021 at 2:28 pm
Kyle Trashk will beat out Griff for the 3rd spot but heaven forbid he sees the field. He needs to get more in shape, and maybe in five years with a lot of study and working out, he can be a mediocre backup. If he’s lucky he’ll be a modern day Norm Snead.
August 22nd, 2021 at 2:51 pm
They really need to stop televising preseason games. I’m not sure what it is about watching meaningless timed practices that makes fans think they are now scouting directors. Cut the rookie QB after 2 preseason games? Cut OJ Howard coming off an injury? No one knows how to tackle. No one knows how to coach. Just cut the whole team and start from scratch.
Stop watching preseason football!
August 22nd, 2021 at 3:03 pm
Kyle Trask is not given a real chance to develop because of BA relationship with Blain Gabbert. How in the world you can bash Trask with the players he’s been told to play with. The offense line he had I believe a high school line can do better than that. And the receivers he had will not even make the roster or any other roster in the NFL. I told yall BA has never develop a quarterback I still don’t understand why they call him a quarterback whisper. He’s messing up with Trask already and I don’t want to hear about Trask wasn’t a good pick . He didn’t turnover in college and plus he had better numbers than Travor Lawrence. No excuses!!
August 22nd, 2021 at 3:07 pm
It looked to me that several players should no longer be on the Bucs:
Ryan Griffin
OJ Howard
Tanner Hudson
Leverett, at Center anyway
Number 95
Stuard
KJ Britt
Were a few, IMHO
August 22nd, 2021 at 3:09 pm
95, Bedwetter
August 22nd, 2021 at 3:31 pm
@ kgh…you mean moot? My point is simple…we were losers before brady and will be after brady. So I am saying…enjoy because it is happening.
August 22nd, 2021 at 5:12 pm
Sparky: Does OJ have injured hands? If so, then maybe you have a point. If not, he probably should’ve had those.
August 22nd, 2021 at 7:44 pm
@Joe in Michigan
Don’t know, didn’t watch it, it’s a waste of time. I will take your word for it that he should have caught a few more passes. Yawn. All we need out of him is what we’ve already seen him do. 500 yards and 6 tuddies.
August 23rd, 2021 at 4:30 am
Sparky: You’re commenting on something you didn’t watch? I’ve watched OJ drop passes, bat them in the air, behind his back. He doesn’t have decent hands. Somehow you think this is unimportant.
August 23rd, 2021 at 6:06 am
Sparky: Do you watch the Bucs games? OJ has dropped plenty of passes in those games, too.
August 23rd, 2021 at 11:48 am
@Joe in Michigan. Am I commenting on something I didn’t watch? What exactly did I say that would have required me to watch it? Quote me. I watch every regular and post season Bucs game. I’ve even been to training camp several times. What I do not do is watch pre season games and then pretend they make me smarter than the coaches, which was the only point I was trying to make. Yes OJ drops passes. I would never say he doesn’t.