The Big-Game Shift
November 6th, 2021
Vita Vea
Does anyone think what happened with Ndamukong Suh and Vita Vea on Sunday was a coincidence?
It wasn’t — at least not in Joe’s mind.
All season long the Bucs have limited the snaps of old-man warrior Ndamukong Suh and young manbeast Vita Vea.
They’re among the best one-two punches of interior defensive linemen in the NFL, except they don’t play full-time.
Vea played less than 60 percent of the defensive snaps before Sunday. But against New Orleans, he played 80 percent. In total it was 61 snaps, about double what he logged against the Rams in Week 4.
Suh took 59 snaps, his busiest game of the season and the most action he’s gotten since opening day.
It’s clear the Bucs hierarchy let loose Vea and Suh in an all-out effort to throttle the Saints, and they still couldn’t rattle backup QB Trevor Siemian or lock down the Saints run game the way they usually do.
Joe is at least glad the Bucs are prepared to unleash the beasts when they feel it’s a big game. And Joe’s guessing a bye week after the Saints game was a factor in the decision.
#MoreVita
November 6th, 2021 at 2:02 pm
That is pretty d@mn sad that they played more than any game and we still allowed a back up who hadn’t played in 2-3 years rack up 19 points after he came in the game!!!
Oh well, maybe they catch fire after the bye again
November 6th, 2021 at 2:24 pm
I’m
Curios how long the Aints QBs held the ball. They may have sped things up to negate the pass rush.
November 6th, 2021 at 2:34 pm
If you can’t cover, it really doesn’t matter how good the line is. Rushing the passer over and over and over again, is taxing. Midway through the 3rd quarter, they’re gassed. If you had good coaching, they’d find a way to cobble it together. The biggest problem, is that the coaches don’t understand complimentary or situational football. For Christ sake the offense scores 32.5 ppg. With the talent they have on defense, it’s unbelievable to Ben why the can’t figure it out. Invite teams to run. Everytime they run, it’s time off the clock. It’s also one less deep pass the defense has to defend. It shouldn’t be that hard
November 6th, 2021 at 2:50 pm
I hate to say it, but!! … it appears that Sean Payton has the Bucs’ number no matter who the head coach is. I sure don’t know why?
That’s part of why putting an end to the Saint’s dominance during the playoffs last year was so great. Bucs fans and NO haters also got the pleasure of seeing Drew Brees pushed into retirement without ever getting a second Lombardi.
Go Bucs!
November 6th, 2021 at 3:26 pm
The only 2that weren’t chasing cars!
November 6th, 2021 at 4:07 pm
IMO, it was a pedestrian performance from Simian. He only had one pass over
20 yards and a total of 159 yards. Maybe the defense just couldn’t overcome their penalties and poor play from players that aren’t starters. But the problems weren’t just defensive in nature, The best way to cover up weaknesses on defense
is a strong offense. It was a slow start in the first half that put us behind the eightball. Too many drives fizzled before they started in the first half.
November 6th, 2021 at 4:30 pm
Did you people forget they had the ball with 1:30+ left and only needed a FG to win? It was not some colossal failure. It was just a normal, garden variety failure. That will happen when the other team is also well coached and tries hard.
Perspective.
November 6th, 2021 at 5:17 pm
With 1.30 left, and a time out, and all we needed was a field goal, Brady usually wins it. However, give the Saints coaching credit. All game long they had been doubling Mike Evans, but they all of the sudden switched the double coverage to Chris Godwin.
This confused Brady, and he threw a pick.
Tape has shown Mike Evans was wide open, but because he had been double covered all game, Brady didn’t look at him.
He looked to Chris Godwin, did not see the double coverage, and Boom, game over.
November 6th, 2021 at 5:48 pm
They were in position to still win vs. the “now-greatest ever/forever blueprint” Sean Payton.
It is true that 9 out of 10 times, okay maybe 8 out of 10 (to be conservative), Brady and the offense would have managed to still win the game with an FG.
But they shouldn’t have been in a hole to begin with. Unfortunately too many combined factors this time, many self-inflicted.
I think we have to reserve judgement until the Dec. rematch, when hopefully the team is fully healthy. The main issues to address are D backfield, D coaching adjustments/situational. (I think they failed to adjust the game plan when Siemian was inserted.) The pass rush still needs work, too.
November 6th, 2021 at 5:55 pm
Vita was a ghost against the backup OG.
November 6th, 2021 at 7:02 pm
Surprised Brady misread that coverage on the pic six and missed a wide open receiver to boot. He has also thrown into double coverage on some other recent ints. Not like him at all. He seems a bit skittish in the pocket, or is pressing, or something. He is still putting up big numbers, but hasn’t had an outstanding game since before the Rams.
In his defense, he finally got the lead, only to have the defense give it up on the next series. IIRC, they had the saints stopped outside of FG range, but NO got the first down on a stupid penalty awar from the ball.
November 6th, 2021 at 7:02 pm
If I wasn’t watching closely, I would not have noticed when they were in or out. All of our D-line was playing Pattie-cake with the Saints O-line all day.
There was no one I could say was putting out any effort at all.
November 6th, 2021 at 7:28 pm
Refs Helped TREMENDOUSLY. /Thread
November 6th, 2021 at 7:39 pm
@Chris,
It shouldn’t have been confusing at all though.
The safety was sitting there the entire time. Pre-snap. Post-snap. Could not have been more obvious.
Still not sure how Brady threw that.
November 6th, 2021 at 7:52 pm
And who can guarantee we would have scored or made the Field Goal? Fact is we had the lead and in typical grand old fashion the defense f’d it up again. They put Brady and the offense in the have to come back position. After they had just scored. No tired no excuse. Stupidity!
November 6th, 2021 at 7:53 pm
in games we are winning these two players take the bench–good as well they should
November 6th, 2021 at 8:40 pm
Well finish 11- 6 and get dumped by ST L
November 6th, 2021 at 8:50 pm
First off the Saints are a good team. Shame on all you people who basically guaranteed a win.
Yes, our defense could have played better. Especially in the redzone where we have stunk all year. A year ago that was a strength of this defense and if we dont get better in that area we probably arent going back to the SuperBowl.
As bitter as it is losing to the Saints, I come out saying we are the better team. We have figured out how to nullify their passrush. They are going to struggle to beat us again like that.
In the end they needed every bit of 3 turnovers and 100 pentalty yards and we still had the ball in our hands at the end. That tells me if we play a clean game they cant keep up with us. Look at that 3rd Q and all the big plays we made……Their offense cant do that.
Lets lick our wounds, rattle off a couple wins in a row and put this game in the past. Next time we meet play a clean game and I dont see how the Saints can beat us again.
GO BUCS!!!!!
November 7th, 2021 at 11:27 am
Will the real Bucs please stand up? Why so many fouls game after game. Hard to beat any decent team that way. So many stupid mistakes this year! Personal fouls and turn overs have kept opposing teams in the game too often. Brady can’t save the game with 4th quarter heroics all the time. Could have this game too but it never should have come down to that. Just being real the fact is our defense has gone from being our strength to being our weakness.
November 7th, 2021 at 11:53 am
I love that, jimmy jack. Couldn’t agree more. Everyone’s giving Payton props for beating us, but the penalties and turnovers are what beat us; every siemian led drive was kept alive multiple times by penalties. Whether you think those penalties were on the defense or the refs is up for debate on several of them, but the point remains that I think we were obviously the better team on the field, especially with Hill or siemian at quarterback.