Bucs Shift To One Practice Against The Jets
August 14th, 2023
What was to be two valuable joint practices/scrimmages against the Jets in New Jersey this week has turned into one.
Tampa Bay travels tomorrow but only will clash with the Jets on Wednesday. Thursday’s session together was canceled and the Bucs will practice alone and away from the Jets’ practice facility, likely at a nearby high school field.
The Bucs will have Friday off and then play Preseason Game 2 against the Jets at MetLife Stadium on Saturday night.
Todd Bowles said today that the Wednesday practice is more valuable than the preseason game because the practice will have first-teamers opening up the playbook on both sides of the ball.
The preseason game is more for young players and staying vanilla — so future opponents don’t see what you’re doing, per Bowles.
It will be interesting to see how Bowles handles the QB position on Wednesday. Joe expects Baker Mayfield to get the majority of first-team work.
Last year, the Bucs had four practices with/against other teams. Two with the Dolphins in Tampa and two in Tennessee. Joe very much apprecieates the awesome lunch and desserts the Titans served up to media.
August 14th, 2023 at 11:46 am
Wonderful. More rest. Will they be selling orange kool aide at Ray Jay for the fans?
August 14th, 2023 at 11:49 am
It seems as if Bowles is trying to avoid any preseason injuries
August 14th, 2023 at 11:52 am
Complete new offense, they’re probably still trying to work out who’s supposed to be where and when, as evidenced by a couple of sacks from last week
August 14th, 2023 at 11:53 am
They were giving away orange frozen treats for fans today.
August 14th, 2023 at 11:53 am
I’m totally confused now. The Bucs looked SOFT in Friday night’s game. The whole preseason practice schedule sounds like it’s been SOFT. I was always taught that ‘You play like you practice’. Looks like that’s even more true with this year’s Bucs, as of right now at least.
We’re not playing most starters in preseason games, and now we’re not even holding joint practices for the most part? If this team starts the season 1-3 or worse 0-4, fans will point right back to this SOFT practice schedule as the reason why. And rightfully so.
August 14th, 2023 at 12:04 pm
The heat we’ve been experiencing here in Tampa the last two weeks or so will damage a player for an entire season. If you suffer heat stroke or heat exhaustion the body won’t recover for months. Even on a covered field you have to be very careful of dehydration when the humidity is high. Have to thing long term the season is 17 games.
August 14th, 2023 at 12:29 pm
Gotta say I’m a bit mystified by the soft approach to this season. But…having said that, I don’t get paid to coach for a living and will trust Bowles and his staff. They have 24 / 7 access to the players and have a better feel than I do (of course) of where this team is.
August 14th, 2023 at 12:33 pm
@ DR
I believe our head coach has PTSD from Jenson’s injury – losing your starting center on day 2 of training camp has made him gun shy…
August 14th, 2023 at 12:35 pm
Great decision Todd. Based on Friday’s performance, your guys are all ready to block and tackle like it’s a Division III JV scrimmage. Woo hoo.
August 14th, 2023 at 12:36 pm
The Jets D will be a real test, especially for the OL
August 14th, 2023 at 12:49 pm
A lot of fans keep commenting about the jets game like the starters are going to be playing when they’re not. Don’t see how anyone can make an observation of how good they will be from watching the 2nd string.
Go Bucs! (to hell and a hand basket?)
August 14th, 2023 at 1:07 pm
NFL fans calling NFL players soft never loses its comedy…
August 14th, 2023 at 1:13 pm
Yeah, don’t know about “soft.” Most of us have been Buc fans long enough to know about “suck.”
August 14th, 2023 at 1:16 pm
Well what was the reason for canceling the joint practice? And second with hard knocks filming the Wed practice, doesn’t that mean some of the film will be available to other teams, or any one with HBO?
August 14th, 2023 at 1:52 pm
Agree, DR.
August 14th, 2023 at 1:52 pm
Defense. Great point. Kinda like last year when Bowles said towards of the 21 season the players were tired and that’s why he didn’t want to run BAs offense in 22. Yet it didn’t seem to slow the Bucs down in 2020 when we won it all with playing additional playoff games. I want the Bucs to succeed but I also want bowels done as HC. Can’t have both this season. Never want to root for us to lose but that’s the only way to get rid of bowels. He just seems to be a weak HC. Our team needs to be physical that’s how you run the ball well and stop the run. These practices should be really tough to weed out the weak. WhT is he doing
August 14th, 2023 at 1:55 pm
Yeah, good point. “Hard Knocks” might be a factor.
August 14th, 2023 at 1:58 pm
Give It A Rest, Trask Bridge … ‘NFL fans calling NFL players soft never loses its comedy…’
You apparently missed the intent. Never called the players soft; did call the practice schedule SOFT. Having lived here in Florida for approaching 50 years, I recognize that this summer has been more brutal than normal. But the Bucs’ practice facility is air-conditioned & was built specifically to allow the team to practice in bad weather just like this.
August 14th, 2023 at 2:10 pm
It sounds like our HC thinks pre-season games are worthless, like others do, here. Too bad I am not one of them. Those who saw the Saints game yesterday would be pretty worried. They are playing to win.
August 14th, 2023 at 2:14 pm
1#bucsfan … Admittedly I feel differently about Todd Bowles. Good DCs seem to be hard to find nowadays, and Todd is one of the best. This defense has done very well since 2019 & I give him tons of credit for that (talented players obviously help too). I dislike that he’s dual-hatted as the HC/DC, but it is what it is, just as long as he doesn’t try to ‘micro-manage’.
Unfortunately, firing Bowles the HC also does away with Bowles the DC. And almost surely the entire coaching staff (unless one of them got ‘promoted’ to replace Bowles, and I’m not at all for that). We had too many years after Chucky of the coaching carousel, and it was very detrimental to player development in particular IMO. Didn’t do much for our record either. So I want him to succeed, and I recognize that last year’s team … and this year’s team … aren’t on a par with what we fielded in 2020 & 2021 (for several reasons that go beyond coaching).
That said however, if you’re not as talented as a team, you better be prepared to make up for it with a lot of hard hard work. That’s probably the thing I loved most about Bear Bryant; his teams might not have always been the most talented, but they were always gonna be tough as nails.
August 14th, 2023 at 2:49 pm
Smart man!…Jets are on hard knocks don’t need too much to be get out on our new offense..hardknocks will soak that up ans spread tape for the world to see
August 14th, 2023 at 3:12 pm
I think it’s total bs the bucs are srapping a scrimmage and depriving joe of a catered lunch!
August 14th, 2023 at 4:06 pm
With the 1s going against each other in the scrimmage, I’ve always thought this was the best indicator of our team and season. I agree tha Bowles is injury adverse and had made practices less risky. I agree that maybe hard knocks had led to 1 practice. I expect the remaining practice to be vanilla and very physical for our OL. I expect Rodgers to test the starting DBs communication. We will see how our OL and QBs handle a stout Jets front.
The game will tell us about the 2s and 3s that’s all.
August 14th, 2023 at 4:45 pm
I believe Joe mentioned that the decision to cancel one day was made by the Jets. I’d like to blame TB for that but that would be unfair.
What is fair is blaming TB for players not being able to avoid penalties and for their poor tackling! Ultimately, players playing without discipline is all on him as the head coach!
August 14th, 2023 at 5:02 pm
Really, you need a few good hard practices to get the tacking down.
August 14th, 2023 at 5:11 pm
I’ve looked around and no one seems to know why the Jets would make this most amateurish BS move. Something like this should lead the coaching staff there getting blackballed by the league. You have a team come up for something that is scheduled, then you don’t participate and kick them out of your facility?
I mean the Jets could have canceled the Wednesday joint practice and kept the Thursday one, and the Bucs could have just came up a day later, but the Jets choose to keep the Wednesday one, forcing the Bucs to find a new workout spot on Thursday.
Real amateurish BS. Probably done at the behest of Rodgers who is still mentally crippled by losing that NFC Championship game, at home. Loser.
August 14th, 2023 at 5:27 pm
The excuse is weather…but I can’t help but wonder if there is another reason.
August 14th, 2023 at 5:43 pm
“Last year, the Bucs had four practices with/against other teams. Two with the Dolphins in Tampa and two in Tennessee. Joe very much apprecieates the awesome lunch and desserts the Titans served up to media.”
.
.
LOL.
Is this the diplomatic way to say that the Dolphins cadre fed the press bologna?
August 14th, 2023 at 6:03 pm
It’s the Jets decision, not the Bucs per other reports. Not sure why Joe omitted that?!?
August 14th, 2023 at 6:06 pm
ATLBuc Says:
“It seems as if Bowles is trying to avoid any preseason injuries.”
.
.
Or it’s a way to avoid demoralizing the offensive line by getting trucked two days in a row.
August 14th, 2023 at 6:24 pm
Well if we get pushed around again by the Jets like the Steelers did to us then we have a problem.
August 14th, 2023 at 8:43 pm
Since it’s only one practice with the Jets, hopefully TB will play his starters on Saturday night.
August 14th, 2023 at 9:28 pm
I agree defense he’s a great DC. just a few notches below kiffin. Dislike him a lot as HC. Wish he would just focus on only defense lol like you said it is what it is
August 14th, 2023 at 11:30 pm
So at the end of next month we can talk about head coach candidates for next year and the draft right!!!
August 15th, 2023 at 2:15 am
Todd is too worried about his starters getting injured.
We will have no idea what kind of team we have till we get smoked in some games because the starters have played virtually no real football since last season.
Geez! His mentality is now officially on my last nerve. There is playing it safe and playing it stupid. I am thinking the later in this case. I find it impossible to believe that all of our starters are indeed game ready and need no snaps.
Go Bucs!
August 15th, 2023 at 5:44 am
The browns went 4-0 in the preseason the year they lost every game in the regukar season. The ravens haven’t lost since like 2016 in the preseason, it doesn’t matter, just keep everyone healthy and get to the regular season.