Slippery Bucky Irving
July 16th, 2025
Makes defenders miss.
No running back was more difficult to tackle last year than Bucs stud rookie Bucky Irving.
And a veteran NFL humorist/chronicler of the game is armed with the data.
Mike Tanier, typing for Aaron Schatz’s FTN Football Almanac, had a couple of startling stats. First is Bucky was one of the better backs in the NFL for broken/missed tackles. But when Bucky caught balls out of the backfield, he took his elusiveness to another level.
The newest innovation to Tampa Bay’s offense last year was better-than-replacement-level rushing. Rookie Bucky Irving was eighth among running backs with 60 total broken and missed tackles. He added 19 more avoided tackles on receptions, the most of any running back by FTN Data charting.
That’s just insane. You usually associate so many broken or missed tackles from big running backs like Derrick Henry, not little guys like Bucky.
Bucky is one of Joe’s favorite players, but as tempting as it may be, “this Joe” isn’t too fond of giving Bucky a bigger workload. He doesn’t have the size for so much punishment.
The Bucs are going to need an upright, if not semi-fresh Bucky in December and January. Bucky doesn’t add much to Bucs’ goals if, in the most important games of the season, he is all beat up and tapped out.
July 16th, 2025 at 12:08 am
The comments are t showing up so I’m not sure if it’s working
July 16th, 2025 at 12:13 am
Off topic – even in the Bucs wins, where they got off to big leads, Todd found a way to gag the lead away with numerous coverage busts, undisciplined and poorly executed trash.
Get ready for the Big Disappointment.
S could truly end up being several games below .500 all due to the lack of quality coaching and attentiveness.
July 16th, 2025 at 1:13 am
I’d bet quite a bit of money we don’t go several games under .500. That only could possibly happen if Baker is out more than 7 games this year.
July 16th, 2025 at 4:35 am
I am in agreement, don’t overuse Bucky.
We saw toward the end of last season Bucky being beat up somewhat, back and hip. Can’t let that happen again. Other players and coaches know what Bucky can do now and will be targeting him. Grizz will need some surprises this season to keep them guessing.
July 16th, 2025 at 6:48 am
Payton was not that big. Dunn either.
Dunn had Alstott though. I do agree that we need to get Tucker in there as well as White, but he avoided tackles last year without looking like he was avoiding them. I was kind of like… (How the heck did he do that!) at times.
Go Bucs!
July 16th, 2025 at 6:48 am
“Joe isn’t too fond of giving Bucky a bigger workload. He doesn’t have the size for so much punishment.” And….this is where Sean Tucker comes in.
July 16th, 2025 at 7:56 am
Bucky either needs to tuck his shirt in, or they need to get him old-style Oklahoma tear aways. I remember at least five or six times where he was able to juke a guy enough to avoid a tackle, but they were able to slow him down by grabbing his jersey.
July 16th, 2025 at 8:12 am
Try a new angle there Skippy.
July 16th, 2025 at 8:22 am
Completely different players, but his success feels like Legarrette Blount’s (sp) from 2010. He made a lot of guys miss and it was exciting to watch. Bucky brought back the juice. He’s slipperey and excited to see him in year 2!
July 16th, 2025 at 8:23 am
I really love watching Bucky. He was one hell of a good pick 😃
July 16th, 2025 at 8:43 am
I don’t really mind if one of our top 2 RB’s gets a little wornout and needs to come out for awhile. That just means more touches for our truly best RB, Sean Tucker. Which is good for everyone.
I do love Bucky, though. He’s our 1b RB in terms of talent/ skill behind Tucker in my view.
July 16th, 2025 at 9:12 am
Bucky’s ability to stop & go is up there with some of the best I’ve seen. One play he makes a move that might remind you of Barry Sanders or a Warrick Dunn, but two quarters later and he makes a cut like LT or Dante Hall and you’re just left there thinking “HOW?”.
Glad we have Bucky and don’t have to play him.
July 16th, 2025 at 11:21 am
When my Wife replaced the old toaster oven with one Temperature Knob and a Start button with the ‘next best thing’ a state of the art digital display, auto preheat and more buttons than an Air Bus it took a while to get used to.
After awhile I got the hang of it an realized it still takes 30 minutes to cook a pizza, will burn it if you don’t pay attention and if the power goes out you’re F’d either way.
Irving had a great year no doubt about it and got better as the year went on but the competition didn’t.
All good offences look great against the bottom feeder defenses in the league but when you put Apples to Apples I did not see the greatness of the Bucs Super Receivers out of the backfield.
Sure the games against the Division and teams like the Raiders and Giants they really racked the yards up but when they faced teams that were playoff bound and had a decent defense it was far from favorable.
Bucs Backfield Receiving. vs DEN Irv 3-14 Wh 5-18 vs 49ers Irv 3-14 Wh 6-39 vs KC Irv 3-10 Wh 3-16 and in the most important game of their season vs WASH Irv 2-6 Wh 2-14 All losses.
Air Fryer was figured out by watching a little Video and always had a Plan B with the old reliable Gas stove in case the Power goes out and I want Pizza.
Now that teams have a manual on what and what not to do I don’t think that things will click like it did in 2024 but then they still play 6 games against the NFCS. Bucs will still have a good offense and I hope they have a Plan B when teams smother the Backs and Baker has to read defenses over the entire field and not get by with Cliff notes.
Weeks 2-6-7-10-11 will tell for sure what kind of offense the Bucs really have but i agree wuth Joe that it might be apparent by October.
July 16th, 2025 at 11:38 am
Fan of the South
Thanks for your daily dose of optimism. When the Bucs fail to win the Division you’ll be able to come back and crow. Or perhaps you can make a boatload betting against them.
But IF the Bucs win a FIFTH consecutive title I hope you have an appetite for crow.
July 16th, 2025 at 12:14 pm
Concur