Lavonte David Speaks To The Bucs
September 29th, 2025
Addresses team after loss.
Almost to a man, everyone Joe spoke to yesterday in the Bucs’ locker room was of the same mind: The Bucs dug their own grave yesterday by coughing up 14 quick points to the defending Super Bowl champions and not answering on offense.
This irked Bucs icon Lavonte David enough that he had to speak to his teammates as one.
This isn’t the first time David has done something like this. Last year after Sean Payton and Bo Nix embarrassed the Bucs at home, David told his teammates how such an effort was unacceptable.
It sounds as if David gave a similar speech based on what Tristan Wirfs said after the game.
“Yeah, Lavonte spoke to us,” Wirfs said. “He basically said that same thing. If we want to be the team we want to be, we can’t hand them 14 points to start off. That makes it hard on us.
“You know, defense was out there fighting their balls off, we were fighting our balls off, special teams was fighting their balls off, so it’s just, he kind of just reiterated what Coach Bowles was saying. ‘If you want to be, if we want to
get to where we want to get, we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot like that.”
Well, someone better hope Bucs special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey has steel-toed boots. His special teams have been nothing short of atrocious this season. That’s two games in a row his special teams have coughed up seven points.
Every game this year, there has been a major breakdown on special teams. Blocked punts, blocked field goal, housing touchdowns on both, punting straight to a return man late in a tight game.
If anything, the Bucs’ special teams is putting together an instructional tape for colleges and high schools how not to play.
Joe cannot remember the Bucs’ special teams being this bad. That’s not hyperbole.
Bucs coach Todd Bowles seemed very frustrated, as he should be.
“It is something we will figure out in the meetings,” Bowles said. “We will look at the whole operation, how we are doing it, why we are doing it, if we are doing it with the right people and if we are doing it with the right scheme.
“That is three weeks in a row where something went wrong, and we will get that fixed.”
When asked if Riley Dixon being slow to punt the ball is an issue, Bowles replied, “Like I said, we will get all that fixed. There is a lot going on special teams-wise and none of it is good.”
Joe doesn’t know what Bowles has to or can do to resolve this but something needs to happen. This garbage special teams play is going to cost the Bucs more games, and maybe a playoff game, too.
Inexcusable!
After the Eagles blocked a punt for a touchdown against the Buccaneers, Nick Sirianni ran down the sideline yelling, "I told you, I told you!"
Here is what I think the Eagles were studying and how attention to detailed helped them scheme their way to a blocked punt pic.twitter.com/IHRr4UXCau
— Shawn Syed (@SyedSchemes) September 28, 2025
September 29th, 2025 at 3:58 am
The bottom line is you’re not a Super Bowl caliber coach when you allow the same crap to happen on your special teams for a literal month’s worth of games straight.
September 29th, 2025 at 4:41 am
I could tell by the players reaction they saw a weakness on film, and exploited it. Out coached right there, simple as that. Bowles said they’ll fix it. Why didn’t he “fix it” after it happened last week? That’s two blocked punts, and a blocked FG, two returned for TDs. It’s week four. You couldn’t tell this was a problem during training camp? Oh well, we’ll fix it now, don’t worry.
September 29th, 2025 at 5:02 am
So then what’s the fix? Move the snap area? I legitimately don’t know the answer to fix it, but it’s on tape and it will continue to be exploited. We remind me of the Chargers when they had the #1 offense and defense (obviously we don’t, but we’re good), where their special teams ranked their season
September 29th, 2025 at 5:09 am
The fix is better play. All things in perspective we punted a few times yesterday after this block and none got blocked. Another fix, a much more complicated matter would be not punting as much as we have. Before yesterday’s game we averaged the 6th most punts in the NFL. For a fan base that can use not forcing punts to critique our defense, maybe flip the coin and figure out why WE are punting so much.
It’s not a coaching problem, not a personnel problem, it’s a matter of sound execution or lack thereof.
September 29th, 2025 at 6:05 am
Shouldn’t it have been addressed after the first or second game coach!? This special teams coach was a terrible coach when the Bucs hired him and his special teams are in full reverse now! He won’t be fired, because him and TB are buddies!
This is just typical of a TB coached team! This was as big a game in week 4 as you can have, and he didn’t have his team ready to play out of the gate!
September 29th, 2025 at 6:09 am
WBL, no excuses. But 3 times in the first half we threw passes that were first downs- if receivers catch balls that hit them in the hands. Those are truly drive killers. Chris is getting back in the groove but his 10 targets were Baker working to get him game sharp. I can’t help but wonder if Shep had gotten those 10 targets. But it’ll pay off quickly because Chris is a game changer and he will be back to being Chris in a short time.
September 29th, 2025 at 6:32 am
What a total shyt show. An absolutely embarrassing performance. So Bowles is NOW going to fix this abortion which is the special teams play? Well that’s good to hear coach. Smart thinkin.
September 29th, 2025 at 6:35 am
You know, in the ATL, Rah held a coach accountable, and it seemed to have worked judging by how the Dirty Birds put up 34 on Washington. Perhaps Bowles should consider doing the same. The special teams are, with the exception of the kicker and one return guy, atrocious! They compare in ineptitude to Mike Smith’s 2018 defense and it seems like the problems have not been corrected week after week for 2025 special teams, just like Smitty’s 2018 crew. Mike Smith was also given a lot of rope and a vote of confidence from Koetter after a week 4 blowout and then proceeded to get boatraced again in their 5th game which led to his firing. I say that Bowles needs to set a precedent. One more blocked kick and someone gets fired if he does not shake up the staff this week.
September 29th, 2025 at 6:37 am
We need to get Rich Bisaccia back somehow!
September 29th, 2025 at 6:48 am
Warren Brooks Lynch … ‘It’s not a coaching problem, not a personnel problem, it’s a matter of sound execution or lack thereof.’
Seems to me that if it’s a ‘matter of sound execution or lack thereof’ then yes it is BOTH a coaching problem AND a personnel problem. Plays don’t execute themselves on their own; poor execution is either PLAY DESIGN (coaching) or guys not doing what they’re supposed to do.
September 29th, 2025 at 7:11 am
For most of the game, Bucs’ defense played excellent ball. We lost because of (1) the blocked punt for a TD; (2) TWO turnovers, 1 of which gave Philly a short field & they scored another TD. Hard for any defense to come back from giving away 14 easy points to any team.
Bucs also gave up too many ‘explosive plays’ in that game. If you look at those as any play over 10 yds, we gave up 7 of those in the 1st half (2 runs & 5 passes), but only 1 (a run) in the 2nd half. The result is obviously reflected in the points scored (24 pts in the 1st half, but only 7 pts in the 2nd half … as a result of the Bucs’ fumble that resulted in a short field TD).
I’m impressed that we held the Eagles to only 88 yds rushing on 32 runs (2.8 YPC) and 130 yds passing (15-of-24 … 2 TDs). We also held them to 5-of-15 on 3rd/4th down conversions and down to 28:08 TOP. Bucs did lots of ‘good stuff’ in that game, considering the heat & the extent of injuries … but as so often happens, we beat ourselves.
September 29th, 2025 at 7:18 am
This is about the time Bowles mid season slump starts. So prepared to be concerned if they lose up in Seattle.
September 29th, 2025 at 7:29 am
Defense Rules,
The point is, coaching and bad playcalling can be masked by players’ level of execution. There’s no amount of preparation, coaching or play calling to mask poor execution and offensively in my opinion that’s been our main problem through 4 games, but there’s also a matter of shotty playcalling that compounds our problems.
Play design is overblown, hard for observers to diagnosis that in real-time, but we know to judge it based on EXECUTION of any play in question. Obviously it all plays a part, but we punted something like 6 times yesterday. 1 of 6 were blocked, difference being execution after the intial gaff on punt team. Not coaching, not design, but execution, sir.
September 29th, 2025 at 7:30 am
We had 2 turnovers in the second half. They had zero turnovers in the second half. We beat the living crap out of them in the second half. 19-7. We held Hurts to 0-8 passing for zero yards in the second half. They totaled negative yards in the second half. Before we overheap the love on the defense Hurts was 15-16 in the first half. We looked helpless. At this point in the season I would have been shocked if Mayfield went 0-8 in the second half and our offense had gotten negative yards. Even if we’d have won. Philly is worried about how bad we dominated them in the second half. We’ll let them have this win. They know we’re better than they are. We know it too.
September 29th, 2025 at 8:03 am
Great point FortMyersDave.
September 29th, 2025 at 9:11 am
Training camp was full of what a relief Dixon was… and how awesome Dennis is.
September 29th, 2025 at 9:11 am
It’s not all about the blocked punt but that is an easy 7 points right there, it just can’t happen. Watched the replay and the blocker let the guy go to double the guy on his right so someone screwed up and I think it was the player that let him go. Both right and left were tied up. I harp on this all the time, make the plays when they are there to be made and you’ll win the game. Mistakes will happen but this is ridiculous.
September 29th, 2025 at 10:25 am
Bucs lost the iniative in the 1st qtr. That blocked punt fueled the hell out of them. This is not the 1st time our special teams has let us down. We gotta fix this immediately Coach Bowles. The eagles were just better than we were yesterday. PERIOD. Playing in Seattle will not be easy. Please be ready team. That plane ride back to FL is going to be agonozing if we lose.
September 29th, 2025 at 10:38 am
Right now the only good things about our special teams are Kameron Johnson on punt returns and chase money McLaughlin at kicker.
Are kicking and punting coverage is terrible. If you look most of the time the opponent is starting at least at their 35 yard line which means that they really only have to produce 30 yards of offense to be in field goal range. And for us on our kick returns were often at least 10 or 15 yards short of that.
Riley Dixon has been terrible punting the ball. It’s kind of shocking as I thought he was brought in because of his great leg. But he is slow to kick it and I don’t know if that’s a combination of poor snaps but are not getting to him fast enough or what but this can’t happen any longer. Either fire the special teams coach or bring in competition at punter. I recall in the off season we had signed a great punter from the Canadian football League who then got released shortly after assigning Riley Dixon. Maybe it’s time to bring him back.
We should be easily 4 and O if it wasn’t for our special teams.
September 29th, 2025 at 10:46 am
Todd needs to start by firing Mr. Magoo. He already has enough on his plate, he doesn’t need the burden of standing over his inept special bus driver every minute to keep him from driving the team into the ditch again. Although that’s required as long as Magoo takes up space in OBP.
Keith Tandy is on the staff and would be an excellent replacement. Fire Magoo, replace him with Tandy.
September 29th, 2025 at 10:47 am
This is where I believe Bowles is hurting the team. His coaching style is not to empower his players to make correct and sound decisions, which allows the players to be aggressive. He criticizes their actions, making them second-guess themselves and play very timidly. I believe in coaching up, not governing down. You can see the difference in play with the eagles corner back and the bucs. Eagles are very agressive where the bucs always seem to play scared
September 29th, 2025 at 11:22 am
imo, the punter is kicking too slow and the protection is trash!!!!…
players simply dont know who to block when they see anything not traditional…
that falls on the ST coach….when it continues to happen and cost us games thats when it falls on bowles….
GO BUCS!!!!
September 29th, 2025 at 1:06 pm
“ The fix is better play. “
Wow. Who would have ever considered that? Send in your app to OBP immediately. Todd needs sharp innovative minds like this.
September 29th, 2025 at 2:00 pm
Damn good breakdown
September 29th, 2025 at 3:38 pm
Two factors cost the Bucs this one: #1–injuries. #2–rookie offensive coach calling the offense in what, his 4th actual game in that position. 4 different offensive head coaches in 5 years. Eagles or any other good team suffering from that? Name them. Joe, you really need to proof/auto correct your stuff. It’s been slipping in the last couple of years.
September 29th, 2025 at 11:06 pm
Of course they saw a weakness on film. There had already been 2 blocked kicks in previous games.
What doesn’t help is Cade Otton completely whiffing on his block and letting a free rusher go by him.
Dixon is also lined up to his left, after being lined up to his right on all the previous example.
Just a complete failure from the coaches and players. Typical Bucs BS