Winning With Defense
November 29th, 2021
Defense getting the juice.
When looking at the landmark win over the Colts on the road yesterday, longtime Yahoo! NFL columnist Frank Schwab believes he knows who should get the props for the win.
No, not Playoff Lenny, though his four touchdowns were cool. No, not foot-rubbing, car-littering film guru Rob Gronkowski, despite the fact he played like a total beast.
No, Schwab thinks the game ball goes to the Bucs defense.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense: When the Buccaneers brought back all their starters from the Super Bowl championship team, that wasn’t just Tom Brady and his friends on offense.
The Bucs have a championship defense and that’s what saved them in a 38-31 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. The Colts had all the momentum, leading 24-14. Then Shaq Barrett had a strip-sack of Carson Wentz, and that was a turning point. Another huge play was safety Antoine Winfield making a great interception on a deep pass to Michael Pittman Jr. For most of the game the Bucs’ elite run defense turned NFL rushing leader Jonathan Taylor into a non-factor.
The offense did enough, especially on its final drive. Brady slowly marched the Bucs downfield, and then Leonard Fournette broke a 28-yard touchdown run, his fourth touchdown of the game, with 20 seconds left. The offense did its part. But it was the defense that gave the Bucs a chance to put together that game-winning drive.
Initially, Joe would disagree because after the first quarter, unless the Bucs got a turnover, the defense crumbled after Jamel Dean got hurt. They couldn’t get off the field on third downs, just like the defense played before Sean Murphy-Bunting returned.
However, forcing the Colts offense into five turnovers? (Yes, the Colts have six turnovers one of them coming on special teams). That’s the defense rising up and making a play when absolutely necessary.
So yeah, when you factor in turnovers, Joe can see Schwab’s point.
Joe cannot remember who said/wrote this yesterday, but Antoine Winfield’s interception looked like an Ed Reed move.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:10 am
Giving up 31 points…..and our offense scoring 38…..I don’t think you can just credit the defense with that win.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:24 am
Whole lot of holding calls not being called … VV gets held all the time
November 29th, 2021 at 8:27 am
Really a team win — Off, Def & ST. And a reminder that’s it is a 60-minute game. I was so disgusted at halftime…but they hung in there and made plays to win the game.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:27 am
Winfield’s INT was beautiful!! Pittman couldn’t track the ball I think he 6’4…
November 29th, 2021 at 8:29 am
The Colts stopped giving the ball to Taylor after grabbing a 10 point halftime lead. The Bucs made big plays on D to get turnovers and turned the game around in the 3rd quarter.
Turnovers were definitely the biggest factor.
Bucs plan was to stop Taylor and force Wentz to beat them and the plan payed off.
Barrett and DLine were great and Winfield Jr made a great play.
The OLine gave Brady time and Fournette read the holes and coverage terrifically.
Great win! … now about that last kickoff coverage….
November 29th, 2021 at 8:36 am
Glad the Bucs were able to prevail… but I have two words for the Bucs coaching staff… squib kick!
November 29th, 2021 at 8:40 am
What worries me most is Tom Brady. Too many inaccurate passes. He does not look like he did last year. Ya he is playing good enough to win given the quality of his supporting cast. But to me he just doesn’t look like the precision passer he was last year. Mostly dink and dunk, too many passes in the dirt, etc. He was a precision robot last year. Not the same this year.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:40 am
Glad they won but Im so pissed that we didn’t fix the secondary in the off season
November 29th, 2021 at 8:49 am
Colts blogs seemingly want to give the game ball to the refs. Idk I thought they were bad all around. That PI on SMB was awful in the colts’ favor, and indeed VV gets held almost every down, or he gets his helmet shoved up and a tooth knocked out.
It’s football. Blaming the refs is quite the distraction from the truth as Schwab points out the real difference maker. Brady’s career comebacks don’t happen if the defense doesn’t hold serve while he’s leading scoring drives in the 2nd halves!
November 29th, 2021 at 8:50 am
The repeated third and long Colt’s conversions were enough to drive a diehard fan mad. Other than Wentz’s third and 15 run, the middle seemed wide open on third down throughout.
Unlike most of you here, who think they know more football than all NFL coaches, I’m just a fan who sees what he sees. And what I’m seeing is a soft zone that subpar quarterbacks appear to take advantage of week after week after week.
The Giants defense gave up a single touchdown to the red hot Eagles yesterday and most all defenses gave up less than 31 points.
Yeah, the Bucs had a good performance against the Bears, but that was an aberration. A team cannot continue to rely on turnovers to win games.
At some point they must win the old fashioned way—by tackling, breaking up passes and getting off the damn field!
November 29th, 2021 at 8:55 am
JA-
The soft zones are because the backup corners stink. So Bowles is hoping the DLine makes plays or the opposing QB makes mistakes.
The lack of secondary help IMO is because of the draft choices made in 2nd and 3rd round.
November 29th, 2021 at 9:16 am
Alanbucsfan i don’t think so. Bunting had a horrible game and he’s a starter. Again this defense hasn’t gotten any better in terms of pass defense. No way they win on the road playing this type of defense in the playoffs.
November 29th, 2021 at 9:21 am
Francisco Guzman-
They didn’t have Davis or Dean on the field and Bunting is playing his way back after 2 1/2 months out. True, Bunting got beat, but he likes to play tight coverage which I like. Also, Winfield Jr misread the play on the Colts’ deep td pass and didn’t help out.
November 29th, 2021 at 9:22 am
The constant soft zone coverage is definitely annoying but the constant dropping dline into coverage is mind boggling just make it stop please
November 29th, 2021 at 9:35 am
Mike, here’s my two words. Fire KA
LFG Bucs!
Let’s Go Brandon!!
November 29th, 2021 at 9:35 am
Hopefully we get at least one of Davis or Dean next week
November 29th, 2021 at 9:53 am
Thought bunting was victimized at least a couple times where he was basically forced to choose between a guy in the flat and a guy more intermediate with no safety right over top that I could see (announcers also said as much). Seemed like a lot of it was being outschemed
November 29th, 2021 at 9:56 am
As I said in another thread Joe.. when you cause that many turnovers along with the special teams one of course it seems like they don’t punt. We also had a couple of turnovers and a very short punt and penalty that meant even if they went 3 and out they weren’t punting as they were already in field goal range. I hold our offense to a higher standard with so much talent at every position, I hope our defense to a lower standard. Our offense stalled too many times, our defense had some real issues on third and long, but never imagined that many turnovers
November 29th, 2021 at 9:56 am
AMI_Chris … ‘Really a team win — Off, Def & ST’. I don’t disagree Chris, but all 3 were deeply flawed. ST allowing that last second 72-yd kickoff return was inexcusable IMO. Offense starting the game off so slowly (yet again) could’ve been the kiss of death if not for all the Colts’ giveaways. And our defense played like Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde once again. When they’re good, they’re REALLY GOOD; but when they’re bad, say hello to 31 pts.
November 29th, 2021 at 10:05 am
Loved that Winfield INT… A great interception leaping over a bigger WR and adjusting to the ball amazingly
November 29th, 2021 at 10:06 am
kind of ironic the picture to this story is the game at washington and were talking about the defense haha. great win bucs!
November 29th, 2021 at 10:27 am
Wild Bill, it’s not Brady it is his receivers. Brady runs up tempo, BL’s/BA’s offense is downfield based and Evan’s and Godwin taking too long g to get open. If it were Brady, why can a 6’7″ TE that recently has 5 cracked ribs and a punctured lung find open space and get open? It’s not like he runs a 4.5 40. There is no other excuse, shorten the routes and run higher % routes, save the deep ball once the DB’s cheat up.
November 29th, 2021 at 10:45 am
We get the ball on their 19 yard line, get help from a penalty, putz around like the Donald at a Mensa meeting, and end up kicking a FG. That’s pathetic.
November 29th, 2021 at 11:32 am
Winning with Defense … in the second half.
November 29th, 2021 at 11:34 am
You keep bringing up Dean like he would have just been the difference maker in the pass defense! Lol
November 29th, 2021 at 11:37 am
You don’t find it interesting that whenever a Bucs corner goes down and the Bucs have to rely on a backup corner to play full-time the pass defense crumbles like a saltine cracker? Joe doesn’t believe in coincidences in football.
November 29th, 2021 at 12:20 pm
“You don’t find it interesting that whenever a Bucs corner goes down and the Bucs have to rely on a backup corner to play full-time the pass defense crumbles like a saltine cracker? Joe doesn’t believe in coincidences in football.”
Joe it reminds me of when Brian Kelly went down, like Munch brings up, the mighty Bucs D with Sapp and Brooks was never the same after that.
GO BUCS!!!!!!
November 29th, 2021 at 12:20 pm
Unless our defense gets a turnover or plays an awful QB. We don’t stop anything
November 29th, 2021 at 2:59 pm
Defense wins championships !!!
November 29th, 2021 at 3:55 pm
Not if they give up 31 points they don’t !
November 29th, 2021 at 6:40 pm
@listinfrmafar. You make some good points but the last few games especially since the crunching hit he took from Washington he has dinked and dunked and missed his receivers too often and seldom goes long. He made some nice medium long throws to Gronk, but very few deep throws attempted.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:06 pm
Wild Bill, I dvr’d the game and rewatched it this morning, early riser. The camera crew did a great job scanning the field during some of Brady’s drop backs. It was clear as day the receivers were covered. That being said I don’t think it is the receivers fault, I believe the routes in the plays need to be tweaked. Defenders playing two deep and linebackers and corners drop back about 8 to 10 yds in coverage. The safeties adjust to the routes the receivers are running. Once and a while they tried to blitz. Why does it seem like every team Bucs play have no problem getting open and Bucs receivers can’t? I find it hard to believe Wentz, Simieon, Heinike and Stafford are better than Brady.
November 29th, 2021 at 8:31 pm
Championship caliber defense??? What team has he been watching??? They’ve been getting roasted since the Dallas game before Burnt toast got injured. They showed Dean on national TV and you could see the fear in his eyes. He’s a scaredy cat! As it has been said earlier in the season the offense is going to have to score 35 points a game for us to win. What has the defense given up? Let’s see, 29, 25, 22,34,29,31 points given up in 6 out of 11 games beat to death by some poor to mediocre qbs. They continually make qbs look better than they are. They had a hard time shutting down rookie Mac Jones. I’d rather have a defense that can stop a team on 3rd&15, not getting offsides in EVERY game, can get off the field in crunch time than one that gets 5 turnovers in one game in the season. Maybe I’m asking too much but I don’t think so
November 29th, 2021 at 9:48 pm
Our pass defense is hot garbage.