Haason Reddick Collecting Double-Digit Sacks? “That’s A Big Deal”
June 9th, 2025
Catalyst, says ESPN talking head.
Damn, just one friggin’ punt.
The Bucs played such lousy defense last year that just one friggin’ punt was the difference in maybe the Bucs advancing to the NFC title game and being a one-and-done team.
All the defense had to do was force Washington to punt once — once! — and the Bucs win that playoff game, even with two massive screw ups on offense with rookies involved.
Force one measly punt. Just sad.
On Mina Kimes’ podcast, former Football Outsiders scribe and former Stinking Panthers beat writer A.P. Acosta said SirVocea Dennis is the new X-factor for the Bucs because if Lavonte David has to blitz nonstop pressure quarterbacks, Dennis can handle things in coverage.
Last year, linebackers K.J. Britt and J.J. Russell were exposed and incapable of pass coverage, which helped the Bucs defense fell apart.
Acosta said had he not picked Dennis as his X-factor, he would have picked YaYa Diaby. Because if the Bucs’ stink in pass defense (again), the Bucs must get after the quarterback.
Kimes fully agreed that the Bucs have to get an edge rush if they want to contend for a Super Bowl — non-negotiable.
Kimes is preaching common sense here. The only two times the Bucs made a Super Bowl, they had a feared edge rush. Imagine that.
So Kimes’ selection as a Bucs’ X-factor really shouldn’t surprise. She threw her money down on Haason Reddick.
“If Haason Reddick can go back to being Haason Reddick, that’s a big deal for this team,” Kimes said. “Because he obviously had a chaotic season last year, offseason, and didn’t play well when he came back.
“He’s still a young man, like he’s not that far removed from being a dominant pass rusher with Philadelphia. Now he gets to play for Todd Bowles.
“This is a team that’s not been able to rush the passer well in recent years. [Reddick], to me, could be a pretty significant pickup for them on him.
“He’s one a one-year, prove-it deal, so he has a lot of incentive to play well.”
With the way the Bucs restocked their secondary, the question for the defense boils down to two things: listening to Kimes and Acosta.
Can Dennis find a way to only miss one game a season like he did his final three years at Pitt?
Can someone, anyone, rookie David Walker, Diaby, Reddick, some unknown camp meat, find a way to get double-digit sacks?
If these two questions are answered in the affirmative, this could be a memorable 2025.
June 9th, 2025 at 7:11 am
I thought JJ Russell wasn’t bad at all, can’t find any evidence to the contrary
June 9th, 2025 at 7:40 am
One punt between one and done and a NFC Title game?
Is Joe just allowing the Bucs to jump passed the Divisional Round?
Does Goff have the same lousy game against the Bucs and Bucs win?
I suppose if you are going to dream then dream big.
June 9th, 2025 at 8:29 am
Yeah, I know, stats are for losers and it’s all about the film but, the 40-yard dash does show whether you’re fast or not. And in this case, we also have proof by the fact we got shredded across the middle last season quite often.
JJ Russell = 4.82 secs
KJ Britt = 4.75 secs
Lavonte David (in 2012) = 4.65 secs
SirVocia Dennis = 4.64 secs
Who’s most likely best for coverage based on speed?
Dennis has also been touted for his instincts and we saw some of that a couple times last year before he got hurt again.
Russell and Britt were pretty good run stoppers but just not fast enough to cover the middle.
June 9th, 2025 at 8:52 am
I don’t care about any individual player getting double-digit sacks. I care more about the entire defense getting enough sacks to make our pass rush a legit threat. But I’ll take 50+ sacks on the year spread out just about evenly over ten players if that’s what it takes to get there. Sacks happening is far more important to me than who gets them or how they come.
June 9th, 2025 at 9:29 am
A lot of things need to fall the Bucs way for a real run. I mean the refs always play blind to the other team and the Bucs can be the only team penalized throughout a game. We all know how bad it gets with the zebra’s. So if things fall the Bucs way with the refs we could have a really nice season. Maybe we should give a little something on the side to these refs, you think we could slide right into the big game and get exposed like the Chiefs have done twice now. Let’s Go Bucs!!!!
June 9th, 2025 at 9:53 am
The lack of getting Washington to punt was a real problem in that game.
You know what else was a problem. Tampa having 7 full possessions and no drive getting even 6 minutes. The defense failed to a large degree but so did the offense.
7 possessions for the offense. Only 2 TD’s. Our strength was in the offense and in the end:
1. 2 total TD’s. None in the 4th quarter when the other team is gassed.
2. No long drives to wear on the other team.
June 9th, 2025 at 10:33 am
Gonna have 3 double digit sack guys this season.
Reddick,Diaby,Kancey
June 9th, 2025 at 10:40 am
That is quite possible.
Getting 20 sacks from the interior doesn’t happen for a lot of Teams.
Kancey 13, Vita 8 Logan Hall 5 is all possible.
Not counting Roberts or other backups.
If the edge can generate another 20 we will get 50+ easily.
June 9th, 2025 at 11:02 am
Washington outplayed us on both sides of the ball in that playoff game. Folks keep pointing to the defense, but overall they ‘only’ allowed 23 points, our season average (22.6 PPG). Lots of folks bemoaning that we lost to a rookie QB, but Daniels is extremely impressive (threw for 69% completions in the regular season, in leading Washington to a 12-5 record, and also threw for 69% in our playoff game).
From our defensive standpoint, the most frustrating aspect was that we allowed Washington to succeed on THREE of their FIVE 4th Down attempts. What that says to me is that (1) Dan Quinn is willing to gamble is high-risk situations; and (2) Washington didn’t respect our defense’s capability to stop them. Rightfully so; their gamble paid off handsomely.
o 1st attempt: They had 4th & 2 at the Tampa 20. Daniels pass incomplete. Kudos Bucs’ defense.
o 2nd attempt: They had 4th & 1 at the Tampa 23 and made it (run). Subsequently scored a TD on that same drive.
o 3rd & 4th attempts: They had 4th & 5 at the Tampa 37 and made it. They made it down to the Tampa 3 on that same drive, but failed on their next 4th down attempt (incomplete pass). Kudos Bucs’ defense.
o 5th attempt: They had 4th & 2 at the Tampa 5 and went for it. Daniels pass complete for a TD.
So Washington scored 2 TDs in that game, and BOTH of them were because they converted 4th downs instead of kicking a FG (they kicked FGs on 3 other 4th down situations, and made all 3). One of the TDs was on a 4th down, and the other was after they’d converted a 4th down to keep the drive moving forward. Allowing 60% success rates on 4th down conversions sucks, although that was slightly better than our season average of 63.3% allowed.
The other area we need to focus on improving is Time of Possession (TOP). Washington led us in that department 35:26 to 24:34. That translates into them having 69 offensive plays (33 runs, 35 passes, 1 sack) to our measly 44 offensive plays (25 runs, 18 passes, 1 sack). Probably hard to win playoff games when you let your opponent run over 50% MORE offensive plays than you do.
June 9th, 2025 at 12:21 pm
There were a lot of reasons we lost that winnable game. Sure, the defense was unhelpful. Especially at the end. But also ay the end of we didn’t fumble and if Graham didn’t mistime the snap things very easily could have been very different.
June 9th, 2025 at 3:14 pm
Good to see most of the comments starting to embrace reality after 6 months of bickering about it. Neither the offense or the defense is blame free for the Washington loss. It was very much a TEAM loss.
Let’s not forget what the commanders did to Detroit after they played us… In spite of predictions, from commenters here, that Detroit was going to show us how a real coach overcomes injuries and how they were going to dominate WSH.
June 9th, 2025 at 3:23 pm
The Broncos led the league in sacks in 2024 with 63 with the Ravens a distant second with 54 sacks, and the Bucs in a two way tie for 6th place with 46 sacks.
To me, the ideal would be for the Bucs to have about 70 sacks with no one in double digits:
Reddick – 9
Kancey – 9
Vea – 8
Diaby – 6
Hall – 6
Nelson -5
Gaines – 2
Brewer – 2
David Walker – 5
Lavonte David – 6
Dennis – 4
Anthony Walker, Jr. – 4
Jones – 1
Antoine Winfield, Jr. – 4
These numbers are in line with past performances.
And, it would mean that good pressure from players all over the field was producing synergistic results rather than one player being Superman. Superman can be double teamed, triple teamed and run away from. A solid team effort puts you between a rock and a hard place.