Yes, The Bucs Were Getting Turnovers
July 11th, 2025
Pondering the future.
Bucs coach Todd Bowles has missed few opportunities since the 2024 season ended to vent to whomever listened that the Bucs need more turnovers.
Well, it wasn’t like the Bucs weren’t getting turnovers, just not the kind Bowles desired.
Last year, the Bucs were good at takeaways — with fumbles forced ,that is. Per stathead Warren Sharp, the Bucs had the fourth-most fumble recoveries in the league, a total of 11.
So yes, the Bucs got sacred takeaways. Just not the picks Bowles craves.
Joe will state once again the Bucs’ pass defense had a fundamental issue. Get that repaired so the Bucs can play sound, fundamentally good pass defense. Then let’s worry about the picks.
Getting picks without improving the pass defense is like cream cheese icing on a cow patty.
opponent fumbles recovered by team's defense
16 – BUF, PIT
15
14 – GB
13 – CHI, PHI
12
11 – TB
10 – WAS, HOU, DEN, NYG, NYJ, CIN
9 – IND, DAL, MIN
8 – CLE, ARI, DET, CAR
7 – KC, LAR, TEN
6 – SF, ATL, LAC, MIA
5 – BAL, SEA, NE
4
3 – NO, JAX, LV*2024 regular season
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) July 10, 2025
July 11th, 2025 at 10:50 am
The #1 thing that the Bucs need more of on defense is: Forced Punts.
July 11th, 2025 at 11:00 am
I love fumble recoveries every bit as much as an interception. I actually love them more. I invariably blurt out FUMBLE! Then there’s the excitement of the guys all scrambling for the ball. That’s probably the part coaches don’t like. LOL. Oh, I like interceptions almost as much. But gimme fumbles.
July 11th, 2025 at 11:01 am
Eric: yeah man! You’re right.
July 11th, 2025 at 11:22 am
Vivid
July 11th, 2025 at 11:33 am
Yes
We need to force more punts
The defense will improve
Bucs will force more punts than last year
We will have a better punt return & a better punter
July 11th, 2025 at 11:56 am
If you play 10 yards off and don’t contest the catch, I’d imagine int’s WPOULD be elusive
July 11th, 2025 at 11:57 am
Shoulda had 12!
My favorite one was week 6. McCollum hit Olave like he called his mama outta name and Winfield jr scooped it up for the score. Can’t beat how gratifying it has to be to cash a turnover in for a score on the same play.
July 11th, 2025 at 12:39 pm
We also need better production from our offense in *crunch time ”
Remember the first Falcons game, David INT set them up nicely. But our offense went backwards and chip shot a punt instead of adding points. Remember the playoff game against Washington, Bucky get 9 yards on first down. We have 2nd and 1, we went backwards the next two plays….
A potent, high powered offense don’t go backwards, especially in crucial, game sealing moments..
July 11th, 2025 at 12:50 pm
Coconut cow patties Sage?Anyone?
July 11th, 2025 at 12:51 pm
LakelandBuc, thanks for bringing up those unpleasant memories! Especially that one against the Commandos. Painful!
July 11th, 2025 at 1:08 pm
Lakeland you’re right about the offense making a substantial gain only to get stifled. Any time you make a big play or have the chance to it needs to be made and stick, can’t drop gimme INT’s, can’t have a big play on offense for a good gain or a 1st down and have it called back because of penalty, same on defense. When teams are backed up no way should they be let out, etc. Punts are great too, means you’re doing your job.
July 11th, 2025 at 1:13 pm
Lakeland
How’s about that 3 series sequence at the end of the 1st quarter in the raiders game?
Pick from Baker, Raiders get the ball back fumble on the first play, our offense gets the ball back and 4 plays later Baker fumbles.
In 11 plays between both teams in <4 mintues there were 3 turnovers and we end up coming out that exchange -1 in the turnover differential
July 11th, 2025 at 1:21 pm
Washington came into the game, giving up over 2,300 yards on the season. Their rushing defense was so pathetic, that they were allowing 4.8 YPC. And to make matters worse, we had dominated them in our opener, put up over 37 points, l believe
The problem wasn’t with our defense
The problem was that we allowed Washington to control the clock
They had over 35 minutes of possession. With their weak run defense, and our run offense, and our chain moving pass offense. We should have controlled time of possession.
Liam Cohen blew it for us
He was excellent with his play calling in blowouts
But in tight games, crucial plays….he folded like a rocking chair…
July 11th, 2025 at 1:23 pm
**2,300 rushing yards*
July 11th, 2025 at 1:28 pm
ChiBuc Says:
cream cheese icing on a cow patty.
^^^^^
“Lipstick on a Pig” maybe a little easier on the stomach.
Good point, though. Belicheck famously said, “Stats are for losers.” This is a perfect example of a meaningless stat coaches would point to if they were on the hot seat.
July 11th, 2025 at 2:07 pm
I appreciate joe and many readers preference of an @$$ whipping over analytics but in life you cant leave any meat on the bone, you get what you can as quickly as possible any way you can pull it out.
Priority 1 is dominance but analytics supplements everything now
July 11th, 2025 at 2:30 pm
“Getting picks without improving the pass defense is like cream cheese icing on a cow patty”
Wouldn’t getting picks improve our pass D on it’s on? Including ypg?
We ranked 20th in turnover differential. That, imo, is a bigger stat than pass yards allowed.
If you look at the stats you can see that seems to be the case.
Of the top 15 in turnover diff ….. 14 made the playoffs 🤔
Of the top 15 in pass ypg ….. Only 7 made the playoffs (8 didn’t make the dance)
Definitely correct for coach to be focused on TA’s. More takeaways, less giveaways seems to be considerably more important than less pass yards allowed per game.
July 11th, 2025 at 3:12 pm
JBF … ‘So yes, the Bucs got sacred takeaways. Just not the picks Bowles craves.’
Focusing exclusively on fumble recoveries seems like excuse-making. Yes we ended up with 11 FRs to be 6th-best in the NFL, but our INTs were abysmal. But we ended up with only 7 INTs to rank #26.
The teams that had the most FRs were the Steelers & Bills with 16 each. The team that had the most INTs was the Vikings with a whopping 24.
The Vikings obviously benefitted tremendously from their 24 INTs & 9 FRs. They went 14-3 on the season and ranked #1 in Takeaways last year. Their defense performed roughly the same as ours in a number of key stats EXCEPT for the major difference (15) in Takeaways.
Vikings ranked #5 overall, with their Run Defense ranking #2 (versus our #4) and their Pass Defense ranking #28 (versus our #29). Very similar. But they beat us in 3 major categories …
1 – Takeaways: Viking had 33 total takeaways to our 18 total.
2 – 3rd Down Conversions: Vikings allowed opponents to convert 78-of-219 attempts (35.6%) for a #4 ranking, while the Bucs allowed opponents to convert 80-of-210 attempts (38.1%) for a #14 ranking.
3 – 4th Down Conversions: Vikings allowed opponents to convert 13-of-35 attempts (37.1%) for a #1 ranking, while the Bucs allowed opponents to convert 19-of-30 attempts (63.3%) for a #23 ranking.
Todd’s right; Bucs’ defense needs to do better on INTs (it’s at least as good as a punt). We also need to improve though on 3rd & 4th down conversions.
July 11th, 2025 at 3:56 pm
Got a long way to go to get the 31 INT’s of the 2002 Bucs.
38 Total Take Aways and a Differential of +20
Then when you look at 2024’s 22.6 Points/ Game Allowed compared to 2002’s 12.25 if the Bucs could just meet in the middle at 18 Allowed / Game with 17 Picks they could bypass a Wild Card loss by having a Bye that week.
July 11th, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Blast from past. Harry Douglas said today the hardest DB that he ever had to face in the NFL was Ronde Barber.
July 11th, 2025 at 4:12 pm
Defense Rules,
Why we continue to focus on our defense miscues
We had more turnovers than any other playoff team
We had had more turnovers than Carolina and New Orleans
I
We had one less than the Falcons in the so-called pathetic NFC South
I’m more concerned with less Turnovers from our offense
Than more turnovers from our defense
July 11th, 2025 at 4:20 pm
Matter of Fact,
Our -5 was the only negative differential in the Turnover/Giveaway ratio. How about asking the offense to cut down on the Turnovers!!
July 11th, 2025 at 4:21 pm
“The only negative differential among the playoffs team”
July 11th, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Great to see more constructive and balanced commenting recently. Seems like more people are starting to look outside of, and question the same tired stats used to criticize our coach and our defense and team overall.
@Defense Rules
Appreciate you ALWAYS being objective and bringing the stats👍🏼
@LakelandBuc
Absolutely correct to question the offenses part in our failure to reach the promised land. Some people would have you believe the offense is without flaw and our losses are ALL on our pass D and that’s all on Todd. Pfffft. There are plenty of areas that the D needs to improve in. Ditto the offense.
Not sure why some people need to have a hero and a villain (offense great – defense sucks, Liam great – Todd bad etc) in every situation but that seems to be the way it is. Unfortunately it’s not that simple…. Happy that more commenters seem to be adapting a “big picture” view that, IMO is closer to accurate/reality.
July 11th, 2025 at 4:41 pm
Lakeland Buc … ‘I’m more concerned with less Turnovers from our offense than more turnovers from our defense’.
Joe’s story was about defensive takeaways, not offensive giveaways. What’s important IMO is really the RELATIONSHIP of the two, ie, TURNOVER DIFFERENTIAL.
In that regard, Bucs as a TEAM were a MINUS FIVE Turnover Differential last season. That’s not good. We need to improve on BOTH sides of the ball to fix that.
July 11th, 2025 at 4:42 pm
If the defensive coordinator would coach the defensive backs to actually cover someone, then they might be in a similar zip code as a receiver, to maybe get hands on a football once in a while.
July 11th, 2025 at 5:26 pm
Defense Rules,
But answer one question for me
Does the offensive giveaways has an affect on our defensive stats
Especially our pass defense, since teams pass on us more than run
July 11th, 2025 at 6:22 pm
Lakeland Buc … ‘Does the offensive giveaways has an affect on our defensive stats?’
Oh ya, big time. Look back at 2019 when Jameis hit on 7 Pick-6s. Our defense got tagged with 49 points as a consequence, and were never on the field during those 49 points. BTW, the last defender to get a Pick-6 off Jameis that season? Our own Deion Jones. That one cost Jameis dearly in retrospect.
July 11th, 2025 at 6:51 pm
I think the defense is going to have a few more picks partly because the secondary is going to be playing more aggressive press more often. Add to that the new competition and maintaining our health a little better. Say 5 more picks. And I know Griz and Baker are eyeballing those 16 picks and know they have to get that number down. Say 5 less picks. That would be a great. And I feel good about our defense knocking the ball loose and recovering some fumbles. A bit concerned about our case of the fumbles last year but we were lucky to recover most of them. I’d rather see Baker not fumble it because invariably he dives after it and that’s an easy way to get hurt. His only career injury- his shoulder in his 4th year that he should’nt have played through- was a result of his making a tackle after he threw a pick. I think with his hard earned experience that we will have less turnovers this year. I think someone said we were the only playoff team with a minus turnover differential last year. That won’t cut it this year.
July 11th, 2025 at 9:15 pm
Critique comes when warranted, as it should. And having the fourth-worst pass defense in the league two years running is shameful.
July 11th, 2025 at 9:24 pm
I’m no expert but cover 3 (as I understand our primary coverage scheme last year was) forces CBs to cover a deep 3rd of the field as they have no help over the top from safeties. This could/would explain CBs playing off ball…. If their guy gets 1 step on them, and he’s fast (like almost all NFL WRs are) then it’s a long TD.
I don’t know the details of why we played so much cover 3 but Todd mentioned it in a press conference awhile back. I have kind of assumed it was due mostly to a lack of safety talent/health. Tykee should be good back there, hopefully AWJ returns to form and they stay healthy. Who are our depth pieces at safety, Izien and Merriweather?
We seem to have gotten better (on paper) @ ILB and safety in addition to some reinforcements @ nickel/CB. Also @ OLB and pass rush potential. All that SHOULD lead to less reliance on cover 3 and more turnovers, along with generaly higher D ranking if I had to guess 🤞🏼
July 11th, 2025 at 9:32 pm
Joe, let’s not be too harsh here. Bowles has been running the defense for 5 years while Brady and Mayfield have been hanging points so our opponents have been throwing alot just to keep up. And Post Brady he knew he had better spend and prioritize offense so we haven’t quite caught up with the defense-yet. I don’t care if we are 28th in passing yards allowed if we can get to top 10 in points allowed. There’s alot factoring into our pass defenses problems. Coach has duct taped and baling wired this beat up defense and kept it on the road. They kept hustling or no way we win 10 games last year. It’s fair to criticize our coach. But be fair about it.
July 11th, 2025 at 9:36 pm
I agree with you Joe, critique is fine when warranted. And I’m not saying it isn’t warranted with the pass D.
But I also think perspective is warranted and important
It may be “shameful” that our pass D ranked so poorly in pass yards allowed, but it’s not a very important stat, relatively speaking, when judging overall success of a team.
July 12th, 2025 at 2:19 am
Getting off the field and forcing punts is the stat that I most want to see improve.
It killed us last year. Poor pass defense was most responsible for this. Pass rush could help a bunch but the back end and scheme needs to improve as well.
Go Bucs!