“Live Tackling Matters”
July 25th, 2026
Todd Bowles’ teams have started 2-0 in each of the past four seasons. Last season it was 3-0.
It’s been a stunning display of readiness for Week 1. But what about after that?
Joe can’t pinpoint why the Bucs have an annual swoon. Have the Bucs been ready for the rigors of a long season?
Hall of Fame Bucs cornerback Rondé Barber was on SiriusXM NFL Radio this week talking about how softer practicing has changed the game.
Maybe things will change this season, but the Bucs rarely if ever tackle to the ground in training camp and players are not fighting for every blade of grass as a matter of policy. That’s not unique to Tampa Bay, though practice intensity varies across the league.
“Live reps matter, like live tackling matters. You don’t get that really in [training camp] anymore,” Barber said. “Most of the time they’ll have pads on and a lot of walkthroughs and whatnot right now. But like, knowing how to hit, get hit and go to the ground, it’s a learned act. Like it’s not something you can just do.
“In football, you can’t, you cannot, I’m telling you, you cannot just turn a switch and say, ‘Now I’m in tackle mode.’ Like, it, like it takes reps, it takes practice, it takes like, you know, time on task, to like get the feel for what it’s like to hit different people and get hit. I think we’re losing a little bit of that. It’s not disappointing; it just kind of is what it is. But I think that the cumulative effect on the game, I don’t think that it’s necessarily positive.
Ira Kaufman, the venerable JoeBucsFan.com columnist, said this week that he believes Bowles will have tougher practices this summer, in part, because he’s feeling the win-now pressure as it relates to his job.
That was an intriguing take in light of the Bucs pursuing tougher-minded players and more physical guys this offseason.
Barber said joint practices — the Bucs are planning two each with the Jets and Jaguars this summer — can make a signficant impact.
“I love joint practices,” Barber said. “I mean, put it this way, I never got to play [much against] Dan Marino, but I joint practiced with that dude a bunch when I was a young player, and it was awesome. I think it creates some natural competition. There’s a certain feel that you get against another team that you don’t get seeing the same guy every day. I think it’s great. … And I think it only helps.”
Joe loves the joint practices. The vibe is productive and guys visibly work harder. Everything feels more like gameday of a team that cares.
Avoiding the midseason nosedive, aka playing consistent football, should be a top priority for Bowles and friends this season. That’s a great thing to figure out in Year 5 of a regime.
July 25th, 2026 at 7:41 pm
Wrap up and finish! Simple
July 25th, 2026 at 8:27 pm
With the Bucs having a soft coach who has soft practices and “walk throughs” (aka not doing jack sh!t), what do you expect?
July 25th, 2026 at 8:35 pm
The players union has done away with the old school practices and I’m not sure I want to see us hammering our teammates too hard anyway. They’re never going to allow as much frequency or intensity as they did back in the day….like it or not they’re trying to protect the players.
Joint practice is a whole different creature….aren’t we joint practicing Jax this year too?
Preseason games are more good reps (for some) too.
We’ll be ready
July 25th, 2026 at 9:43 pm
Simple T Says:
“they’re trying to protect the players”
Yet the result seems to be the opposite….
I say all the ‘soft’ practices and extreme limitations on tackling in the offseason, during training camp and in practices throughout the regular season are creating MORE injuries than ever before. Especially at the beginning of the regular season – when multiple starters on multiple teams across the league seem to drop like flies during the first couple of games – because their bodies are not in any way ‘conditioned’ to the hitting and tackling that “real” football requires….
July 25th, 2026 at 9:52 pm
Has nothing to do with our mid season collapses. Like the article says most teams have soft practices they can only have so many per the cba. I think our losing streaks are the exact result of a stubborn coach. We start out hot he thinks his team is great and can just keep on winning without changing anything. As the teams are changing to stop our offense and to beat our defense he stays the same. It’s his inability to gameplan is his downfall. Old school coaches just think beat my defense I’m not changing it on a weekly basis per the team I’m playing it works against everyone. We look the same every week. Very rarely do us fans not know what play is being run. Easy for a team to gameplan against us when they know we aren’t changing much at all from week to week. Except for the Carolina fist game debacle where Bowles wanted to run it 40 times regardless if it worked because we beat them last year doing that. That was a great example of a stubborn coach
July 25th, 2026 at 10:01 pm
The Bucs were a prime example of this phenomenon in 2025…..
By the end of game 2 last year – the Bucs had already lost Mauch and Kancey for the season and Goedeke was also injured and out of the lineup for 6 weeks. I think Evans made it to game 3 before he suffered a hamstring injury that sidelined him for the next 3 games.
Bodies that aren’t in “football shape” are prone to more frequent and more serious injuries while playing the game for real on Sundays. That’s my observation from watching 50+ years of NFL football – and you will never convince me that drastically reducing the amount of time players are “allowed” to practice hitting each other and tackling is somehow”protecting” those players……
July 25th, 2026 at 10:34 pm
I think this era of football has far more injuries than in the past when real hitting was allowed in practice. It seems like the majority of our players get hurt during the first part of the year. Some don’t even make it out of training camp. If Rhonde knows this, why doesn’t the ex-players in the NFLPA know this.
I think they should take away the helmets and the hard pads. Then, players wouldn’t throw themselves around so recklessly.