Bills/Bucs Preview: Tons of Stats and My (And Twitter's) reasons to hate Tampa Bay

(Going to try something new for the site. Will do a legit preview, My 3 reasons to hate the Bucs and Twitter's trolling of the franchise all in one piece. Let me know what you think.)

Are you ready for some meaningless football?!

Ugh.

Yes, it is our favorite time of year. As an ex-pat, when the season starts I tend to venture to McFaddens (NYC Bills bar) because the hype for the season is at an apex. Then when the season starts getting away from us, I start just going to local establishments in Queens. Once the season becomes a shit storm, I just look for an illegal feed of the game to watch on my couch. We are sadly at this juncture.

However, the Bills are still playing football and bad, meaningless football is better than no football at all. Also, we still have the EJ Manuel watch, which is better to watch in December than Ryan Fitzpatrick or Trent Edwards. So, for the sake of entertainment value and seeing what EJ can do, it is time for the Bills to really take the training wheels off him. Consider this..

EJ is 28th in pass attempts while the Bills as a team are 23rd. They have just 13TD passes this season (28th) and are 30th in completion %. The Bills are also 31st in passing yards per attempt.

Yeah, let's start loosing up the arm a bit. Hell, we got nothing to lose at this point because we aren't making the playoffs. So, let's just sling it.

Tampa Bay overview

Get ready for a lot of WGR whiner line callers to voice their displeasure about EJ Manuel because of Mike Glennon.

Host: I'm sure we are going to get tons of callers who are obsessed with Glennon and say the Bills made the wrong choice. [Stares at phone and starts praying for someone to take the bait]

The thing is, Glennon has been pretty impressive for a rookie. In 9 starts, the kid has 13TDs, 5INTs and 1,962 yards passing. He's had stellar games against Seattle ( 2TDs and completing 73% of passes) and Detroit (2TDs and completing 66% of his passes). He's also won 3 of his last 4 starts. His weakness seems to be that he takes too many sacks. In his 9 starts, he's been sacked 29 times and he's been sacked 11 times in his last 3 games.

From PFF: He's ranked as the 21st best QB in the league. He's completed 48% of his throws that have traveled 20+ yards through the air (6th best in the league). When blitzed, Glennon has a QB rating of 83.4 with 9TDs and 4INTs.

As bad as the Bucs have been this year, they have lost a lot of close games (Hmm..remind us of a team we know?). Some of their losses have been by 1, 2, 3, 8 and 3 points. They almost beat Seattle and New Orleans as well.

The Bills will once again be facing a team that can't run the football to save their lives (Yeah..That went super great against Atlanta last week, right?). The Bucs have averaged just 3.8 yards a carry this year (ranked 24th), yet, they are 15th in rushing attempts, so, they will try to at least run the football.

Who to stop on Tampa's offense?

Vincent Jackson. God..I wish the Bills could have bagged this guy 2 years ago. He's been targeted by Tampa QBs 119 times this season, which ranks 6th most in the league and has accounted for 50% of the Bucs passing targets. His 61 catches for 963 yards and 5TDs ranks 24th, 13th, and 24th in the league.

From PFF, Jackson was targeted 32 times last year on throws that were 20+ yards through the air (2nd in the NFL), but for this year, his targets are at 20, which ranks 13th.

Who the hell is on Tampa's defense?

Sapp..Lynch..Simeon Rice..Barber..Oh, right..They are all on TV now and are obnoxiously annoying. Right now, the Bucs are ranked 17th in total defense, 18th in opposing passing yards and 12th in opposing rushing yards. Their two studs on defense seem to be Lavonte David (108 tackles, 5 sacks and 3INTs) and Gerald McCoy ( 6 sacks and 33 tackles).

From PFF, McCoy is ranked as the #1 defensive tackle in the league. He's 2nd in QB hurries, 1st in QB hits and 4th in sacks for defensive tackles. David is ranked as the #2 4-3 OLB in the league. He's ranked 1st in sacks and 4th in QB hits at the position. However, he has given up a ton of yards in coverage with 476 yards, which is the 3rd most given up at his position.

Matchup to watch

Revis vs. Stevie. Oh, right..They got Revis. I totally forgot that. Revis has adjusted to his new stomping grounds quite well as PFF has him ranked as the best CB in the league. He's given up only 233 yards this season and has allowed a completion percentage of 55% and a QB rating of 65.1. So, he's come on since his ACL injury.

We all know that Stevie has had some success against Revis, although, they have only met each other 3 times (Revis missed 3 of those games, two in 2010 and one in 2012).

From PFF, in their first game against each other (27-11, Jets win), Revis gave up 3 catches for 84 yards to Stevie who was targeted 5 times. In their 2nd game (28-24, Jets win), Revis gave up 8 catches for 75 yards and a TD to Stevie who was targeted 11 times. In their last encounter (48-28, Jets win), Stevie had just 2 catches for 14 yards and was targeted 7 times.

Prediction:

It will be interesting to see how the Bills react after their devastating loss against Atlanta. Let's not forget the egg they laid against Pittsburgh after they outplayed KC. Will there be another hangover this time or will they have grown from their loss?

I'm going to say..hangover.

The Bills just can't win on the road. EJ is still looking for his 1st road win as a pro and the Bills have only 4 road wins since the start of the 2011 season. For crap sakes, they went a year between road wins twice since then! The Bills have also given up 30 points per game on the road this season.

I do think the Bills can get after Glennon, but Vincent Jackson scares me a bit, especially against Gilmore, who has had a pretty crappy season. Defensively, Tampa Bay doesn't exactly blow and I think the Bills may have issues with running the football against them. I've been pretty bad at predicting games this season, but I just think road woes will continue. Bucs win, 23-17.

My 3 reasons to hate Tampa Bay

3) We suck in Tampa Bay- Although we only play them there once every 8 years now, it has been our NFC house of horrors. Where to start? Well, wide right happened there. Why the hell couldn't they fricken have astro turf instead of grass (Norwood was like 1-7 on FGs on grass from 40+ yards).

How about 1988? The Bills were 11-2 and were steam rolling to homefield advantage for the playoffs. Somehow, they lost to a shitty Tampa Bay team by the score of 10-5. What the hell kind of score is that (Only time that has happened in the NFL)?! Because of the loss, the Bills ended the season as a 2nd seed and lost in the AFC Championship game to the Bengals on the road. The Bills had gone 8-0 that season at home. Who the hell knows what could have happened if they played the game at Rich Stadium.

Now let's travel to the 2000 game in Tampa. The Bills were 7-4 and really surprised a lot of people with their record after they lost Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Kurt Schultz, and Thomas Smith in the offseason. The game was a disaster. The Bills kept it close throughout, but they lost Sam Cowart, Sam Rogers and Keion Carpenter for the season to high ankle sprains. Cowart's loss was a HUGE blow for the team as he was their best defensive player that year.

The Bills would end up losing their next 3 games and would finish the season 8-8. Afterwards, Wade Phillips and John Butler were canned and this pretty much started the 14-year odyssey of missing the playoffs. Who the hell knows what happens if we win that game or our defense doesn't die from high ankle sprains.

Remember JP Losman's 2nd start in 2005? It was a fricken disaster in Tampa Bay. The Bills loss 19-3 and it was just an all-around turd fest. Losman got his typical safety (Did this happen like 10 times while he was here or what?) and it was a snooze fest of a game. I remember watching this at a NYC bar and wanting to slit my wrist. The Bills had 8 first downs in that game! 8!!!

The Bills have met Tampa Bay 9 times and TB owns a .667 winning percentage against them and have only played once in Buffalo. Yes, once!! What BS is that?!

2) Their coaches have been douchebags- Alright, Dungy isn't a douchebag, but Sam Wyche? Douchebag based on his years with the Bengals and being JP Losman's QB coach. John Gruden? Ego maniac douchebag. Just watch his damn mic'd up from the Super Bowl. Dude was annoying as shit. Also, how on Earth was he on People's Sexiest Man Alive list? He looks like Chuckie and last I checked, Chuckie wasn't exactly a cute doll. Oh, and he turned us down in 2009 like the other 20 coaches did that year. Greg Schiano? Um, can we just use George Carlin's 7 dirty words to describe him? Just complete assclowns.

1) Shitty history, but at least they have a title– From the mid-70s to 1996, you couldn't find a sadder franchise than Tampa Bay. For God sakes, they went 12 straight seasons with 10 losses or more. On top of that, they started their existence by going 0-14. In a way, they were kind of like us. They had a really crappy history, but once they got Dungy/Gruden, they had a nice 10-year run (95-05) like we did in the 90s. So, they had a real crappy 20 year start, then a nice run, and now are complete crap. Again, exactly like the Bills.

However, they at least got a title. That's all Bills fans wanted. They would totally take a SB and walk across the football desert we are in now for the next 50 years. On top of that, they gave Rob Johnson a SB ring. Enough said.

Twitter's hate for Tampa Bay

@BuffaloWins They won a Super Bowl with Rob Johnson on their roster. Jerks.

— T.J. Luckman (@TJLuckman550) December 5, 2013

Bills/Bucs Preview: Tons of Stats and My (And Twitter’s) reasons to hate Tampa Bay

Alan Draper

Alan Draper

Alan Draper