Some out there would have you believe the Bucs need to blow this team up and start over. Some would throw the coach in that pile too, after three weeks. But perhaps you will listen to the voice of sanity, the voice of reason. The voice, of DERRICK BROOKS; who tells us the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense is not dead, just not quite there yet.
Brooks points out the Bucs are nowhere near the point where his defense was, in their ability to regroup after a devastating loss like this was. Sure Brook’s Bucs got shellacked by Gruden’s Raiders 48-0 , the team got on the plane and put the game behind them. ” No need to look at the game film” we put that in the mirror.
This 2014 Bucs team lacks the experience, the confidence, and the knowledge to be able to do that. But that’s not enough to prevent #55 from proclaiming on the Steve Duemig show.. “They’re not that far away”!
If Brooks has lost you at this point, he explains. “Watching the spacing of the defense for example….Stay on your landmarks longer. Recognize the plays that can hurt you in certain zones, your ‘Alignment Assignment’ technique…”!
Brooks exclaims the Bucs are reminding him of the team he was on in 1996. “It was hard for me to believe we were 0 and (5) and we were losing, and coach Dungy kept saying “We’re not that far off…keep doing these things and keep doing these things… ”
Derrick Brooks played the game with a lot of passion, so its no secret he takes his role in this discussion of the current Bucs in the same light. “Just play cover 2, jam your man inside and get back to your landmarks, sit in the flat and get a pick”!
“A play action pass, all the linebackers recognize it, run to your zones, theres only one receiver that can hurt you..run to it! They’re trying to do too much”. Capable of being a coach of the Tampa Two himself with the enormous amount of study Brooks has put into it during his career.
“They’re doing too much and that’s when you get hurt in this defense is when their trying to do too much because these players are not sophisticated enough in this defense to get away with that”.
When a player tries to do too much, he is leaving an area of HIS OWN game vulnerable, which is being exploited. This is nothing new, I’ve heard this from the Orange days of Tony Dungy teaching this defense to his players. In anything you do, when you get good at it, your no longer thinking about it, your just reacting. Thinking takes time, and time in this defense kills.
So common sense would dictate turning over the defensive roster will just make it worse, you’ll have to retrain the new people and start all over. Do a few pieces need to be tinkered with? Of course, but tinker, don’t overhaul.
Brooks understand the fans won’t get that when they look at the score and see the 56 points, but Bucs lost opening day to the Packers 34-3 with Warren Sapp, Hardy Nickerson, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, Brad Culpepper, Reagan Upshaw, all starting on defense. Without playing the system properly, they are all nothing more than a collection of very talented INDIVIDUAL players.
A 21-6 loss at Detroit followed, and a 27-0 loss at home as well, before a 4 game streak where the defense gave up no more than 13 points a game. They were starting to get the point. (or rather, NOT give up the point!!)
Bucs fans just need to be patient. The Tampa Two is just a base defense, the team does not run it on every play. Dozens of teams run a Tampa Two defense, including the Carolina Panthers who ran it to the #2 spot in the NFL last year. Only two years ago Lovie Smith had the Bears with the No.5 defense, in the same plan. If you watch other NFL games, you’ll hear it called out on a regular basis “They’re running the Tampa Two here”. Its like the West Coast Offense, its entrenched in the NFL in one form or another, but isn’t it funny the teams who do good at anything have been running their system for years, not just a few months like the Bucs.
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