The final play of the game was heartbreaking, and never seen before in Bucs
history! But that was not what lost the game for the Bucs; It wasn’t a blocked FG which was not a low kick anymore than the punt the blocked because it was a low punt. The Bucs did not lose because of conservative play calling, the Bucs running attack was working well, there is rarely such a thing as a bad play call, only bad results. Nor was the fact the Bucs chose not to try to score at the end of the first half the reason for the loss; The Bucs had the ball at their own 40 yard line with 9 seconds left. Probably half of all coaches go into the locker room with a 3 point game.
The Bucs lost the game because they allowed a Field Goal and Punt to be blocked because of poor blocking on Special Teams, and a depleted roster already devoid of playoff caliber talent.
Even the turnover by Josh McCown was not the main reason the Bucs lost the football game, there was a ton of football to play afterwards. Thats not to say the play of Bucs QB Josh McCown isn’t concerning. However he put the bad play behind him and for the most part had a good game. McCown was 16 of 21 for 179 yards and the one INT but 0 TD tossed, however he ran in BOTH TDs scored.
Brett Favre had almost all of his records at Southern Miss broken by Austin Davis, who has shown he deserves to QB the Rams the rest of the Season. It wasn’t that he got lucky, Davis’ passes were crisp and on the mark, usually thrown exactly where a WR needed the ball to be placed. As frustrating as it was to get beat by a 3rd string QB, fact is for 2nd week in a row, the opposing teams Starting QB has outplayed our backup QB starting for the Bucs.
The real question is, are improvements being made? The answer is a resounding Yes. The offensive Line improved greatly, with Logan Mankins playing the Bucs were able to run the ball with backup Bobby Rainey gaining 144 yards on 22 carries for a 6.5 yards per carry average. Unlike last weeks long run by fullback Javorskie Lane which falsely increased the rushing yards per carry average, Rainey had only a 30 yard run, so the average is an accurate measure of his rushing ability.
The defensive line got a couple sacks, but still rushed the QB far too light despite injuries to 3 of 4 starters.
In spite of all the injuries to Bucs starters on defense, Mike Jenkins, Michael Johnson, Gerald McCoy, Mason Foster, Adrian Clayborn, Da’Quan Bowers, and others, the Bucs defense has surrendered only 3 touchdowns in two games.
The Bucs are now one of the least penalized teams, after being on top of the NFL in that category last season, seemingly getting almost 100 yards of penalties each game, that number has dwindled considerably. That is from good coaching.
Lets keep in mind play calls have always been judged by their result, no matter what the call, when its made, the consensus is “What a great call by that coach” and when it doesn’t work “What was that coach thinking” when it could be the same call. There is no doubt a running play on 3rd and 7 is conservative, but when your running back averages over 6 yards a clip, its not far fetched to think you can surprise a team with a run. 3rd and 2 SHOULD be a running down, and last year it surprised me that every time the Bucs had 3rd and 2 we lined up in the shotgun.
The bottom line is our expectations were too high for this team. The roster simply is not a playoff roster when you take injuries into consideration. Maybe if you have a healthy roster, but no team goes without injuries.
The real problem is regime changes. Every time you change a regime, you thin out your roster. Greg Schiano got rid of Raheems players. Then Lovie Smith got rid of Schiano’s players. If we keep that up, it will get us nowhere. Remember, a lot of good Bucs players on Tony Dungy’s winning teams were not on the first years roster.
It takes time, which we ran out of yesterday, but there are 14 games left in the season for this team to grow. All the losing is not going to go away in 2 games.
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