Ask Bucs Nation - Again!

I like the throwback jerseys. But once a year is enough. Something about the color orange just makes me want to vomit.

McCoy has suddenly shown up. He pulled a fair amount of double teams early this season and was basically a non-entity. Hard to blame him specifically as he’s a just a rookie and his fellow D-Linemen weren’t helping him out much. He was getting 0 sacks and helping contribute to the worst run-defense in the league (more or less). Two weeks ago in San Fran he got two half-sacks, and then yesterday he got 2 real sacks. Really seems as if he’s starting to catch up to the NFL. Being a 1st round DT he gets compared to Sapp a lot and while you may be scoffing at such a comparison (rightfully so) it IS true that Sapp only had 3 sacks his rookie year. I’m not holding my breath on McCoy becoming a first-ballot-shoe-in for Canton, but the potential is certainly there. It could very well turn out that Suh had the explosiveness to be felt right away in this league but will peter out into obscurity while McCoy takes the opposite route.

As for Raheem, barring a monumental meltdown he’s earned another year at the helm methinks. 3-13 to 7-4. What more can you say? Whatever he’s doing it’s obviously working on some level. I don’t know anyone that thought we’d be doing this well. But as for cementing his place as the head coach of Tampa for years to come….? I don’t think we’re there yet. But if you guys would kindly lose to us and then beat the Saints, Raheem might be looking at Coach of the Year.

McCoy’s had a typical rookie season. He started off slow, where you could see glimpses of his skills but he got pushed around plenty as well and wasn’t consistently disruptive.
After the Saints game, where Chris Ivory ran all over us, he came out to the media and said that he was going to play more aggressively, whereas before he was more concerned with being in his gaps. Since then he’s gotten better every week. Against San Francisco he had would could be called a breakout game, with 2 half sacks and getting penetration the entire game. He showed up again this week, as he had 2 sacks and was in the backfield the entire game. Hopefully he can keep this up.

No one expected this year to go as well as it has, except for the most optimistic fans. I think it’s safe to say that Raheem is going to be here next year, unless the team collapses down the stretch. I think we’re way ahead of schedule.
That said, a lot of fans really didn’t like Raheem, who thought he was a terrible coach and a cheap hire by the Glazers. Going 3-13 created a lot of bad feelings. But I think those people are slowly turning around.

Ah well, shows it served its purpose at least.

The point of that comment was to instill some confidence in the team and take the focus away from the players and put it on the head coach, to take away some of the external pressure. Worked like a charm.

Besides, he qualified it with “We have the fewest losses, so we’re the best team” at the time, and once we didn’t have the fewest losses he said that we weren’t the best team anymore.

But I doubt it’s anything more than variance over a small sample. Though undoubtedly the largely empty stadium doesn’t help. But yes, I do see it as a positive for Sunday – if only because you guys won’t be at home, which should make a sizeable difference.

As for the injuries, they were to starting FS Cody Grimm and starting RG Davin Joseph. Davin Joseph has been a really good guard for us in the past, though I think he hasn’t been playing up to his standards this season. Still, that’s a sizeable blow, especially because we’re weak at LG already. As for Grimm, he’s a rookie 7th rounder who stepped in after week 2 when Tanard Jackson got suspended for the year. He had been playing really well for us and was probably the most reliable tackler on the team. Losing him is probably the biggest blow, if only because we’ll likely see the dreadful Sabby Piscitelli return to the starting lineup – which has us all scared to death.

which is strange for such a young and developing team. Going back to last season, the Bucs won 5 consecutive road games until the loss in Atlanta, which tied the team record.

S Cody Grimm is out with a broken fibula after getting rolled up yesterday, and is a huge loss to be sure. He was playing at a very high level and was as sure a tackler as anyone on the defense. His loss means the Bucs will have to insert Sabby Piscitelli (facepalm) or Corey Lynch, or shift Ronde Barber to safety and put EJ Biggers/Myron Lewis at cornerback. Davin Joseph has been one of the few constants on the offensive line this season and has performed steadily. Fortunately, the Bucs’ reserve lineman are battle-tested due to previous injuries along the offensive line.

But it’s going to be really close. We’re going to have to beat out some good teams. Luckily most of these teams have games remaining against eachother, and we have 3 games against beatable opponents (Seahawks, Redskins, Lions) that can get us to 10-6. At 10-6 we’ll be in the mix and if the other 7-4 teams stumble a little down the stretch we’ll be in. I think if we can either beat you guys this weekend or the Saints in the final week we’re definitely in, but we’re (deservedly) underdogs in both contests.

but if we do, there’s a good chance we’ll be locked up with Green Bay and/or New York with the same conference records…….thus putting the tiebreaker at strength of victory. That’ll kill us given the wins on our schedule (at least so far), so I’m a little nervous about the prospects of a wild card right now. Need to follow the Al Davis mantra and just win, baby.

Going into the season no one expected Freeman to play as well as he has and the team to win as many games as it has. The expectations for Freeman into last season were very low – he was not a popular draft pick. Now I don’t think there’s anyone who follows the team who doubts that Freeman will be a good franchise quarterback for a long time.

The consequence of this success is that the expectations get raised, a lot. Before the season, most people expected a 6-10 season or something similar. Now, the playoffs are within reach and the expectations for next season are probably for the team to make the playoffs and win or at least be competitive in some playoff games.

Be gap-sound, and tackle well.

and developing a pretty solid pass rush. The Bucs have accumulated 12 sacks in the previous 3 games, including 4 against a very solid Baltimore offensive line. Gerald McCoy is starting to live up to his high draft status.

1) Joseph will be replaced by Zuttah. We have no depth at guard at all, so that’s pretty bad. We’re not sure yet who will replace Grimm, though it’s likely to be Piscitelli. If it’s Piscitelli, we’re doomed. If any one player was responsible for the defensive collapse last year, it was Piscitelli. He was that bad. There’s also a chance Corey Lynch of Bengals Hard KNocks fame takes it, but it doesn’t seem likely.

2) I’m going with 10-6

3) Nope. He’s played every game this season. The reason he hasn’t been suspended by the team is that he blew under the legal limit on a breathalyzer. The DUI case won’t go forward until a urine test comes back in a couple weeks.

But both of those seem to have been fixed, we’ll see if they stick.

Next up is probably a consistent running game, better pass blocking, and the continued development of Freeman and the wide receivers, and their chemistry together.

That’s probably the biggest need and the draft class is pretty deep with DEs. If there are no viable DEs I can see them simply going with Best Player Available – with a focus on defense. Either a linebacker or safety would help.

At some point I’d expect them to pick up some O-line help as well – someone who projects as a Right Tackle or a Guard.

1. Well, he understands the offense a lot better than he did last year. This year he went through the entire offseason as the clear #1 QB, and he worked his butt off starting in January. Last year he was the 3rd or 4th QB on the depth chart in the offseason, didn’t get a lot of reps and the offense wasn’t built around him. Obviously that hurt him. Besides that he’s also improves his mechanics, stepping into his throws more and simply being more accurate with throws. There’s only been one pick that was caused by a misfire, and that happened early in the year when he still had an injured thumb which was throwing off his accuracy.

2. I’m not sure. I think the team would like him to stay as a 3rd-down back, but he may be too expensive for that to happen. His teammates and the fans love the guy, though.

But it’s definitely a weakness you should go after. Don’t know if it’d help Roddy that much, I think Talib did a decent job of stopping him last time we met.

Faine is back and playing. Trueblood has been active the past games but hasn’t played. It seems that James Lee has taken over his starting spot. Which is probably an upgrade, Trueblood was always a liability in pass protection. James Lee isn’t a world-beater or anything, but he’s slightly better than Trueblood.

I think we did a good job of stopping the run last time we faced, but we had a hard time stopping Gonzalez.

As for preparations, I’m not sure. We’ve started to run more ‘wildcat’ with Josh Johnson at QB, so that’s something you’ll see. Cody Grimm and Davin Joseph going on IR are big losses that’ll have an impact this Sunday.

A little more stunting, but folks are also starting to single block McCoy, which he has benefited. Teams are much more eager to get to the second level thinking they can hit a home-run if they do. McCoy is playing well, Crowder played good against Baltimore and they also have played Adam Hayward more at OLB which is a much better option against the run. Against the pass, you will them stick with Black. Black also may be the better option against Turner, who has more break away speed than a banged up Gore or Ray Rice.

He blew under the legal limit and a private test came back negative for any illicit substances.

As for off-the-field issues, he had a few in college. He missed a year because he cheated on a test, and most of last year because he quit on his team. The latter incident is a bit hazy, but from what we can piece together he got in a car accident (not his fault) past curfew, and would be suspended for that by the team. The coach then asked the team if they wanted Mike Williams to stay, which they did, but then the coach couldn’t get a hold of Mike Williams and assumed he had quit. Or at least, that’s one version. The other version is that he quit when he heard he’d be suspended again.

Anyway, none of that has resurfaced in his professional career – at least not so far. And the Bucs were very thorough in their background research on Mike Williams before the draft.

We have enough trouble spreading it around to the WR we have. Spurlock has made some phenomenal plays this year, but then drops the ball other times. I’m not sure it’s enough to bench him. Benn continues to develop slowly and I think Olson tries to keep getting him the ball. Stroughter has been disappointing, but still has some abilities.

At most, he’s a ST guy to replace Sabby.

Another tidbit learned today at #Bucs practice: WR Dez Briscoe, fresh up from practice squad, is turning lots of heads and could play vs ATL

Ability to wear our defense down and kill us on 3rd downs again.

Because our special teams has been pretty poor outside of that game. The coverage units are pretty decent but not great, and returns have been terrible.

This should be a good game. The Bucs d-line and Josh Freeman are stout challenges for the Birds.

I’m really kinda hoping Raheem Morris supplies some bulletin board material again.

God I hate Jim Mora. As an announcer. And a coach. HATE