Breaking Down the Top Performances vs. Indianapolis, Previewing Atlanta | Bucs Insider

can leave your questions down in the comments section. So as we have people a chance to start doing that, I figured we would start with some of the roster moves that we have, which is it's always fun whenever we have some news right before this show, So tell us what we know about some of these roster moves that have happened this week. Hey, things are starting to look pretty good. Uh. The team is returning to health. As probably most fans watching this heard yesterday, Scotty Miller

was activated from injured reserve. There was a spot open because we released long snapper Carson Tinker and that's because Zach Trinner returned from injured reserve for the last game,

as did Sean Murphy bunting. And now we get another piece of good news this morning that cornerback Carlton Davis has been designated to return to practice starting today, so that begins a three week window at when which you can practice with the team without counting against the fifty three man roster, and if at any point the Bucketeers feel like he's ready to go, he can be activated

to the active roster. So the Books are pretty close to getting back to their starting lineup of cornerbacks from Week one, which didn't even last that full game because that's when Sean Murphy Bunting had his dissocated elbow against the Cowboys, So we haven't played a full game with the three corners that we intended to be our top three guys were getting close to that, and then one of the little piece of news the Jaguars signed Jaden Mickens off of our practice squad to their active roster.

And uh so we have resigned wide receiver John Hurst. Yeah, so many, so many moves happening, uh and it's it's great. It is some of the first times we're feeling like there is multiple bits of good news on the injury front, which is really nice timing wise. Um, and we saw some of the effects of that already in this last game. It felt like and I just wanted to hear your your major takeaways from this last week. Well, to stay with that theme, Rob Gronkowski was back, and boy, it's

good to have Rob Gronkowski back. Uh, for just for that offense. I mean, he immediately had six catchers for something like seventy one yards. He had our longest play the game, which is a thirty five yard or on third and two. Uh, and then even the other Titans. And honestly, during the time that Gronkowski was out, the Buccaneers still had two very good tight ends and O. J. Howard and Cam Bread, but they just didn't get that

involved in the passing game. Well, Gronkowski come backs, comes back, catches six passes, but Cam Braid and O. J. Howard made some big plays in that game as well. So just the whole Titan group kind of gets tied together when Gronkowski is back. But you know, my other big takeaway from that game is, as it's been the story a lot this year, the Buccaneers, Tom Brady and the Bucks offense are taking what the defense is gonna give.

And they knew the Giants were gonna come in and play lot of too high safeties to try to take away the big play. A because that's what the Giants have been doing all year, and B because that's what a lot of teams have been doing to the Buccaneers specifically. So Tom ready take what they took what they give them, and did it really well. I know everybody was a little frustrated with the dink and dunk game in Washington, but this was totally different. This was a really well

scripted game. And if you talk about successful plays, and I'll be done with this long run here in the second casey, but if you talk about successful plays as they're defined by next Gen stats, play as a success if it gets four more yards on first down, if it gets half or more of the yards needed for a first down on second down, and if it gets the first down or a touchdown on third and fourth down.

By that definition, the Buccaneers started that game with seventeen straight successful plays, including every single play in the first quarter. I mean, that's just good scripting and good execution. Yeah, that's incredible. That is I love that staff. That's really great. And of course we had a bunch of questions asking with all that injury update, we just gave uh Antonio Brown, what do we know about when he might be healthy or when we we might know when he might be healthy? Well,

I mean we you know. When Bruce Arian spoke on Tuesday, because we had the Monday night game, he had some promising things to say about a number of guys, including the fact that Vita Via amazingly should be ready to

go this week and should probably be practicing today. Um. And and then he said Carlton could return, and now he has, but he was a little less Um, I don't know specific Antonio Brown, he says he's getting better, but I didn't hear the words that made me think he's coming back now, you know, But I think he's getting close, okay. And then the same thing with Ali Marpett. What we know about his injury, So it's an oblique injury, and apparently it's a little hard to tell how long

those things are gonna take. I think that's a pain thing for one thing, and maybe you know it's hard to move. Uh. And he coach Arean said, we probably wouldn't know until closer to the end of the week if it's gonna be bad enough to keep Ali out for a game. Um, hopefully not. But we really can't. You know, we really can't complain too much because so far all of our five offensive line starters have started every game and you won't find that on many teams

around the league. Okay, and Jonathan asked us to say hello to him from Newfoundland, Canada. All right, he's probably impressed that you pronounced it right and not Newfoundland. Once you said that, I suddenly got nervous. I was like, oh God, how could I I mean, I think you got it right. So it's Jonathan. Yes, I Jonathan in Newfoundland. That's funny. When you first said about my pronunciation, I thought you meant Jonathan, and I was like, I don't feel like I should have got a lot of credit

for that job. That's so buddy. Um alright. Our next one was asking about how long we think Richard Sherman might be out as well, or when we might know some more. Yeah. When Richard Sherman went down the second time with the caffe injury, UM, I could tell from bruce Arians wording and tone to the answer to that question that we're not gonna see him for a while. Uh. You know, he said he's not gonna be back anytime soon,

and to be asked with you. The urgency isn't quite as strong there now, with Carlton Davis hopefully returning to action soon and Sean Murphy bunting back in the lab, so you'd like to have him available, but it's a little less urgent than it was a few weeks ago. Yeah, we can just continue to get coach Richard Sherman and get the YEA. Our next one was that William wanted us to talk about Joe Tryon's game and what you saw from him. Yeah, he got to play a decent amount,

which is good. You know, his his playing time has kind of gone up and down a little bit a lot of the times that that's just had to do with the type of offense we were facing and and their game plan. Uh. And they moved him around a lot, so you know, he had a couple of plays I think. I don't think he had a stack that was um Anthon, Nelson and cam Gill, but he had some pressures in there. And again when he's had a chance to get in there immers of the pastory, he's looked pretty good. So

I think everybody feels really good about his future. Okay, Uh, Yeah, And I had asked do you think he'll get more playing time? Again, I think it has to do with the with the game plan each week. So this one we're playing the Colts obviously, with they they have the best running back in football now pretty much undisputed with Derrick Henry injured. Jonathan Taylor. I mean, he just ran for four touchdowns and caught another one. So we're gonna

get a big dose of Jonathan Taylor. And that may, you know, that may put us in more base sets, that may make us want to have JPP out there more. Uh, you know, because he's pretty good at set in the edge. So I don't know, we'll see, but it's kind of

a game plan dependent thing, okay. Uh. And then Richard had asked, what are your thoughts on Devin White starting to play like the player we have expected these last couple of weeks, And I know that actually is also a great segue into some news we have in terms of the Pro Bowl. Yeah, right before we came on the air, we got the email from the league for the first time on an update of the fan voting for the Pro Bowl. So the fan voting started last week,

I believe, So get out there and vote. I'm sure, there's all kinds of links all over Buccaneers dot com, um, but it's on NFL dot com. And uh, there were two Buccaneers that are currently leading the fan voting at their positions in the NFC, and that's Tom Brady at quarterback and Devin White at inside linebacker. So obviously the splash plays that he's made the last couple of weeks are you know, people are starting to take notice. And of course, when you play on Monday night and everybody

gets to see you. He had his big two sack game and eighteen tackles in Washington. Didn't have any sex on Monday night. But he's still really doing a good

job of pressure in the quarterback. And one of the reasons why those plays are showing up more now is, as Bruce Arians was explaining yesterday, when the Buccaneers said, some injury issues going on on defense for you know, a good part of the first half of the season, they asked Devin to play a lot more, you know, stay in the middle of the defense and and you know,

take the middle of the field. But now that they're a little healthy and they can play a little more man to man and don't have to go zone all the time. Uh, they can blitz him more often, or he can go on that delayed blitz when he sees that the running back is staying in to protect and so he's just getting more opportunities. And we've seen over the last few seasons that when he decides to go in the backfield, he gets in there really really fast.

So you're starting to see that. And he didn't have any sex in this game, but he did pressure the quarterback on the interception by Steve McClendon. And he also tipped the ball that was intercepted by Mike Edwards. So he's out there to make it place. Yeah, absolutely, and

it was great. I had Mike called Well, the inside linebacker coach, on my radio show yesterday, and uh, he said that Devin had even made a comment about how he really had wanted to get himself the interceptions and not just be tipping things or helping or causing stuff. So when he ended up doing that and tipping it to Mike Edwards, coach Caldwell said they were all planning on giving him a lot of grief of like, hey man, I thought you said you were going to get it yourself.

Hey man, Steve mccleinson's out there getting interceptions, So I think that's what I told. I was like, I bet that's some extra motivation to like, he got one more than you did that game. Um. We also had a question asking how concerned we should be about facing Jonathan Taylor this next week. Well, yeah, any team should be. But you know the thing about it is, I mean he's gonna be a huge challenge for any defense because

he's the whole package. He's uh fast, He's really fast, Like he got up to twenty two miles per hour on a seventy eight yard run earlier this season, and that's the fastest that any running back has run on any play this year. But he's also big and strong and powerful, can run between the tackles, can break tackles.

I mean it's a challenge for anybody. But you also go into these games going well, if any team is equipped to deal with a Jonathan Taylor or any great running back, it's the Buccaneers, who's run defense for the third year in a row is number one in the league. We had dropped the number two, but we're back to number one now and we probably have Vida Veia back

in the middle, so that really helps. So, I mean, I wouldn't go anywhere and make any sort of bull predictions on the Bucks defense being able to stop Jonathan Taylor, but at least they are well prepared to do so, okay, all right, Well that is going to do it for us on this stition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Laite. Thanks as always for joining us and for those great questions, and we'll see you next week