Welcome to Bucks Insider, presented by Verizon Casey Phillips. Here a senior writer and editor Scott Smith, and we have some fun stuff to talk about.
This is the best.
We are both very excited to be here talking about this this morning.
It just keeps getting better, it does.
And I mean, man, I had so much fun being at that game, and this is my ninth season. Now, I know you have many more on me than that, just a few, but it was one of the most fun experiences I've had at a Bucks game.
In a while.
I feel like it was great. The crowd was hyped, it was dramatic, and you know, even with some of the things that didn't go well for the Bucks, like drop passes, it still was kind of exciting. The whole way and the back and forth and then the Bucks pulling away. It was kind of an emotional experience.
I agree. I think that there's so much into these Bucks.
Fans are so invested in this and especially with this whole underdog mentality, people counting us out at the beginning of the year. It's just and I love guys are now starting to talk about the idea of a revenge tour being able to take on these teams they too earlier on in the season, right the ship.
As we say, compared to that.
So it's just been so fun, and especially I feel like offensively after a couple of games to end the regular season that hadn't been as big of a production offensively as you know, the Packers and Jaguars games had been, to see them get off to a bit of a faster start, even though still that first drive touchdown is a bit a bit elusive, but to get off to a much faster start offensively and some chunk plays was really exciting.
Yeah, and they scored on the first four offensive drives. Unfortunately, three of those were field goals and more of those have to turn into touchdowns because for that reason, even though you felt like you were dominating the game, it was still close into the third quarter, and so obviously the Bucks want to get that ball on the inZone more.
But I think scoring first, getting in a groove early allowed for you know, Dave Canalis to open up the playbook a little bit more and and and you know, the defense could do some different things because Philadelphia got away from the run. So it was a really nice offensive start, and of course Baker Mayfield was incredible.
Yeah, and it was so great to see him. It just looked like he felt so much better. For one thing, the poor guy had been pretty beat up these last three weeks, and to me, I was not quite as terrified watching him scramble as I had been the couple of weeks before. He just looked so much more like himself as you see in this clip. He was feeling it. Yes, he was Bacon and I just felt like he was in a groove. The offense was in a groove. Everybody seemed to be on the same page.
Yeah, And Baker, really I thought he was sharpe. I thought he did the things that Dave Canalos has been saying all season that he wants him to do, which was take take the easy stuff, take the stuff that schemed up and works like something like that, this little that's you know, take that. But when there's times when it's the right time, you take the deep shot. And he did that as well. It's just we couldn't really hold on to it. So we got a lot of our big plays off of Yak, which we'll talk about
in a bit. But Baker really his first playoff game for the Buccaneers kind of like his first playoff game for the Browns was a really really good one. In fact, it was one of the best games the Buccaneer quarterback has had in the playoffs. I think it was I think we have a great for it, but I think he was maybe, oh there it is. Well, first of all, he's the first Bucks quarterback and this is kind of surprising to throw for three hundred yards and three touchdowns
in the same playoff game. He would have thought at some point Tom did that, but it was never. He did have three hundred games, he did have three touchdown games, but not at the same time. So you see third best in passing yards, tied for the most passing touchdowns, and second in pass rating only to Tom Brady in the Super Bowl.
Incredible.
If you're just second behind Tom Brady, you've done a good game.
You've done pretty dang well, that's for sure. And you know, with a great offensive game like that, typically you would imagine the stats are Mike Evans hundred yards, Chris Godwin maybe eighty something or more, and that those are your main guys putting up numbers that let you have those kind of big games. That wasn't necessarily how it worked
out this game. In other word, like we talked about a drop or two for Mike that I'm sure he would like to have back, or just passes that were just so close and almost there.
But you had incredible production.
From guys like Palmer and Moore and Aughten that isn't necessarily what you imagine is the go to for this offense. And I feel like that's so encouraging in the playoffs to know how many options you have.
Yeah, and before this game, I was making the point that because of what Philly's defense has given up and not given up, I felt like for us to win that game, either Mike or Chris or both of them would have to have a big game. And I think the Eagles thought the same thing, because their defensive game plan obviously spend a lot of time trying to double those guys as much as possible, and when that happens, you're obviously going to open up parts of the field
for the other guys that are on the field. And so you need your Trey Palmers and your Kate Ottens who had a great game, and even David Moore, who's basically your fifth receiver. You need those guys to produce because you know they're making a point of taking Mike and Chris out, and they certainly did, and they all had. All those guys had big plays. One of the big things about that though, was the yak They had two hundred and ten yards after the catch like this Kate Otten.
And that's partially because Baker Mayfield was so on point and getting it to these guys in positions where they could catch it in stride and run like that one. Now, Trey Palmer kind of did all of his on his own. He broke a tackle and then was shot out of a cannon between all those defenders. But just real nice production from the offense as the hole and Baker going to the open man even if it's not Mike and Chris.
And of course to do all that, Baker needed some time. Baker needed to be protected, and we knew that that front can do some damage if you let them. And it felt like even though he was sacked a few times, sometimes it was more of a coverage thing or it wasn't directly just guys getting absolutely burned, and it felt like, especially on the edges, they were able to keep him pretty clear.
Yeah, if you think about those four sacks, the most damaging one was the one on third and one when you were in field goal range and then you're out, and that came right up the middle. So there was
some times where they got pressure up the middle. But they have two very good edge rushers and Hassan Reddick who is going to the Pro Bowl and Josh Sweat, and Hassan Reddick was mostly on Luke Getticky did not have a single pressure in that entire game, and Josh Sweat was mostly on Tristan Wurf's like twenty five snaps i think pass rush snaps and only had one pressure. So those two guys to one pressure was a huge part of that game that you don't really see in the stat.
Book and will be very important this next week as well, I'm sure. So we talked a lot about the offense, but of course the defense. What an incredible game from them, and I felt like this was as much as you talked about some of the the creativity from Dave Kanalis
and some of the things he was pulling out. Same thing with Coach Bulls calling the defense, that this was a unique game even by ball standards, which we are used to talking about the fact that he can bring some unique blitz packages, do a lot of different things. To see the ways he was using different defensive fronts, different guys in different roles in the secondary. That to be surprised in our position this late in the season is kind of fun.
Yeah, it was. You said this game was fun, and it started right at the beginning because we went out there on defense and you're looking at this front going what is this. It's always fun when your coaches break out something you have never seen before, or at least haven't seen in a very long time. And we started the game and ended up playing about twelve or fourteen
snaps in a six man front. So usually if it's base, you have three downlinemen like can't see in Hall and Vita and two edgreshers, or if you're in sub packages there's only two downline and we had four four on the field because woll Golstma was on there too, And that was because in this game, more than any other we've played a long time, it was we have to
stop the run first. They ran for two hundred one yards on us in the first game, and that was the said, yeah, we're gonna make them throw the ball to beat us and uh and it worked.
And especially when you know Jalen Hurt's finger is a little bit even more. It's like you know that they were going to try to be like all right, fine, like we're not having this happen again, that you're going to do something else.
You're going to beat us a different way if're gonna beat us again.
Yeah, And then even seeing guys like Zion mccalm, I mean he's playing safety and nickel and corner and all over the place, which is which.
Is really cool. Yeah. So right when when we were started in that six month man front, there was only one safety and that was Antonine Field. So I mean, if you only have one safety on the field, it's good that he's the best one in football. But when we did do a second safety, a lot of times it was Zion and then sometimes he was in the slot, sometimes he was playing corner. And Coach Bull said on Monday that having that guy and using him in different
roles is confusing for the offense. They don't know what you're doing because they haven't seen all these different looks before. So and the fact that getting him on the field, as Coach Bull said, means with Carlton and Jamil Healthy. Now you have your three best cover guys on the field at the same time.
And speaking of safety, books got their first safety y transition.
How I did that there?
So Anthony Nelson helped contribute to a safety. It may not show up quite as much on his sack. No, I hate that because it was technically.
Penalty you should count as a sack.
We're just going to give it to him. We're going to decide that this was an Anthony Nelson.
Yeah, because he just tossed us away at the end, it doesn't count as a sack, and said it's intentional grounding in the end zone, which is a safety. And that's the first safety in Bucks postseason history. And it happened, as you saw, that was kind of a late developing play that ball was. That's the best part about safeties is getting due to that sign over your head. Look how long was the play took to develop? And that's because the coverage was really good even right there at
the end. He just had nowhere to throw it to. So give the coverage a lot of credit on that one. And then a guy like Anthony Nelson just playing through the whistle, you know, and.
Another outside linebacker that had a great game, Shaq Barrett. I feel like he's a guy that you know, he hasn't necessarily gotten the stats that he has in years past, but he is still really producing in a lot of ways and playing a really important role on that team.
Yeah, it's kind of like that play we just saw where Klijahkansy didn't get credit for anything on that play, but he's the one that flush Hi out of the pocket. Well, Shaq was doing that a lot too. He had six quarterback pressures on twenty eight rushes in that game, and so that doesn't show up in the main stat page, but it really made a difference in terms of getting Jalen Hurts off his spot and disrupting the passing game. And so that's a thirty one point six pass rating.
There was a lot of good pass rushers in the Super wild Card Weekend over those six games, and as you could see, Shaq was third best in pressure percentage of among guys that had at least ten pass rush snaps. And you see Aiden Hutchinsons.
Is gonna say, how perfect of a transition. Now see Aiden Hutchinson's name on there, that's going to be a very important person to keep an eye on. And these Lions, they've got some really impressive young guys, particularly on that defense.
Yeah, Aiden Hutchinson was the second overall pick in twenty twenty two, and he had a really nice rookie season and this year even better eleven sacks and he's going to the Pro Bowl. And then this year the Lions really had a great draft class. And we could talk about a lot of those guys, but on defense, Brian Branch kind of a surprise that he lasted into the
second round. He was a safety at Alabama, but they basically turned him into their nickel corner and he's been a really really good nickel corner for them, a couple of interceptions and a bunch of passes defense.
And then how about other guys on their defense that stand out to you.
Well, they did get a couple guys back from injury. I sorry, got stuck them.
No, it's right, you're good.
Their defense has been okay, not awesome, not nearly as good and in a lot of the categories statistically as their offense. But they did get CJ. Gardner Johnson, who's a big time instigator. As we've already seen, this week and that was really good. And then Alan McNeil, they're starting defensive lineman. He's back. They both came back from Injoy reserve very recently, so they're a bit closer to the full strength now.
And then I know their offense, that man, that's been their bread and butter this year, and they have so many different ways they can attack you and beat you. And again even other young guys, as you talked about with them having a great draft class, I mean, Samba Porter is just doing incredible things and Jared Goff has been a bit of a Bucks killer in some other matchups.
And I think it's just going to be really interesting to see knowing how well the Bucks defense played in this last game and seeing how they're able to do so many things at this point the season with having that firm grasp of Bowls system. This is a fun kind of strength on sege.
Yeah, it really is going to be they If you look at that Detroit Lions offense, they're top five in just about every category, rushing and passing and the second most passing yards. They're top five and scoring in total yards sacks allowed because their offensive line is fantastic. Interception percentage is low. Red zone. They're fantastic in the red zone and they have and we talked about this in
our preview of this game. I find I didn't even realize until I started looking at the stats, and it's rather amazing. They have four guys with ten or more touchdowns score. I don't know if I've seen them. It's amazing or I just don't remember seeing that before. So you got obviously a mon ross Saint Brown. I think he's probably the most dangerous guy. And then you mentioned Sam Laporta, who did things that rookie titands almost never do,
including ten touchdowns. And then both of the running backs Montgomery and Gibbs are over ten touchdowns. So it's not like, hey, okay, we're going to play this team. We're going to take away their one guy, and then what are they got to do? How do you defend all those guys? It's not easy. And Jared Goff, as you noted, is playing
probably the best football of his career right now. And if I wasn't, if we weren't going into Detroit to play them, I'd be kind of happy about that because it's kind of cool to see that team getting some success and Jared Goff, who basically was a throwing in the Stafford trade and is now doing so well for Detroit. So it's a really difficult offense to face.
The Bucks have their hall cut out for them, for sure, And then you know what the good news is, though, this is the eighth Street rematch of a regular season game for a playoff game. It's crazy, and we have seen that when you give especially Coachable and his defense a second shot at people, how well that seems to go.
And so how it's just so interesting to me to think about the fact that this has been such a consistent thing and where there's been a lot of success for the Bucks in playing someone they already played.
This it's just a weird coincidence. And if if we win this game, the next one will be against the team we already played this season. But I mean the eight straight playoff games against the team you faced in the regular season, and those are in chronological order. Now, a couple of them we had won, like we beat Green Bay pretty handily and then beat him again in
the NFC Championship game. But a lot of these, you see the Saints the Chiefs is a big one that you know how Todd Bowles changed his defensive game plan between those two games was a big part of the story. And then of course this past week we got the win. I guess the team that beat us pretty handley early in the year, so that's the same thing we're facing
against Detroit. Twenty to six isn't exactly a blowout, but the Bucks couldn't do much on offense, couldn't run the ball, and I feel like, as the coaches and players have been saying all week and last week as well, this is a different team than it was Timber in October.
Yeah, that Rams game is the only one you see where that was a loss both times, and it just goes to show how much in this league it is really hard to beat a team twice.
True that you just learn a lot about people.
So I think it's a great sign that, hey, you know what, we may have lost that first game this regular season, but now we get a second.
Clout at it.
All right, that's going to do it for us.
On this edition of Bucks Insider presented by Verizon, thank you so much for being with us, and we hope you have a blast watching this next playoff game and stay tuned for all the coverage here on Buccaneers dot com.
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