Bucs Insider Live, Oct. 1

start getting some of their questions in here on Facebook. Um, I guess I will just begin with I mean the defense, we have to talk about that, and um, after evaluating the game, hearing coaches talk about it, what is your sense of what went wrong and how the team can move forward from here? They tend to evaluate things in quarters, So now the first quarter of the season is done, how can they make this defense? But they know it

can be. Yeah, it seemed to be the big The defense has not had good returns for the season as a whole, but this particular game snowball and got out of hand. It seemed to be the main new bad thing was a lot of mr aignements or messed up communication or breakdowns in you know, it was everybody on the same page, because that's how in the NFL you

get multiple times of guys wide open. I mean, whenever you see a playlight in the NFL that it kind of makes go whoa when there's a guy wide open, And when it happens five or six times in the same half, that is a stunning outcome. And nobody saw

that coming, and that's obviously the main problem. From that, there is a way to look at that somewhat optimistically, and that is if the main problem in that big defensive breakdown was mental errors, presumably that's something that could be fixed, especially when you have a bye week for the for the coaches, as they're going to do to thoroughly self scout the team, not just this game, but all four games, and come back with the players next week as they're preparing for Atlanta and a little bit

this week with some very concrete things of this is why this has happened, this is what you did wrong, this is what maybe we did wrong. I'm sort at some points of the coaches will we'll say that as well, But if they're trying to help a player avoid that same result, potentially that could be resolved. And we've seen it before. I'm not saying it will. We'll have to wait and see if this defense is going to improve. But there there is a bit of track record with

these same people. In two thousand and sixteen, the first eight games, we're not good at all defensively, maybe the worst in the league or one of them. And then the last eight they really turned it around, started getting lots of lots of in lots of turnovers. UH, did much better job on third down, and so it's conceivable that that could happen again. They've got pretty far to go because I think I believe the Buccaneers ranked lass in the league in defense. Um, but you know, we'll

have to wait and see if it happens. I think there's reason to believe that it can be fixed. Are the Buccaneers going to turn into the best defensive league? That would seem like a long way to go, But with the offense that we have, merely being a decent defense would probably be enough. And that's certainly what we can hope for. And we did get to see Vidave out there for the first time, and we already had

a question from Seawan. He says he's watching from Washington, d C. And he wondered how Vita graded out from this last year. Coach said. Coach said that he was about what you would expect from a guy that hadn't played live football since. Um. I guess maybe like last December in a game, uh I did. He did get to play more snaps than they originally intended. I think he ended up playing roughly snaps, which was good because

it's helping him knock off the rust. They probably we're going to give him a smaller uh set if the game hadn't been so out of hand. Um, coach said, You know, there was good and bad. Uh. He was you could see his power, but there were times when he was handled by professional offensive lineman who have been playing in the league for for quite some time. So I probably say it was a middle of the road kind of grade for him. They don't share the exact

grades that they give him. I did personally notice a couple of things. Uh. There are a couple of plays where you could definitely see Viya's power where he got a one of them. A couple of times he was battling two guys at once, which is something that he's good for. You know. Coach Mike Smith says, someone else isn't. Yeah, you have to put four hands on him, not too and I saw a couple of times when he pushed his guy back pretty pretty quickly and into the backfield.

In neither case did it end up affecting the play very much, but at least he did well in that regard. I also noticed that when he was in there, we were more likely to really put our ends farther out, and sometimes even JPP was standing up as a pass rusher on right in and uh, it was more like a three or four look in his coach will tell you every team does some three four and four three looks them over and under packages and so on, and

so it's not unusual for us to do that. It looked more like a three four, which app standing up and and that's you know, you can just see when you're looking down from the press box. He's such a big guy, and that's after losing fifteen pounds and during this time with injury. Well, he can occupy so much space in the middle that it kind of gives you some other options with how to arrange your defensive lineman.

So in the long run, I think he's going to be the big impact player that they expected to be when they took him in the first round, like overall, but it's a little incomplete so far. Yeah, one game is is not enough to say for sure. M. Dennis said, in your opinion, what kind of leash does Winston have? In other words, might he get benched for Fitzpatrick if he and he said something like three picks happens um or does he say he also has Is there no

leash at all? Of basically, Winston's it now and you don't go back to fits unless there's an injury in any particular game. I think that it is possible that he could be relieved if it was just going horrendously bad. I don't think I think it would take quite a bit for them to make the switch back on who's the starter if there's not an injury involved in any particular In any particular game, you could see it, though.

I mean, things were going horribly badly and he's responsible for four or five turnovers, and you obviously know you have a guy who's proven he can play well sitting there on the bench. It certainly makes some sense that he could be called upon. Bryan, that is, I think it would be a fairly long leash, and I think would be an extremely long leash, like one of those you can put in the middle of your yard to your dog and run the yard for the point of

this season as a whole. Right, Okay, the second way of putting it, um Ethan said, after a great game for Philadelphia in week to what has Ryan Smith's role been and in the large picture, where does he fit in that secondary He's He did have a game. In fact, the coaches said that was his best game as a pro, which is great because you and I both know you

need as much cornerback depth as you can possibly get. Um. He also got to play a little bit more um in this game because they in a number of positions like they took. They let him play for Brent Grimes for the second half, and you know, Vitavea played a lot more. Jameis Winston obviously came in, Ronald Jones got deployed,

Justin Watson got to play a little bit. They took that opportunity to look at some other guys in a game that you probably weren't going to come back in, and so he got another look there, which is good. I still think he is currently serving as a reserve, and that your guys are Carlton Davis and Brent Grimes. With m J. Stewart in the slot. He's not really a slot guy. He's an outside guy. So he has to unseat either Brent Grimes or Carlton Davis, and he

certainly could if he continues to play really well. UM. At the moment, I believe he's still a reserve, but as you know, all these quarterbacks get used at some point or another. UH. Jesse wanted to know what the issue has been with the run game so far. The issue has been it's not very good. UH. Going into that game, a lot of it was situational. You know.

In the first two games, the passing game was so good right off the bat, Uh, and then when you were running in the second half, it was generally in those four minute drills and the other team knows you're running and trying to run out the clock, and it's hard, that's tough sledding to really put up good numbers in that situation. UH. In the last couple of games, there's been a little bit more of an effort, I think to establish the running game early and it hasn't gone

particularly well. And that is a that is a good question. Is another thing that I'm sure is going to be a big part of their self scouting this week. I don't think that you're going to see the Buccaneers of two thou eighteen at any point become a particularly balanced offense. The running game needs to be better. But when you're passing game is this good and clearly that much better than your running game, You're going to continue to rely on it. That's that's the NFL nowadays. Every team doesn't

have to say we have to APUs to run first. Right. Twenty years ago, every team would say that, no team would think about throwing it forty five times a game. But it's that's not the way the NFL is anymore. And when you can complete sevent of your passes, you know, and you can approximate the some bits of a running game with little screens and so on, you can make

that work. Um, what's wrong is is it probably one of those questions where coach always says, if it was one thing, we would tell you when we would fix it, and it would be fine. It's probably a combination of a number of things. And as well as those guys have passed blocked up until this last game. Perhaps the blocking up front hasn't been very well, and I don't think either of the two main backs have done a

lot of making something out of nothing. Um. Tim wanted to know if you saw Andrew Adams playing anytime soon our new safety. Yeah, you know, it wasn't a surprise that he really wasn't utilized in that game because he had just arrived that week, and so Isaiah. When Jordan Whitehead was suddenly unable to go, UM, it made more sense to have Isaiah Johnson, who has been here for

two plus years and all through camp. UM. But yeah, I could see him once he's learned the uh, the defense because he has good NFL experience and he has more INFL experienced than the other safeties. So yeah, you could certainly see that. Okay, uh Cam Cameron, Yeah says he what's the status on the bow Alan injury? Do you think he'll return in Week six against Atlanta? I

hope so. And I thought that maybe the fact that we released Darrell Worthy yesterday was a sign of that, you know, because that's defensive tackle depth, and you would think that would be you'd want to keep your depth around. If bow was still going to be out. But then today we signed another defensive tackle, Rakim Nunez roaches and um, so that we're back to the same number defensive tackles. So maybe that's not a hint on where he is.

But coach said that it's possible he'll be back. He's not going to give you a lot of real, good, real, you know, detailed injury updates, of course, why help the other team. But it is certainly possible. And if you had finally had Bo, I mean Mitch on Ryan sometime in the future hopefully too. But if you finally had that threesome of Bo and Vita and Gerald, that would really be interesting to see how well it can work. Yeah, that's a great point. Douglas wants to know. Has Father

time finally caught up to Brent Grimes. You know, I know why that question would be asked. Um, I don't think anybody had a good game in Chicago, so you can't say that Brent had a good game and then you'd been play in the second half. So but but let's not get too overwhelmed over small sample size. Let's say we don't know the answer to that yet, and

I certainly wouldn't make that judgment based on one game. Uh, Nicholas wants to know how long we think O J. Howard is going to be out and how that might affect the offense. Yeah, that's one the coach did say, And it was funny because he actually gave them some information that OJ would be out for a couple of weeks, and the media was a bit surprising and says, well, I wouldn't tell you if, but the report's already out there. So that response leads me to believe that that report

is accurate. And that report said two to four weeks. Coach said at least a couple of weeks. It feels like to me, anytime we have one of these, this guy's gonna be at from X number to wide number of weeks. It usually ends up on why so Um, maybe it's the pessimist of me, but I'm worried that will be out for four weeks, which is three games, which isn't the end of the world, especially with Kim is pretty good for it seems like probably for Bow

and o J. It was good time. There's always somebody that the bye week is a good well timed for and there's always someone you wish that the bye week was applying for it as well. Um uh. Nicholas also asked when the last time during the season the Bucks

made any sort of coordinator change. The only ones I can think of, UM, and they were really kind of like right before the season was UM when Raheem Morris got the job in two thousand nine, is the head coach, and he brought in UM two well established guys coaches have been around a long time, and UM, the defensive coach was Jim Bates and I can't think of the name of the offensive coach, but they made a change on that right before the season, and uh so that

was kind of jarring. And then I think at some point they made it change with Jim Bates. But it is extremely uncommon And as coach Cutter said, Okay, you want you want to make a change, you want somebody gone, well, what's the next steps, who's next, who's taking over, and who's changing this? And it's not a thing that you usually particularly common or helpful to do that in the middle of the season, right, And yeah, And I think that's something to remember that. It almost reminds me the

way people talk about that. It reminds me when people are like, oh, just trade for so and so. That like the ideas of things being a lot easier than they seem in a league of where oh, we'll just trade for so and so, and you're like, but how does that work? I would just sign so and so and like, there's just so much more to any change

on a team. The ramifications of things are right. It's not like you just call your buddy up, like give me this guy, cam Brayton Ronald Jones for Levan Bell right, Gary wanted to know, do you think Rojoe is going to end up getting this starting job. I think it's still possible. I don't think right away. No, Um, Peyton has probably well, I mean, Ronald Jones only has one game other than the preseason to to you know, compare

the two. Um Peyton pretty solidly has that had that job to start the season, And um, I don't think that anything has happened to make that change yet. Now, if ron Join starts giving you explicit plays in the running game, which was the hope when you drafted him, and something that we absolutely have not had, if that starts happening, then yeah, of course they would make that change. But it hasn't happened yet, so we'll end on this one.

And I think, uh, this is an interesting way of looking at things that Ken brought up the idea that when you're relying so much on a passing game and aren't running as much, it doesn't eat up enough clock and your defense ends up having to be out there. So even when you're doing really well your offensive scoring, scoring, scoring, but it's these big chunk plays, your defense can end

up being out there for a really long time. We've seen where even though those couple of games at the Bucks one they lost the time of possession idea, which you know, it's like, oh, that's fine, it worked out with big plays, But that that does affect your defense to a degree, is that's something that you see being

a factor. There is definitely a factor, and they discussed it is like after a Philly game, as you mentioned, when you have to seventy five yard one play drives, your defense is right back out there in the field and you want that obviously, when you'll take every seventy figure touchdown you can get, but there is that factor of them wearing down. But I would argue against the distinction being made here that that's because of the lack

of a running game. Because like I said, you're you're completing seventy of your passes, you're still keeping the clock running. And when we were when it was going very well in two and most of a third game, you're passing attack is still it's still in addition to those big seventy five yard plays, it's still putting together some decently long drives and and whether you get the yards by running the ball or by throwing, it doesn't make any differences.

If you're if you I understand, if you're throwing a lot of incompletions, you're stopping the clock a little bit more often. Um, But if you're completing most of your passes, it's just as effective in terms of keeping time of possession is running the ball. Okay, well, thank you all for joining us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live, presented by Miller Light. We'll be back here next week and we are gonna need plenty of your questions. It's going to be the coming off the bye week. We

want of the game to talk about it. We can talk about, you know, going up to Atlanta, any other generic buccaneer's questions you have to make sure you come back here next week's We can get all your questions answered. That's going to do it for us. See you next time.