Bucs Insider Live, Oct. 9

talk about. To send all of those in, go over to the Buccaneers Facebook page and specifically make sure you find that Bucks Insider Live page and subscribe to as you always get alerted to win the show comes on. Put all of your questions and comments right under our live video if you're not already watching on Facebook. So and yet we already got some people watching, which is great.

So Ali mar Pett resigning, I want what do we know about the deal and what you think why it happened now and just what does this mean for the team over Well, the deal is a six it's a five year extension. It's a six year deal because it starts now, it replaces what he had for two thousand eighteen, and it runs through two three. In terms of dollars, the team doesn't really hardly ever announced dollars. It'll be out there, so if you want to find it, you'll

be able to find it. I'm sure it's good right now. Um, it's it's it you want. You want to draft a guy and then sign him to a second contract, and we've been able to do that with a good number of guys in recent years. You're Joe McCoy, is Lante, David, Mike Evans, you know now him. I think I'm Cambray, Will Golston. Sure, I'm forgetting a couple of others. It's what you want. And there's probably a couple of others coming down the line at some point, maybe Donovan Smith,

maybe Kawan Alexander, guys like that. Um, and you know, at some point you do have to give them a bigger contract if you want to keep them around. So good for Ali, that's fantastic. I think he's having a great year. Um, it's hard with offensive line metrics, the offensive line, our offensive line, his whole is not helping much. With the running game isn't very good, so everybody bears some of that burden. But the passing game has obviously been very good, and for the most part the past

protection has been very good. And other than that, it's kind of hard. To give stats for an offensive lineman. There are services out there that that's claimed to be able to grade him, like Pro Football Focus, which I don't really use a lot because I feel like your cherry picking. Some of it you like and some of it you don't. But if it matters to anybody, they have been very highly rated this year, which is yeah,

which is great. Um. And and it's interesting cause there's a group of guys we've talked about would all be coming up for contracts around the same time. If you had Ali and Donovan and Kawen and Jamis and all of them. Um, So we knew that it was already gonna be challenging of how many you can resign and how and win? And so what does this say about now again the timing of it, of why you would sign now, and what this can mean overall of trying to figure out how to put a place for all

these guys that their contracts are going to be coming upset. Yeah, in terms of whether it was week what are we in week six of this year or week eight or whatever, I'm not sure the timing of that was all that important. I would I would imagine this means that both sides agreed that they wanted something some time ago, and I've been working on it since and they just figured it out at this point. I suppose you could say, I don't know this for sure, but it could tell you

a little bit of the priorities of the order. You know, Ali was maybe the priority of the guys that weren't signed yet they wanted to get locked in. Um, I'm sure it was a very high priority. So other than that, it it's great to get them done early. It feels like we've done this a lot. So there's something about the process where it happens like this. I think General McCoy was about this time of the year when he got his I think Lavante David was like that too.

You know, sometimes you have a player who will say, Okay, if it's not done by the start season, then I don't want to deal with it right, And that happens. But I think most of the time the players really aren't dealing with that much anyway. Their agents are dealing with it, and they're getting giving them their updates, and I'm sure they get feedback, but I don't think it's particularly in most cases all that hard. You know. I think when it's a situation like that where a guy says, NA,

we're not doing it. It's more of a contentious thing. And I don't think this was a contentious matter. Probably. Okay, Um, we have a question from friend, and this is going to get talking about timing of the year. He said, when are guys that are on I are able to come back? And are any of them ahead of schedule? And he specifically wants to know about back with Yeah, um,

they back with his dad. Actually not on I R. He's on n F I. But it's so that one is a little better because I believe that six weeks and then you have a couple of weeks window where he can practice with the team and not count against it. Do have all this information upstairs? I can't of each guy. I can't claim that I can recall every single one

of the exact details the I R ones. They have to be out for eight weeks from the point that they go on I are and then again there's a window for them to come back and a couple of weeks to practice with the team before they actually are activated. So there's you know, it's like a sliding scale. If a guy that went on last week. He won't be available till a little bit later in the season. But I guess a couple of guys that would be relevant.

There would be mitch on Ryan, who went on at the very beginning of the year, so he would be the first one to be available. Maybe Chris Conty. You haven't heard much about the severity of that. UM, I gotta be forgetting And how does that change the idea of the designated return and all that that that used to the way that used to work as compared this rule has evolved very well. It's taken some time for the NFL to get to this point, but I think

they're at a really good point. And just just for a little history, UM, a couple decades ago, you could put a guy on I R and then bring him back off. And the problem with that was it sounds good, and they do that in baseball. But and you can do that with everybody. The problem is team's sort of abused it, and you know you're in order to keep

their fifty three guys. In a few more they'd have guys and I are that probably necessarily shouldn't go on I R. Now to go on are you actually have to demonstrate that they have an injury that that is going to be keep him out of a certain length. Okay. Um, So then it went the other way. They said, Okay, no, once a guy goes on ire and he's done, so you can't stash him there because he's gonna be lost

for a season. Okay, but that gets a little bit tough because that puts you in the in the scenario of of each week deciding do I keep this guy active on the active roster, how many weeks I'm gonna have to make him one of our in active guys and carry a guy that's hurt. I'm sure they I'm sure they had this exact conversation with kend about kindle back with if we think he's gonna be back in three weeks, maybe we keep on the active roster and

then just make him an active for three weeks. If you think it's gonna be more like six or seven, and you do n F I same thing here. So it kind of put teams in a hard situation. And so some years back, maybe two thousand ten or so, they started this new thing where you could bring one guy off are one guy a season, and you had to designate him as that guy when you put him on our So if we put mitch on right on in week one, we would have said, Okay, this is the guy that we want to bring back, and and

then he you know, he would come back. Problem with that is, okay, mitch On ran is an important player, But what if in week two, you're starting quarterback gets hurt and he's gonna be out for eight weeks? And now you're like, man, I wish we had saved that so we could change it and make it that guy instead. And so that's what they did. Now you do not have to say ahead of time which one it is. Everybody that you put on there is a potential guy that you could bring back. You just don't have to

say it up front. Um, And then they did. They gave everybody two of those choices. So that's where we are at. Okay, all right, And then I know we had several of the position coaches talk yesterday, which is a little bit of a rarity that normally it's only your head coach and coordinators. Yeah, it's a pretty rare situation. I feel like it's always great insight because these are the guys that really spend the most time with their

individual position groups. Um, so I wanted to hear anything kind of high level that stood out to you from from talking to those guys, and and some themes or things that came out that you felt like was a little unique or different as compared to hearing from the coordinators. Well, you, as you'd expect everybody wanted to talk to John Hook who's one of the defensive backs coaches, because that was

the position that struggled the most in the most recent game. Uh, you know, and he said some of the things he said is what you would expect. He obviously thinks highly of all those guys and those young guys and what they're going to become. But he does say, look, every time I go out there, it's a new experience for them. Every new every game is new for them. Every time they're doing this, they're learning. So I guess, reading between the lines, would you say, is you say is some

of this is growing pains? Right? And I don't think it was the intention of the Buccaneers to draft two cornerbacks in the second round and safety in the fourth round and all of them as starters by week. You know. M J. Stewart is essentially a starter because he's just like I by week four. I don't think that was the plan, but that's where we are now, so you've got to work with that. And there's there's definitely a lack of experience there with Chrisconti not there and even

Vernon hard race. You know, you have Brent Crimes, but not much more in terms of experience. Yeah, that's tough and speak you know, experience in the timing of that. Facing the Falcons this year seems like in theory it wouldn't be as hard as normal, just based on their record and what they've been doing. But just somehow it seems like the Falcons offense tends to have our secondaries number in terms of putting up some massive yards. I mean Julio Jones, we remember the game he had against

us last year. So uh, I think the bye weekend somebody's couldn't have come in a better time for that secondary to have more time to look ahead of the Falcons, to self reflect what what do you feel like are the things that knowing the Falcons are coming up, that this secondary and the defense overall is really going to have to focus on and make sure that there's not a repeat of Chicago. I kept watching. I got to watch football on as the bye week, and I kept

for one front. For some reason or another, all these different analysts were kept using the phrase tough out. That's a tough out for them. I just kept hearing it, and that's what pops in my mind. Now. The Falcons are tough out for the Buccaneers. The Falcon's offense, don't get full about that wonderful record. Matt Ryan is just fine, Julio Jones is just fine. They have a new weapon in cow Ridley. Mohammed Sanu was still very good. They just got Davonte Freeman back from injury. That is a

very very potent offense. I know they weren't great against Pittsburgh, but they also their defense wasn't given him much help. The reason the main reason the Falcons are one and four is because they've lost like four starters to injury. Reserve on defense, I mean, their defense is struggling to the extent that our defense is struggling in some cases. And so what you look at this game, you think, man,

this could be a shootout again. I mean, the people are expecting this one to be kind of wild, like the New Orleans game, and it wouldn't shock me at all. Um, I think we certainly have the weapons two um attack them and score a lot of points, specifically the challenge to our secondary. What worries me the most is Julio Jones and h Right. It's easy to say, but here's a specific reason why. UM one. Hulo Jones obviously something you have to worry about going deep on you. Right,

he gets up to speed really really quickly. He eats up that cushion, and if you give him eight or ten yards, he eats up that quickly and he can run right by you. And so you know he's running like a fifteen yard route up field, just straight up field. The dB turns and at some point that dB thinks to himself, Okay, my biggest warrior here is the deep ball. I gotta make sure so he's that's what he's thinking first.

And what Julio Jones does, probably better than any of the receiver in the NFL, is go from top speed two sudden stop. So they do a number of different stop which would call stop routs. Just a quick button hook or stops and flattens his route out on and out. And the cornerback who's so worried about this deep ball. It takes a yard or two to react and with Matt Ryan throwing the ball at the moment he cuts, Uh,

that's incredibly hard to defend. Now, if you're one of our young quarterbacks, I think you compound that a little bit. I don't think these guys want to give up the huge plays, right, so they have to work. But they also can't not concern themselves with that. So they're gonna be in a tough position trying to cover Julio Jones. I think, and and you know, he may not get the seventy yarder, might get a two or three, twenty five or three yarders on those stop routes. So that's

a tough challenge. Yeah, that's that's very true. And it's not like the Bucks the only team that Julio That's my point. He does that to everybody, everybody. That's very true. Paul wants to know, what would you say this team's identity is after the first quarter of football? And do you think some of the veteran guys we have now and have added can help keep the locker room focused and from getting down on the on the second point, Absolutely,

and I think that they have. People probably don't necessarily believe us, but you can back me up on this. There hasn't really been a loss of confidence in that locker room. Yeah, that's true. It's fair for a fan to think the last well, the last game of the Pittsburgh game was still pretty good except for the second quarter. It's fair for a fan to think that to be worried that the Bucks are actually what they saw in Chicago. That's not at all what these guys think. And I

think they're closer to being right. Yeah, I remember that was what Vinny Curry said right after the Chicago game. Is his biggest thing he kept repeating was this is not who we are. And I think a team knows when they get beat bad if it's because that's just who they are. They not as good. Yeah, they're just not as good as the other team. And there was nothing else they could have really done versus the idea of the Bucks that said that when they've lost, they've

beat themselves. And and everybody says that right, and they seemed, I mean, especially the look on Vinny Curry, they believe it. Yeah, you could tell that that was that was a real thing. As coach Cutter said, there's been a lot of self inflicted wounds and and every team would like to say that because it's easier to swallow that you could have beaten them, but you messed up. Then they're just better than we are. The first half of the question is the identity of this team is clearly in in the

passing game. You know, it's a prolific team with a lot of weapons that can hurt you in a lot of ways. Uh, it's certainly. I don't think we have found an identity on defense, and that's not particularly surprising because the offense is a lot more intact from what it was. The defense is a lot of new parts.

What you want that idea to be, especially in given Mike smith history, is um you rush for you don't blitz a lot, and you can middle you create a lot of turnovers and that's what That's what turned it around in in the second half of two thousand and sixteen, Mike's first year here, and that's what needs to happen for it to turn around this year. We have to get more pressure on the quarterback and we have to we have to live off of turnovers. And then to you,

the importance of this game. We talked about how um going into the bye week that two and two was was still it's fine, fine, and and even better than most people predicted the Bucks would be at that point. How important now is the difference in two and three and three and two in your mind? And especially the division road and we talked about one game is one game, but some of them do matter more in the sense

of division games. To be honest and not this may sound like I got rose colored glasses on a win here does more for us than the loss does to hurt us in my opinion. Okay, I don't want us to go two and three, but two and three, at worst case, you'd probably be two games out with eleven to play and and four games left in your division, three of those four at home. Atlanta has been a

historically tough place to play. There's some what looks like on paper, easier matches matchups coming for us, especially at home. It's not going to be a disaster if the Bucks are two and three. However, if they were three and two with two division road games in hand, already two and oh in the division in both road wins, that's that's a norm us. That's a fantastic place to be. Um, we would probably at that point be about one game

out of first. We'd have two wins in the bank and three of our four maning games against the division at home, so lots to gain, somewhat to lose, but more to gain than to potentially lose in my opinion. Okay, I like that. All right, that's going to do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back here every week, usually Tuesdays at noons. We'll see then,