Bucs Insider Live, Sept. 18

that is true. Going to give me, need to give me a couple of months to try to get Yeah, I mean I might need a little longer, but you never know. So yeah, I mean that was just so fun. And I know people probably have tons of thoughts, comments, questions about these games and the one coming up Monday Night Football. We're taking all of those on the Facebook page.

The head over to the Buccaneers Facebook page. If that's not already where you're watching, comment underneath our live video, and that's where we will seales, questians and yeahs as those come in. Let's let's let's acknowledge it's only two games. We're not getting over excited we're not talking super comparently exact actually think the perfect amount of the extremely excited. I don't have to be one those people that stays humble, like to be ridiculous, but I mean, you don't want

to make any assumptions based on two games. But but on the other hand, not only are we two and oh, it's such and such exciting fashion. Let's enjoy it whiles while it's happening. The Bucks have been to and O before, not since two thousand ten, but they did win ten games when that happens more often than not when they've started out to know, they've been in playoff contention. There's been a couple of seasons that sort of went off the rails after that. But it's happened eight times, which

you'd like it to be a bigger number. But um, this is different. And I'll tell you why. The Buccaneers have never started a season two and oh with wins over two teams that were in the playoffs the previous year. They've never even started to and O with wins or two teams that were over five the year before. This is the best two games start in that regard in team history. I mean the Super Bowl season that that

team actually lost their first game. Um, it was kind of flukey, but uh so there's a lot of reasons to feel good about this. And now you you you've made it through two thirds of what everybody considered to be a ridiculous opening season gauntlet, the in terms of number of wins, the hardest three games start any team has ever had. You are coming off a five and

eleven season, and you have your starting quarterback suspended. It's understandable that people would think Bucks Are going to maybe struggle to get one winner at first three and then try to write theirselves and get back in the race. You're playing with house money now at two and oh, and now you're home against the Pittsburgh team that clearly is very good but also has looked vulnerable. I mean,

I don't know. I don't really bet sports betting um NFL here that I don't really see, but it is true. I never we're not allowed. I took that gambling course last week. Yes, um, but I would imagine there's a shot that the Buccaneers would actually be favored in this game. And so if you're all of a sudden favor to go three and oh through that gauntlet, it'll be an opening season that everybody around here should be absolutely excited about. I mean, who could have seen this coming? Yeah, which

I think is so incredible. And I think there is something to the idea of playing as underdogs that teams have always done well when people that when it feels like there's nothing to lose and you can just play

so freely. And I feel like that's when a lot of big plays happen, is teams are just letting it fly, almost And I wonder how much of that just pours into this idea of the confidence that they've had of like why not us, you know one's better let go more concrete reason, I think we're getting all those big places that we have awesome players. Oh my gosh. Our offense just looks incredible, especially the past catchers I think overall, especially because we talk about wide receivers. But I want

to hear your thoughts on past catchers overall. Do you think we have the best unit in the league? Yeah, well, I think you definitely would. It's gonna sound Homer's for us to say so, but I think it objectively, they have to at least be in the discussion for the best group of patis catchers, and I think it's probably the case, just top to bottom, so many weapons. One I'd like to talk about is Mike Evans. Now de Sean Jackson, understandably and for good reason, has been the

biggest story of these first two games. He leads us in yards, he leaves us in touchdowns. Every pass we've thrown to him has been completed. He's averaging like thirty yards per catch and per target, which is incredible, right. But I discovered I discovered the statistic on NFL Jesus Uh yesterday and I talked about it on our podcast with Jeff Ryan Salty Dogs. But I know not every single person here is going to listen to that podcast,

so I'm gonna throw it out here as well. It's called net yards over average, and if you could, it's kind of a complicated stat but if you're a hockey fan at all and you've heard of plus minus, you know what that means. So if you're on the ice school differential, and you know, if you're on the ice and your team scores more and you have a good plus minus means you're a good player. This is somewhat

an NFL equivalent to that. They take um six years worth of outcomes every play of every game, and using that, they have an average of what you should expect on any given play like first and ten at the should get you five point nine yards or something like that. So if you get more than that or less than that, that impacts your differential. There your net you are differential, and if you're on the field, you get credit for that.

Every player that is okay, Like the first play of the game, we were expecting to get about five yards and we got seventy five. So that's like a plus seventy for every player on the field. Right there, Mike Evans leads the entire NFL in net yards over average right now, the entire every position, every player. He is number one in both overall and per plays. Incredible. Now, all of our offenses up there, because the offense has

been ridiculous. We have nine hundred fifty two or eighty two is something that yards, and we probably were expected to have about six or seven hundred at this point. So everybody's well over You see all our offensive lineman right there near the top. But Mike's even higher than that because he's not on for every single play. But when he's on there, we're averaging like twelve yards of play, which is insane. And and I'll give you a concrete example or a couple of them. The first touchdown to

Deshaan Jackson in New Orleans. I think we already discussed this. Uh, the reason fits stairs at Mike Evans and the safety and another player go to him. That's why Deshawn's wide open. Okay, the threat of Mike Evans is hell being to Shawn Jackson on the seventy year touchdown. DeShawn said that the safety and top in center field left to go cover Mike Evans and that's why he was so wide open. So Mike Evans is impacting plays when he's thirty yards

away from Paul. Wow, that's incredible. That's a great stadtar. It's what we've always talked about you with like Gerald McCoy and the idea of needing people around to distract every one. So now it seems like we have that on offense and defensive. Yeah, let's talk about that, which

is huge. So yeah, the the defensive the first game was incredibly excited from an offensive samepoint, but the defensive said they don't want to be allowing in a game, and so what did you see from week one to week two that changed about Well, I'd like to address first your your very good point about Jerry McCoy um. That's why you bring in Jason Pierrele Pierre Paul, and Vinny Curry and and so on, and especially those two who are your new starting defensive ends. The passports has

not been overwhelming so far. Four sacks or two games is good, but not awesome. But they did hit Nick Foles twelve times in that game, which is a lot. Jason Pierre Pierre Paul hit him four times. Okay, Curry and Pierre Paul, your two new starting ends already have one sack each. Again, that's not overwhelming, but it's a really encouraging start because I went back and looked at it. You know, in the last time, both of our opening day starting defensive ends already had at least one full

sack just two games in the season. One wow, Marcus Jones and Simeon Rice, which not bad company. We've been looking for something productive on the on the edges for a long time, even put some draft picks into a lot of free agent signings, and nothing's really turned out. Two games doesn't prove anything, but it's a really encouraging start. That's huge. I love that idea. And so do you feel like this is something that you see the defensive all even though there have been some injuries. We haven't

seen Burnton Grimes yet. We know we've lost Vernon Hargraves. For a while that there there was concern of what is this defense going to look like with some pieces missing? Do you still think we don't know the injury situation yet? We don't have an injury report until tomorrow or actually maybe Thursday. Yeah, I forget that it would be Thursday. Um, so what are your thoughts on this defense overall and what they might be able to do on Monday, not

knowing for sure who else healthy. You know, they still gave up four something yards to the Eagles, and that's not ideal. But nowadays yards aren't really as great of a measuring stick as they used to be. Everybody's putting up huge amount of yards. I mean, when the Buccaneers had that great defense that won the Super Bowl, they gave up like two twenty five yards a game that

that would be unheard of. Now, even the best defenses they're giving up like I looked at the Eagles had a very good defense last year, and they gave up like three and forty yards a game. I mean, and we're playing from behind. You're gonna be trying to that as well. And so it actually you can see that a team gives up a lot, but they might be because they were winning by so much. And that's exactly

what happened in that Philadelphia game. In particular, New Orleans, they did do a lot in the Philly game up six. The defense made a lot of good plays early on seven, right, and then they did as you said, we're trying to protect a lead, we're running the clock, we're giving the ball back to them. They had like thirty six minutes of time of possession compared to ours because we kept hitting big touchdowns and then otherwise we had a lot

of three and ounce when we're trying to round the clock. Um, so you give up a lot of arts. But think about it. We give up twenty one points, which isn't terrible. And the last seven lose was on the insane fourth down pass. I still can't believe Nick Foles got that ball in there. I mean, sometimes you have to give

the other team credit from making a ridiculous place. But before that happened, the books made the Eagles take like seven plays from about the fifteen yard line in they made a bunch of stops before that fourth down play, and what that did was it ran like two or three more minutes off the clock, which ended up being crucial at the end. So it's about making some big plays.

The quant Alexander strip sack, the Levante David stop on fourth down on Zack Arts, you've gotta make some big plays, justin Evans where he almost got killed making that diving breakup, and and the pass rush has been great on that play. So I think it's still reasonably be concerned about this secondary because you have such young guys getting so many snaps.

But if they can continue to get the kind of pressure they got against Philadelphia, it will make it possible for those guys to make some plays when we really need it. Yeah, that's a great point. And of course I just love that fitz Magic has been such a thing this week, even national news. We saw him on the damp Patrick Show earlier today and it's just been so fun. I didn't see it. Did he have the offit on? It was on the phone, so you never know.

Maybe he's just wearing it all the time. Now, he did say that he hopes people are not expecting him to do it all the time. And he was like that that was a one time thing. And Newton comes out in a kind of a crazy outfit almost every prison, right, so I think he was trying to make sure he tempered everyone's expectations of this. This was a one time

spur at the moment, no planning involved thing. Um, but I just want to hear your thoughts on why you think fits his plates well and how sustainable is it, because that's the question everyone has is how long can they continue to do this well? And that's the million dollar question because before long we're gonna have the elephant in the room when Jameis winston suspension is over, and you know who's going to be the starter for the

bulk of the season. To this point, of course, and for a reason, for good reason, coach Cutter said, that's not an issue for us to be discussing right now, right where you need to be discussing Pittsburgh right now, and we'll see what happens. So, um, I lost my train thought. What was the original part of how long do you think Fitzpatrick? There's reasonably there's reason to believe

he could sustain this. And one of those reasons, as Coach Cutter pointed out after praising um Fitzpatrick for a number of reasons, saying, and of course look at the cast around him. The offensive line is playing great in front of him, and he's got all these fantastic playmakers. You know, that really helps, and so it would be reasonable for somebody who would be on the jamis should be starting side to say he's going to have access to the same weapons. But your simple question of can

fits keep it going? I think he can because as again as Coach Cutters pointed out on several occasions, this didn't come out of the blue. He's had big games

like this. There's a chance he wins NFC Offensive Player of the Week again this year this week because Patrick Mahomes is in the a f C. So he's certainly got a good shot, maybe Matt Ryan, but if he does, that'll be his sixth seventh of RAW, but his sixth since two thousan fourteen, and the only guys who would have more in that span are Aaron Rodgers with eight and another quarterback who's like Tom Brady or somebody has seven.

I mean he's capable of these big games and not just once or twice, right, you know, Yeah, that's a great point um And he's had such success in the passing game. Do you think is that the running game has not been as prolific, but it seems like it's been what you needed it to be. So which do you think kind of came first? Is that the running game just hasn't been as necessary when they're throwing these seventy five yard bombs, or are they throwing the seventy

five yard bombs because the running game isn't there. You know, everybody wants a balance attack, as coach Cutter will say, that's the hardest type of attack to defend. But he also says, you know, when something's working, you stick with it. I don't care how we get four dred yards. If we have to throw it on every play, then we will. And it's just been working, So why would you go away from it? I think there's enough of a threat

of the run that play action works. The very first play of the game that the seventy touchdown, we lined up in a regular eye with Alan crosses the fullback and and just two receivers and tighten. Just a total normal first down in formation that looks probably like it's probably gonna be a run. A lot of teams run out of that on first and tent and play act in and touchdown right, and we we us that this

is just what I remember. But I remember seeing that formation on the field at least three times, and every time I can recall, it was a pass. So there's enough of a threat of the of the running game to at least give your play action some bite. But no, it's not where it needs to be yet. And then linebackers is I realized a position we've not talked a

whole lot about. We've got a lot of attention to the pass words, the defensive line overall, and the new look at has the injuries because of the secondary who has had to step up. We haven't talked a lot about the linebacker for I wanted to hear your thoughts on the first couple of games, and we didn't have kindle back with and what that was gonna look like.

So what have you been to your thoughts on them? Well, I'd say the reason we're not talking about them it's because, like we said leading into the season, you've got this new look defensive line. You're gonna talk about that a lot. You've got issues in the secondary and some young guys there. The linebackers are you know what you got? Levante David and Kuanaxander are legitimate star linebackers. And to have both those guys running around, they're always on the field for

every play because they're your nickel package as well. I don't personally were call a ton of plays that a Darius Taylor has made. He's not on the field as much, But I don't recall big breakdowns either. I don't know if you do. And Lavante and quin have already made some big plays, like a referenced earlier. They the big tackle on zach ERT's on fourth and a couple of yards. I mean, this is this is vintage what Philadelphia does.

They put most of their players on one side of the offense, and then they split zach Arts on the other side, and they work it so that he is one on one with whatever you decide to put over there. And sometimes it's a safety in the Buck's case. In at least this case, they had Levante on him. That's just man demand coverage. So zach Ertz runs a pivot, which is a tough route to cover, because the first thing you're worried about is what we did when we needed the first down on third down, the slant um

Mike Evans. That's the first thing you worry about is defender. You don't want to get that quick slant. So a pivot starts, isn't in and then they pivot and go out. It's a tough route to cover. And indeed he ran it well. The pass was right on the money, but Lavante's coverage was good enough that he was there to make the tackle and stop him like a yard and a half short. So that's a great play by Lavante. David,

that's huge. I love it all right. Well, we hope to see all of you guys out there Monday night football. We need everyone out. The Ring of Honor for Tony Dungeon is going to be so fun as well. Thanks as always for joining us and we'll see you back here next week.