Welcome to Books Insider, presented by ticketmaster Casey Phillips here with senior writer and editor Scott Smith.
And it is a great day, a great week. We are very happy here.
We're three and one, we're going to the bye week, we're leading the NFC South, and most importantly, we beat the Saints. What a day?
What a week?
Does anything, seriously during any given season feel better than driving away from this that Super Dome with a win, no anything, nothing.
I think that's the high.
It's up there with the Super Bowl.
I was okay, I was assuming a non Super yeah, non super Bowl season, but yes, you're right. It is one of the highs of this team's organization.
The rivalry is not beating the Saints, but leaving that place and knowing you don't have to go there for probably another year.
I do think that's one of your hottest takes, is how much you dislike that stadium.
And I understand it. I understand it.
I don't need to beat a dead horse. I've I've said it many times.
I think people know.
I don't think anyone's ever upset with hearing more about that. But yes, again, three and one, going in the bye week leading in a South beating the Saints. What does this mean to this team at this point? And especially when you know, we know from outside there were all these voices naysay are saying that there were people predicting that the books that only have two wins the entire year,
and they've already got three. So what does you think this means to this organization and team at this point quarter the way through?
You know, what I think it is is a little bit of establishing an and identity on both sides of the ball.
And that was.
Something that coaches were openly talking about going into the season, that it might take a little while to figure out who we are as a team. And Todd Bowles said to that very question after the game, we're still figuring out. It might be a couple more weeks and a couple more games until we really know what this team is. But he did say, I feel like we're morphing into used the word morphing, morphing into a tough, physical team that does the things it needs to do to win.
And on offense, you know, okay, the play calling in that game by Dave Coulis was pretty interesting, right.
Chris Godwin threw a pass. Yeah, we had an end a round, we had a shovel pass.
We had a lot of variety of plays even on one specific drive, just a really wide variety of plays. But then you get to the end of the game and you look at the stat sheet and you see thirty three runs, thirty four dropbacks, and they've hit that basic balance in all three of the wins. And I know that runs, the number of runs is not necessarily correlating to wins. It doesn't predict wins. It sometimes is
because you're winning that you run more often. But this team, even though the average per carry hasn't been great, is sticking to that run.
It's a physical team.
The offensive line is playing very physical upfront, doing a great job of protecting the passer, and the defense is creating a lot of turnovers, which is what Todd Bowles always wants to do. It's very aggressive, a lot of blitzing, and it has a couple emerging playmakers that you can count on to make big plays when you need them to. And I think you're starting to see the identity of this team. And you walk away from that game three and one, you just beat the Saints, your bitter division rivals.
Do the Saints know who they are right now? I mean, I'm questioning which team is in a better position right now.
Yeah, that's a really great point. And when you talk about big time playmakers, of course, typically that's going to immediately take you to Mike Evans. And a lot of times, if you think you're losing Mike Evans in the first half, h oh, how many games are you predicting that the Bucks win? Knowing how early you're losing him?
So what did you.
See in terms of what it meant to have him out? And then how many people were able to step in and what that said about the depth of this offense where you know, injuries happened throughout the course of the season, And to me, I walked away from that game feeling really good about you know what, if anyone does go down for a quarter, a game, a few games, you have so many people there to step in.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, before I answer that question exactly, Mike Evans against Marshall and Lattimore three catches for forty yards plus a really big passer inference flag he got called when he beat him on a double move. That was a good day for Mike I feel like if he had been able to play the second half, we'd be looking at this going this is one of the better outings for Mike in that bitter right rivalry with
Marshawn Lattimore. But to your point, he didn't play the second half, and considering how he was the focal point of the passing attack through the first three games, you could be worried about that. But Chris Godwin had eight catches for one hundred and fourteen yards and some just gigantic plays like the forty two yarder that set up the last touchdown, And then you know, Devin Tompkins had his best day as a pro, at least in terms of catching the ball.
And Trey Palmer.
I feel like Trey Palmer, if you if you go all the way back through the preseason, it seems like he just makes one dazzling catch every game. I mean, he's never had really a gigantic stat line. There's that amazing catch by Devon. He's never had an amazing stat line, but he you know, you remember his plays because that play, according to Next Gen Stats, had a twenty two point
eight percent chance of being completed. Well, of all the completions that Baker Mayfield had in that game, and there were twenty five of them, that one was the least likely to be caught, but he made the play happen.
That's incredible.
They underestimated Baker and Trey in that situation where understanding that they were going to make that happen. Also, shameless plug. We had Devin Tompkins on our radio show Monday that Ali Marpett and I are co hosting this year.
And it was phenomenal.
Devon has such a great story and it was very funny. He mentioned that he may not have run exactly the route he was supposed to do on that play on the touchdown, yep, on the touchdown that he said, there was a chance that wasn't quite how it was.
Supposed to go.
But then but then it became a scrambled it became a scramble drill, and he said, I just I saw the open spot. I saw where he needed to be, and so never mind, we ran a little bit of the wrong route. We got to where we ended up needing to be to make the play, which I thought was really great.
Oh go ahead.
Well, I don't know if I'm doing this out of order, but we're going to talk about Baker Mayfield.
Yeah, yes, yeah, and his third down passing.
Yeah, he's that play was on third down.
He is really I have loved watching his ability to make things happen, extend plays, particularly on third down, of evading sacks, scrambling. I mean, I think he could have had yeah, thirty one yards rushing when nothing is really a designed rushing play for him. That he was able to, you know, extend a lot of plays, mega up plays and definitely showed a lot of awareness, especially stretching the ball for a couple first downs.
I've been really impressed with them.
Well, you make a great point on his running, and that included the thirty one rushing yards included three negative one kneel downs at the end of the game, so he actually was more like five for thirty four and they were big runs all of them. And he's been doing that kind of sneakily in the first four games.
But in addition to.
That, he's the best third down passer in the NFL, right now, Wow, he was actually he actually had that going into this game. He had something like one hundred and nineteen passer rating, led the league in third down passing, and then in this game he was six of seven for eighty yards two touchdowns, and well, okay, we're talking about third downs overall, two touchdowns and no interceptions and pass rating like one hundred and fifty three.
He's just making it happen on third down.
And that's why the Buccaneers if we talk about some of the things the Bucks offense has done well and not done well, and the things are going to be talking about during the bye week, things are going to be you know, Dave Canlison and his staff are going to be going through the tape and seeing what the Bucks have done well. They're going to like what they see on third down. And it's not just short, medium
or lung it's a lot of them. And that said, the last two categories are kind of overlapping because ten plus yards is part of the seven plus yards. But either way, the Buccaneers are top twelve in every form of third down passing. They had been a little bit shaky in that four to six range, but they went four for four in New Orleans to get that up a little bit. So that's one thing you got to like.
And I think that goes back to the structure of the offense and how they're calling the plays and getting a lot of third and manageables.
Yeah, that's incredible.
So I know that if we want to stay here on the kind of the offensive side of things, Tristan wurfs. I just feel like we've talked so much about that transition, and we knew what a good right tackle he was going to be, and is he going to be as good at left tackle?
You're kind of afraid to mess with a good thing.
Even though all of us, I'm sure had complete confidence, I'm sure interest and now everyone has seen we were right to have that kind of confidence in him.
I'm not sure if we can come up with something that Tristan doesn't do well, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, you know he could probably play tight end, Yeah, needed to according to PFF. According PFF, he's pretty much the best pass blocking left tackle.
Or is that this period? He's allowed what to pressures all year and he's faced some pretty good pass rushers.
So yeah, I think a lot of us were very confident that Tristan would handle it fine. And it goes back to the thing we learned in training camp that even a player as unbelievably great as a player who's been great since day one that he walked into the NFL, he had some concerns and he was a little am I going to be able to do this? And you don't think about those guys actually having doubts self doubts superheroes, and so.
He had a little bit of that.
When he was switching the left tackle, he told us, He's like, this is very import and am I going to be able to handle it?
And well, yep, answer is yes.
The rest of us had no doubts.
Tryst and he's you know, yeah, I'm hopeful that after four games he's feeling pretty good about it as well. And then another kind of weapon of the offense Chase McLoughlin. This guy, man, I have to imagine that it's so nice for coach Bulls to have so many more options perfect at this point of like, man, I know that even if we only get to hear we got a guy now that we've extended our part of the field that we can get points from.
It's the exact perfect point.
That's exactly what Chase McLoughlin has meant to this team because if you look at he's two for two this year and kicks of over fifty yards, and if you look at both situations they were there were one score games in the fourth quarter where if he doesn't make it, you're giving them the ball near midfield and making them a short field to potentially tie or go ahead. And so you have to be confident going into that kick that he's going to make it, or you don't risk
that you find it away. We would have punted Ryant suck Up was a Super Bowl ch champion, was a great, great kicker for us, But we would have punted in those situations with a kicker of his distance distance at the time, at that time in his career. And as that graphic was just showing, since Chase came into the league in twenty nineteen, he's the second best kicker in the league in terms of his percentage of making kicks from fifty and beyond nineteen of twenty three.
It's incredible.
That doesn't even seem logical.
That's a decent percentage from Shorter one hundred percent.
You take that from your entire body of work for a season, and that's his career from beyond fifty. So that's exactly why the Buccaneers signed this particular kicker in the offseason and they're getting what they pay for.
Yeah, that's incredible.
And then so let's talk a little bit about the defense, because man, they also had an incredible performance against the Saints. I feel like there have been games times in this history where the Saints have been able to rack up some yards, some touchdowns, some different things.
And now they're holding the Saints without a touchdown this game.
They're holding them to one hundred and ninety seven total yards lower in sixty three.
Meetings, we played him sixty three times.
Which is also crazy. That's a lot of times.
It dates all the way back to nineteen seventy seven.
That's amazing.
Bucks first win ever was against the Saints.
Oh in fact, yes, say that fun fact.
I mean, what does this say about this force when you do have so many meetings and you do so many times to have these kind of stats of the lowest the fewest, I mean, that's just got to be music.
To the defense ears.
Yeah, and you know, there's been a lot of games in this series that the Bucks have won or lost, and you I think you've made this point where you're facing like Drew Brees and Alva Kamara and you're like, we know they're going to get yards. Yep, we know they're going to score some points. They're going to get
some touchdowns, but no touchdowns. I mean, you know, Derek Carr may have potentially been a little bit limited because of the shoulder injury, but he was getting the rid of the ball extremely quickly, which meant a lot of checkdowns to Alvin Kamara, who caught thirteen passes but had thirty three yards on those thirteen receptions.
That's amazing.
Until that game, no player in NFL history had ever caught at least thirteen pass says that had less than seventy yards.
Seventy I'm not talking fifty or forty.
It was less than half of the lowest amount that a player has ever had on thirteen catches. And that's that is to me. It's it's kind of a gimmicky stat, I admit that. But what it does tell you is that the underneath coverage, the guys were getting to the ball extremely quickly and not letting Alvin Kamara do what he does so well, get the ball out in space on a and make moves. They were just getting to amasing play immediately. Players like Antoine Winfield.
Devin White, Levonte n Yeah, yeah, I remember dropped him for a loss of seven on one player.
So there's just a lot of swarming.
And I feel like if you've seen that a lot from this defense through the first four games, a lot of really swarming to the football.
Yeah, and you brought up Antoine Winfield. I will always bring up in Yeah, we will always want to we are a stand account for Antoine Winfield Junior at this point. I don't know that in my time covering the box, I remember someone filling a stat sheet the way he.
Did in this game.
Like, there's been a lot of people that have had a lot of great games to have such a diverse way of impacting the game. Where you're forcing a fumble, recovering a fumble, you're getting a sack, you're getting QB hits, your tackles for loss. I mean, it was just unbelievable past defense. I knew there's that one, yep. I mean, I just feel like this performance was incredible and also definitely a reminder of why we were like.
Yeah, let's let's put him back at safety. He's pretty good at that.
I would point to one series early in the third quarter, uh, where it showed what Antoine Winfield is capable of. And you talked about filling up a stat line, I would say the only other guy that I've seen do that in recent years is Levante David. And I think Bucks fans are going to end up loving Antoine Winfield the same way they obviously love Levante David. But this series in the third quarter, on first down around midfield, he makes a play six yards in the backfield, drops Alvin
Kamara out for a loss of six. Two plays later that pass breaking you just saw against chrys Olave three yards deep in.
The end zone.
Within the span of three plays, he made two amazing plays like fifty six yards away from each other, and so he was obviously close to the line scrimmage on the first play, he was obviously playing deep free middle of the middle of the field free safety on the second play.
That's what he can do.
You can move him all over the field and he's making plays. And I've been predicting for several years that he's going to be an all Pro.
I feel like he's off to a really good start.
Yeah, sag goal this year.
I mean, he if he continues this, he's gold Jacket.
Headed him and Tristan Worfs. That's my claim.
That's my claim, that's my hot take. He and Tristan Worfs to me are outside.
I mean, we all know that.
We feel like Mike Evans, Levante David are guys that are worthy of that. To me, that after them, that's who you're watching, That's who I'm watching, is Tristan and Antoine. That I just feel like that's the direction that they're heading. And I'm just and it's so cool that Antoine is the guy that everyone has talked about the fact that from day one he came in a pro, he knew how to be a pro. And I'm sure a lot of that is thanks to his dad coaching him up all those years and telling them what.
It takes better.
We talk about the way he the way he tackled practice and film study, and also how he takes care of his body and his maturity. It was just like I've heard a lot of people referred him as an old rookie, where he came in and he didn't seem like a rookie. He seemed like he already been. Yeah, it's very similar vibes for sure, but.
By the way good segue there did.
If you watch the Chris Godwin micd Up segment, there was a point where they were talking about Antoine on the side and they're like, well.
He's short, but he's just a good player, yeah, just and knows what he's doing.
And then we'll talk a little bit and we normally would talk about an upcoming game, but it is the bye week, so tell people a little bit about how the team tries to use this bye week.
Well, they gave the players the full week off. They didn't have to. They could have had a couple of bonus practices early, but they had to give him four consecutive days off, and they gave him the whole day off, the whole week off, and they'll come back on Monday for a bonus day. What the coaches do, and they're
not putting in the normal amount of hours. I mean, they're getting out there early, which they deserve to get a break as well, but they are coming in and Dave Canel's talked about how they wanted to take that week to kind of take a deep dive into the first four games and just really go over what has worked and you know what can we emphasize and what can we hang our hat on and make this offense sort of give it its identity. And so they've been studying film quite a bit.
Yeah, and I think that's where we all talked about how man we hated what an early bye week it is. You tend to want it to be late to really get healthy right before crunch time. But man, I'm like, hey, we needed to get healthy right now anyways. But b I think with a new offensive coordinator and a new system and a new quarterback and all that, in some ways it is kind of nice early on before it's you know, later in the season, like, hey, let's really
sit down figure out what's working, well what's not. I think in some ways that's kind of a benefit. Now. I'm sure come week twelve, if we have a bunch of iness again.
We're going to be like, dang it, but we have two buys.
Yeah, for right now, I think it makes sense. And then all right, we will close with this Creamsickle game. In case you have not seen has been flexed. That is our next game we have here after the bye week. It was a one pm now it is a four to twenty five. So whether you're coming to the game, watching the game, all of that. Just want to make sure everybody knows it got flex which I was very excited about.
And why do games get flexed?
Because the teams are doing.
Well right because they want more of the nation to see this and that I mean right now, Detroit still has another game to play, but right now that's a matchup of two first place teams.
That's going to be a fun one.
Yeah, that's gonna be great, And there's gonna be so many cool things that the team is doing for the stadium and the whole in game experience. I'm just so glad more people will get to see the cream school jerseys and the entire experience we have. And I know there is going to be some special merch dropping as well, so everyone cannot get enough of all the Creamsicle merch right now, myself included.
So make sure you are paying.
Attention over this next week or so and checking out the team store, checking out the bucks website and socials because there are going to be some very cool exclusive things dropping that you can only find at shop dot Buccaneers dot com.
So I love those shots of the Olts b great and yes.
The old sombrero.
I think maybe there could be some swag.
That has to do with that, a little teas.
Therefore, now we don't know, we don't know, but all right, we hope all of you are getting outfitted, you're getting ready. Use that by week to get ready for the Cream school game. We get back, we'll be back here next week to take more of a look at that matchup, So we'll see you then,