Their Bucks fans. Has everybody doing on this Friday morning, this football playoff game day Friday. This is what we are so excited about. We have been doing this show three days in a row to make sure we get to all of your questions. So if you have some of those questions, comments, topics you want us to talk about, make sure you head over to the Facebook page if you're not already watching on there and leave them in
the comments section. This is Buccaneers Insider Live, presented by Miller Lite, Casey Phillips here senior writer and editor Scott Smith. So as we give people a chance to start submitting some of those questions, a couple of topics that we've learned a little bit about since yesterday. Since again we've been doing this a few days in a row, so we're just trying to update you since yesterday, before the show, we had talked about Ronald Jones and whether or not
he was going to be returning to practice. To tell us what we learned yesterday, Well, he did return to practice in a limited fashion, which is what you would expect, and it was what Bruce arians was hoping for. So I would consider that a good sign. The Bucks are gonna practice here at about half an hour, so we'll get a better feel for how good he's coming along and if it's a steady progression and if they think he's gonna play on Sunday. But at least it was
a step in the right direction. By the way the practice today, they're going inside, and I gotta believe that's just because they wanted to get a little bit of work on artificial turf before playing in the Superdome on Sunday. So there's a little bit of news for you. Yeah, that's that's a great point. Um. We've had a couple of questions about uh injury updates in general, and again this is something that we've we've answered the last couple of days, but we know not everyone gets to see
the show every day. So we had a few different people ask about Vita Via and O. J. Howard and the implications of playoffs for there, and then we also had a question about Alex Kappa, So can you give us the updates on those guys. Yeah, let's start at the end there, because while the Bucks haven't officially anound to yet, they are about to put out scap on each reserve due to that ankle fracture. Um, that's the starting right guard. He started every game leading up to this,
so that's an unfortunate loss. He was having a night season and his second year as a starter. And because you have to be on injury reserve for at least three games before you could be eligible to return, that means that's it for Kappa in So we'll be looking forward to his good return in one and the Buccaneers are gonna start Aaron Stinney in his place. He is the it'll be his first start coming out in the playoffs in the division round. It's hey for you, right
into the fire. But he's the Buck's best option there right now, and the Bucks like his athleticism and his physical style of play. And one of the people who was asked about him yesterday, I can't remember, maybe Ryan Jensen who to compare him to, and he said, well, he's actually kind of a lot like Alex Kappa, So if he can give you something like the same thing, then that will be good. And the Buccaneers are also going to um restore some of that depth on the
interior line by signing Earl Watford. Again that's not officially yet, but it is going to happen probably before this practice, so any minute now. And as we know, Earl Watford was with the team all last year. UM started four games, actually three of them in place of Alex Kappa, right, So he may take a little while to get his legs underneath them because he hasn't played at all this year. But that's a nice signing because he knows the system.
So I don't remember the first half of that question now because I've been talking for a very long time. You you you hit? Uh, Well, it was Vita and o J. Yeah, they're not they're not coming back. Yeah, like I said, not everybody's heard all these But as we've said repeatedly, while we would love to have either or Vita there or o J. Howard left, this this extra month hopefully of playoffs is not enough to get
either of them back from their injuries. UM, and we since we were just talking about Alex Cappa, Frank had asked, how big of an impact do you think his loss will have on on this team and what the offense is able to do. Well, it's potentially a big impact, and we don't want it to be honest with you, because um, if it has an impact, it probably won't be in a good way. That the Buccaneers offensive line
really is peaking at the right time. They've been playing well for the last month or so, I mean really well, given given Tom Brady tons of time to throw and most of his passes, which is why he's been able to hit so many of those downfield twenty five thirty yard plays to Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin and Mike Evans and Scottie Miller and uh Cam Braid. I mean, we've had something like eleven touchdowns of more than twenty yards in the last five games, which is really a lot.
And obviously the overall numbers for Tom Brady have been incredible over the last five or six weeks, and you can't do that without good protection from the line. So hopefully Aristony can help keep that going. So it will be saying there wasn't a huge impact from him coming into the game, right. And then we also had a question from Alan do you expect Todd Bowls to blitz more than usual this Sunday Hot Bowls. Already blitz is
more than almost every defensive coordinator in this league. I think his blitz rate this year was about fort and Just to be clear, a blitz is actually defined as more than four defenders coming at the pass around pass rush. So sometimes things you see that look like a blitz aren't necessarily a blitz. Like if a corner comes out of the slot, but one of your outside linebackers drops into coverage and you're still only bringing four that's not
a blitz. But just from a blitz standpoint, I think Todd Bowls has been in the top three in terms of aggressiveness in the league, including when he was a head coach for the last five years. So he's he's gonna blitz. Okay, it's gonna happen. Will you be more? That will probably depend on how well it goes. You know, if you if you blitz Drew Brees five straight times and he gashes you and you don't get nearly near close to him, then you might think maybe this isn't
the best strategy in the world. So we'll see how it goes. A lot of times this year I've seen that he has started out not blitzing as much and then doubted up a little bit later, and that's been an effective way to go Okay and east. I asked how many turnovers do you think our defense needs to force to win the game. Well, they don't need to force any particularly if the Buccaneers defense offense is not
turning the ball over. UM one would be enough if the Bucks can keep keep the ball secure on offense, because the Buccaneers are nine and oh this season when they have a positive turnover ratio. So it's more about the net number of turnovers that the Buccaneers have and if it's on the positive side, I'll feel pretty good about it. So it could be too to nothing, they could be forwarded to. Either way, it's it's probably a
good sign for the Bucks. Um And we also had Vaughan asked, do you think Gronk needs to be more involved in the passing part or is it okay for him to stay more in the blocking role. Well, it's just it's game. Plans change from game to game. I mean, Gronk had some big games down the stretch and then in the last game he was mostly blocking, although they did have one play dialed up frohim and the end
zone that they really thought was gonna work and just miss. So, uh, if they if if Bruce arians and Byron left, which have a plan this week, to unleash Gronk and have him out there. They wouldn't tell us, So do we need to do that? No? I mean there's so many weapons on this offense that if you decide again to you know, to make him more of a blocker and help you in that way and let Cam break room
around a little bit more, it would probably work. But playoff Rob Gronkowski in his career has been pretty pretty phenomenal, so I wouldn't mind seeing him unlashed. Yes, Curtis asked who's more dangerous to our defense, Breeze or Taysom Hill. Well, Breeze because he's gonna play, um you know percent of the snaps. Taysom Hill could hurt you with some gadgetry stuff, and you know he might have one or two big plays that that hurt. But overall, Drew Brees is the
bigger issue. Yeah. Obviously. We also had a question who's the backup for Devon and Lavante this game if Mentor is on the COVID list, Yeah, it would be Jack Cichy and um, I guess you could elevate um Daon Buchanan from the practice from the practice squad again, so I'd probably be those two, which you know, I'm I'm not saying that's a great feeling because that's not a lot of depth considering Jack Cichy only came back a couple of weeks ago and Daon Buchanan just came back
last week. So I'm not trying to tell you that's a perfect situation. But sometimes due to injuries or illness or whatever, you end up a little thin in one position or another. And definitely we are right now there. And uh, we also had Dustin asked is case I'm still hurt? So I know that he was out of practice for the Saints. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's Saints last practice report UM had him as out still that he missed the last two games. UM, so we'll see
today we'll be much more telling. One thing I want to point out if you happen to go to the injury report on buccaneers dot com to see the Bucks, you might see some strange things from the Saints injury report. Something's messed up with their injury report on their website, and it's showing guys like Michael Thomas and Mark and Depp Mark Stavenport is out and that gets automatically pulled onto our injury report on our website, So we're not
trying to say Michael Thomas is out. There's just some glitch in the system, so don't read anything into that. And we also had a question of asking you to predict the score. UM, I know you do, so how about instead of making you give a specific score? Um, do you think this is how high scoring or not? Do you see the game being It feels like a high scoring game to me, something like that, not nothing out of control like forty. But I don't think we're going to see a fourteen to ten game here. The
Bucks offenses just clicking on all cylinders right now. And as I've said the last couple of days, just as long as they can give Tom Brady a good amount of time to pass, I think we will move the ball and score. And it's pretty hard to stop now that Drew Brees has Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara back um and Deonta Harris, that really fast small receiver who's a great kickoff returners starting to get more involved. Um,
They've got a lot of weapons as well. So it's a tall task to ask either of these defenses to keep the other team under twenty points, so to me, it sounds feels more like a kind of game. All right, Well, that is going to do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lyte. Thanks for all of those amazing questions, Thanks for being with us throughout this week, and enjoy that game on Sunday night.