Jameis Winston's Future with the Bucs & When to Expect Answer on Kendell Beckwith's Return | Bucs Insider Live, Nov. 6

for for your mind. When we were after the game, coach announced Ryan Fitzpatrick would continue to be the quarterback this next week. So, um, what do you feel like that says about the direction of this offense and the team and what the coaches and everybody really see in Ryan Fitzpatrick and what that could mean. Well, first of all, I don't think this team or any team ever wants to get into involved involved in a situation where you're

switching back and forth between quarterbacks. I know that Coach Cutter wasn't really all that thrilled about having to make a quarterback change that wasn't caused by a suspension in

the middle of season. He said so in fact, but it was made easier by the fact that the team has so much faith in their number two quarterback, because, as he pointed out, a lot of teams are even more reluctant to pull their their number one starter, their number one on the season began because they don't really trust their second guy, or they may be actively believe he can't get it done and they don't have a

great option. We had the guy who came into the weekend with the best passer rating in the NFL, So I gotta believe that the leash was going to be long. Um. I understand there's there's a lot of thought that needs to be put into when and if you go back to James Winston and what his status is as a potential franchise quarterback and throw on where it goes from here. But you don't want to get involved in that going back and forth because at that point, I mean, you

don't feel like you have any solution at all. You want to have one solution, and it can't help either guy to keep going back and in and the optics of it aren't very good. So I I thought it would have to take a pretty big meltdown, which we don't expect obviously, from Ryan Fitzpatrick to make any sort of sudden switch, So it was no surprise to me that he made that announcement right away. And really, honestly,

Ryan Fitzpatrick was not the problem in that game. Yes, he had one bad overthrow that led to an interception and that helped put the Bucks in a bad position, but for the most part, he played about as well as he's played for a good portion of the season, and he did lead us back into that game after it looked all all but lost, right and overall, in your mind, the defense and a coach talked about the

tackling the big issue. So, I mean, the defense has struggled this year, but I didn't feel like tackling had seemed to be as glario an issue until that game. And I mean there, of course there were a few mistackles along the way, but it felt like this game in particular, So overall, how much do you feel like that is the issue that's been all season and which is more glaring this time or was it really this game?

And it seems like that the bigger problems on defense heading into this game, the games have gone very badly in that regard were more like mistakes mental mistakes, miscommunication, that sort of thing, and young guys trying to figure it out. You know, I think this big tackling issue that reared its head in Carolina was hopefully a flukey thing. I don't think that's been a massive problem for the Buccaneers. You know, some of it in coaches generally say this,

some of it. You do have to give some credit to the other side. Some mistackles are created by great plays and that's why those guys get drafted like that. And Carolina has completely remade their offense in the last couple of drafts with guys like obviously Christian McCaffrey, the big one, and Curtis Samuel, who didn't play a ton last year, but now he's getting involved in DJ more this year. And now they've got a lot of fast guys that they get the ball moving laterally and in

a lot of really creative ways. And and once you get one or two of those creative plays working, then you start play calling off of those plays. So that's why we see an end a round and then we see your reverse. And just so I can get on a soapbox here for a moment that Curtis Samuel's touchdown was not a double reverse. Even the guys who keep the stats at the game called made a point of

saying the play was a double reverse. An end around is when you hand it to a guy coming from one side, like usually receiver, and he takes it and goes around the other end a reverse, which is what happened in Chris Samuel plays when you do that, but then he flips into a guy coming back in the other direction. For it to be a double reverse, it would have been one more handoff and drives me crazy. People call in runs reversus and I call versus double reverses.

But anyway, off my soapbox now not really relevant to the discussion. I do think the tackling was hopefully a flukey problem that we're not going to see become something that plagues us the rest of you. So looking at the other issues, I mean, still not creating turnovers, which that's also a flukey thing as well that we've talked about that that's not as easy as it sounds, and someway, some of it can be luck about where a ball

is tipped and things like that. But I know the defense has been emphasizing the saying that they need to work on it more. Is that something that you feel like is possible for them to I mean, Gerald spoke about that issue that he feels like there's a chance they could go on that run the way that they did a couple of years ago. What do you think it will take for this defense to start creating some

of those turnovers. You know, as far as fumbles go, there is an art to it forcing fumbels that Lavonte David, for example, is very very good at. And I do actually honestly see our guys, every single one of our defenders trying to create fumbles when they're making tackles. I think they're trying. I don't know if they're doing anything wrong in that regard, you know, interceptions, As you say, sometimes we just don't get very lucky with tip balls

or just overthrows. To give you an example, when Fits overthrew Evans on that early play, it went right to one of their safeties. Later in the game, there was a bad overthrow down the middle by Cam Newton, but our safety didn't happen to be standing right where the ball was overthrown too, And it wasn't a mistake. He just wasn't right there. You know, so some of that is luck, but when you get to essentially five straight games without a turnover, um, there has to be something

more to it than just bad luck. And I gotta believe, you know, coach Duffner every week, because he's asked about it every week, says, we are not coming down with the ball. We are creating some opportunities to get it, but we're not coming down with the ball. I think we need to create more opportunities. I'm not sure we're creating that many certainly didn't see a lot in the Carolina game, but they have to make have to take

advantage of those opportunities when they get him in. According to both the coach and the players, it looks better than that on the practice field, guys are doing a good job of taking advantage of those opportunities and making some turnovers and practice interceptions specifically, and uh, they just

don't understand why it's not translating to the field. Do you feel like this Redskins game could be the game that helps turn around that they just have so many injuries, particularly on the offensive line, and that is this the game where the defensive line therefore can get a lot of pressure which then makes Alex Smith have to make some rush decisions, which can help on the turnover front. Theoretically. Yeah, I mean they have maybe up to four their five

offensive linemen out. They're signing guys off the street. I'm sure they're you know, they sign a guy he's talented enough to be in I can't think his name, but the one they signed yesterday, he's talent enough to have been a starter in the league a lot, including I think last year for Baltimore or somebody. So we're not talking about completely untalented players. But to have to try to put up to four new ones in and make

it work seems nearly impossible. So on paper, yes, it looks like an awesome opportunity for us to get pressure, which could lead to more turnovers. But we've said things like that before. On paper, this looks like a great opportunity to stop this rookie quarterback. On paper, this and that, so there's a reason to be optimistic about that, but it really has to be proven on the field. Um, we had a couple different Winston questions that I feel

like we can kind of package all together. So Aaron wants to know if you think jamis will get another chance before the end of the season. And then we also had a question asking if he is not the answer long term, how do you what you know? We're from there. So the idea of what all factors in now to whether it's his contract and how long he's with us and things that have of whether or not he gets another chance, is it based solely on how Fitzpatrick plays? What are some of the factors that could

play in here? And there's that's the million dollar question, right or a lot more than a million dollars um he Just in case anybody doesn't know that's asking these questions, probably most of them do know. The Buccaneers did exercise his fifth year option that you can do with a first round draft pick. They had to make that decision

before this year, and they did so. He he's under contract for next year at a certain number, which is a pretty high number compared to his first four years, but not necessarily what a great quarterback can get on the open market. And that's kind of a compromise and how they worked those contracts for first round picks. Uh, the despite the fact we pick up the option, a team does not actually have to keep that player in the fifty, you still can release that player assuming that

he's not injured. So there's it is guaranteed for injury. Um we have said apparently are our leaders have said that what's going to happen with the rest of his contract is not going to factor into whether he plays again this season. I know coach Cutter has said he believes James Winston will get another chance and can succeed as an NFL quarterback and be a really good one,

But there's no timetable on that statement. So really that is one of the biggest issues that's going to play out over the next couple of months of the season and then right afterwards, because if you go in another direction, Uh, that's there's a lot of different variables there. You know, you've got essentially no quarterbacks in our contract heading into next year if you were to go in another direction, so you'd be looking for new answers I suppose, or

resigning somebody. But there's so much that goes into that that we're far away from knowing how that's going to play, right, And I did see that. We just had someone asking if Dirk had named a starting quarterback, and yes, he did name Ryan Fitzpatrick the starter for this Sunday. But that's as far out ahead as he has, that's as far as we're going to see him go. Right. I do like that he's immediately saying so on Monday or in this case, after the game on Sunday, right, you know,

making everybody wonder. Um. Aaron had asked, why is the offense turning the ball over so much? Is it a scheme issue or just a execution? No, I can't. Definitely don't think it's a scheme issue, because you know, we have moved the ball really, really well. I think the scheme and the play calling is working when they have created turnovers or you know, committed turnovers. It's been in the last two weeks it's been bad throws, simply bad throws, overthrows.

Over the course of this whole time, it's been some of those flukey plays that you would expect both teams to get and we're not getting him. You know, like a ball hits off a helmet, goes straight in the air and is intercepted. Stuff like that. But in the last couple of weeks it's been bad throws and in

a couple ocasions, bad decisions. I don't think that was the case with right Fitzpatrick on Sunday, his turnover was his first turnover was an overthrow, and then he threw pretty well almost the game and then the last one. You know, that's when you're down to touch on with what two minutes to go, and you got to score quickly, so you take risk, you throw risk your passes and you normally would and that one didn't work out, the go one down the field to fit. But I don't

think blames him for that one. Right Um. We had David asking about our blitzeing, and that has been a topic that I think, especially when Duffner was first named the defensive coordinator. He talked about how he wanted to be you know, his his defense. He wanted to be aggressive, and there was a big debate about okay, does that mean right? And and how much blitzing. So I want to hear your thoughts on how much you have seen us blitz maybe even before after Deffner and overall the

idea of how much has blitzeing been working. I didn't really look at the numbers before we came down here on that topic. I would have I known we're going to get that question. I know that before under Mike Smith, we were blitzing a little less than league average, not a lot less than link average, but a little less. But we were also not blitzing successfully at all. Um

opposing quarterbacks were doing awesome when we blitzed. So, you know, the the issue of blitz or not blitz is too part how much you do it and can you actually succeed at it, Because if you're not doing all the blitz, you're just hurting yourself even more by doing so. And I know it's frustrating when you can't get to the quarterback with your four down lineman. But if you're just making matters worse by blitzing than doing it more often,

isn't necessarily the answer. Uh. You know, our our sacks on on Sunday, at least one of them involved a blitz or Lavante David has told me before that sometimes when he's in the backfield, it's not necessarily as a blitz. It's a reaction to what they do with their running back. But it looks like a blitz us because it's another plant, I think we can it acts like a blitz. So

Levante was involved with that sack. With Germ McCoy. So obviously that was some sort of blitz and I don't know if they call Nassip Sack was Sack was on a blitz. But overall we didn't get a ton of pressure on Kim in that game. But they also have a very They also had a very get the ball of his hand quick type offense and they're running the ball so well. But it wasn't a game conducive to getting a lot of pressure on the quarterback. Right um, Chris wanted to know how much longer until we can

expect kindle Beck with back and game ready. You're gonna find out either this week or next week period that's there's going to be an answer if he is going to play or not. It's he's gonna have to be activated either this week or next week. So again, when he was there began I think after week seven a five week window and at some point in that five weeks you could start him at practice and then it's a three week window from there. So we waited the

first two weeks. We waited as long as we possibly could to get the full three weeks of him practicing, and when he came back to practice as is the case with all guys in this situation. There's no guarantee that at the end of those three weeks he's going to start playing again. If it hasn't doesn't go well enough, if it's not deemed that he's ready to play and it was a serious injury, then he will simply stay on the reserve list for the rest of the year.

So we don't know the answer yet. Um last week he was sort of eased into it. We'll see this week. If he's playing more than that would be a good sign. Giving him a bigger piece of the practice pie, that would be a good sign. And I would certainly probably feel the same way. I'm guessing that that question, it feels is that would really be helpful for this defense. The loss of Kwan Alexander. We knew it was gonna be tough. I think we're seeing on the field how

tough it is, how much it has affected us. And I'm not saying kendle Beck with especially after it's been so long since he's played, would be able to duplicate what Quand did. But he is a guy that you think he played it last year. We liked when he did. It would be a nice addition to that puzzle. All right, Well, that's gonna do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks to all

of you for watching and joining the conversation. We'll be back here next Tuesday, so make sure you're thinking about all those questions the rest of this week for on Tuesday, and we'll see you then