Tristan Wirfs Selected to Pro Bowl Team, Previewing Week 16 | Bucs Insider

has been named to the bro Pro Bowl. Tell me a little bit about in your mind why he was able to get this honor, what's been so amazing about him, and just kind of what this this means to him in the team. I think the only thing I was worried about was his injury, because you worried that was just while voting was still going on. But apparently it didn't matter. Um, he probably got a lot of support from the players on coaches, you know how. It's a

three way ballot. What's interesting about this is that's his second Pro Bowl in three seasons, and that's already almost the most Pro Bowls that any offensive lineman and team Mystery has ever had. Tony Mayberry had three in a row at the very end of his career, and Devon Joseph A guard had to um, but he he's got two already and I gotta believe more are coming. Yes, Um, he's he's working hard to try to play this week. He's been champing at the bit to play the last

couple of weeks. I think he's being held back, like if it were up to him, and he probably would have played last week. But when he's played, he's been as dominant as ever. He's one of the best past blockers in the entire league. Um And and he's I think he's allowed one sack all season, which is more than he allowed in his rookie season. So he's just dominant. And that's all there is to it. And it's been recognized.

And there is a bit of a when you're a good player, especially on the offensive line, it seems, and you make that Pro Bowl once or twice, you hit a little bit of momentum. So it's to the point where a voter next year might be have to vote for a tackle. I don't really know who's been going well. Tristan Horse is good, so I'll vote for Tristan And it's and it's accurate, and it's it's also helpful to

get that Pro Bowl momentum. Yeah, that's very true. And uh, I know Buck fans will be excited that he also returned to practice this week in a limited capacity. And so what are your thoughts on do we think we see him on Sunday and if not, what would that look like? It's I think it's still a question mark. Like I said before, I think he really wants to play, and it will see how this week goes. If he progresses from limited to full, then that will be a

pretty good sign. But there is that whole which games is the most important to have him for kind of conversation, right, if there's any chance that playing this week makes it makes him less or has a chance of aggravating the injury for the last two games against Carolina and Atlanta, that might give you a little pause. And Josh Wells has played pretty good, but Josh Wells is also hurt

this week. So uh, you know, if I were a bet man, I'd say he plays, but I can understand that they might want to at least think about exercising some caution. And then Donovan Smith was also on the injury report. So overall this offensive line, what are we thinking about? How many how many people were going to have out there that that fans were used to seeing. Donovan was getting treatment on the foot injury, and that's why I wasn't in practice yesterday. And just knowing Donovan,

he's been an iron man throughout his career. If there's you know, he go if he's not, and he'll fight through injuries. He's done that his whole career. So again, I'm guessing that both Donovan and Tristan play, but I don't have any actual inside information that that's the case. Yes, all right, So we also want to talk about the other side of things. You know, we're gonna We've talked about how the offensive line and Tristan not giving up a lot of sacks, will another guy in the defense

getting some sacks. Lavante David had one this last week and that gave him a pretty cool statum in terms of this franchisees. You don't think of Lavante David as a top sack guy, right, but through his career he generally gets, you know, three to six sacks the season, and he's got twenty nine now and that passed Rande Barber, who also, it's amazing, has twenty eight sacks for tenth place.

On the team's all time sack list. But when you look at players who are not supposed to be the pass rushers, you know, not the outside linebackers or defensive ends, and not the defensive lineman like Vida Va or whatever. Lavante has got the most sacks in team history, and just above Rande, who's again sex for a quarterback. It's crazy.

Roderick Thomas and Chris Washington were both before my time, and they may have had parts of their career where they were specifically edge rushers, but they also had big sack total, I mean tackle total sort of tells me they both played in three four like we have now. It tells me that they probably had sort of a hybrid role. So you can quib about whether they should be on this list, but it doesn't really matter because

Levonte's ahead of them anyway. So most sacks in team history by a person whose job really isn't supposed to be getting sacks. So now I can can I make the joke about how if they were before your time, was that in leather Hill very much. I had to do it. I had to do it. I did overlap with Rodric Thomas for one season. One season Okay, in that case, it was in the eighties. Um okay. So

also we we've got to talk about Chris Godwin. This guy, I still just think it's incredible and I don't want fans to take for granted that he's playing at the level he is now and how it really still isn't that long ago that he had a really devastating injury and just how amazing it's been to come back for week one and and progress the way he has. I think it's just pretty incredible. And so, um, tell us a little bit about what he's been doing lately that

is really incredible to you. Well, we had I think we had a graphic last week about how he had a streak of ten which is now eleven straight games with at least five catches because he had eight fine in this past game and this touchdown that we keep seeing here and what he's done most Reeks recently in terms of team history, is score that touchdown and move into fourth place on the team's all time touchdown reception list. What's interesting to me about this list is three of

the top four on the team right now. Incredible. I mean that that that says a little bit about the evolution of the games at passing touchdowns now than before, but it is kind of a concentration of talent that you know, we're going to look back at five ten years from ago. Wow, we had all those guys at the same time. But Godwin, remember his rookie season, his very first touchdown was the game winner against New Orleans in week seventeen. It took him his entire to his

last games workie season actually score a touchdown. But since then he's been finding the enzone with regularity. Maybe not to the level of Mike Evans, which is hard, that's a ridicular And speaking of him, it was great to see he and Chris both have bigger games and games that are more reminiscent of what you're used to with them, what the team is known they're capable of, and just in general the offense. At first half, it's like, this is what the team has wanted known they're capable of.

It felt like this is it, this is the moment, and then, of course we know the second half not so much. So what do you think the team learned from that first half? What is it that they can take from that to apply to these games moving forward? Where do you have a chance to see a repeat of that in Arizona. One thing that the Bucks did a lot in that game, especially in the first half, was used play action and motion, but in in particular

play action. On ten of his i think twenty two three dropbacks in the first half, tom Brady faked a handoff. That's what play action is, and that resulted in seven catches for nine yards and it was working, and I believe they probably would have stuck with it in the second half. But you know, you can't do anything well when you're turning the ball over four times in like eleven plays. You just don't. You're not You don't have extended drives and times to get into all the things

that you want to do. But the play action was working in terms of buying Tom Brady time. He had a lot of clean pockets and he was able to let plays develop and look downfield a little bit more, and that's when you get a lot more of these big Mike Emmons plays. Right. So, now, looking ahead to the Cardinals game, what are some of the things you think are going to be keys to winning this games? Things that you've noticed about the Cardinals team. We know that it's been a bit of a disaster of a

season for them. But any given Sunday, and we've definitely seen that having a third string quarterback doesn't necessarily give you a win. So yeah, it's a very weird stat that the Buccaneers trace something storially is about to make his first NFL start Weirdly, including just a couple of weeks ago against brock Purty, the Buccaneers have lost five straight games against quarterbacks, making their first such a ridiculous stat. It's and and a lot of it is just doesn't

make sense. Like the Giants and Daniel Jones a few years back, the Bucks win that game if that game

makes like a thirty two yard field. Are the Jets in like two thousand thirteen or fourteen playing against Geno Smith and his first start who just made the Pro Bowl by the way, when rebound that guy's had, But we win that game if there isn't a highly questionable, uh unnecessary roughness call on a late hit by Levante David who does not do that, and the call was highly questionable, which gave them fifteen yards allowed him to kick a game winning field though field goal is time expired,

So it's a flukey, but it is a thing, and I guess the lesson from it is, don't assume that the Buccaneers are going to just easily roll the victory because they're facing Trace mcstorlean's first start. That being said, the Cardinals have had a rough season and we've had some injury issues, but they've had I think even worse, and their offensive line has been just ravaged by injuries all season, and you would think that there's some possibility there for our pass rush to get to an experienced

quarterback and force them into some mistakes. I think that's

probably the key to winning that game. And I think that for me, it's so interesting that they it feels in some ways like these teams mirror each other where the injuries have happened in different positions, and so I know that in particular, they've been a little beat up on their offensive line, have been beat up in their secondary in terms of their corners a lot as well, and so it's kind of interesting and to me, I feel like this is a game where it should be

so much like the Bengals, where if you can get up to a lead, that this is going to be so important against this team in particular, So get that fast start. Yes, get that fast starting. Don't commit for turnovers in a row that. I know, it sounds crazy, It sounds like a crazy game plan. But yeah, and do you feel like those turnovers was that just more of a flukey thing? I mean, when it is as many in what is eleven plays as he'd had in

eleven games, is it just a flukey thing? Is there something obviously, but it doesn't excuse it, and nobody's trying to excuse it. There were some bad plays made. I think Tom Brady said in his Monday podcast that he can't remember ever turning the hand the ball off and just having to slip out of his hand, so that, yes, that's obviously a bit a little bit flukey, But also it happened, and he took responsibility for one of the interceptions on a bad throw. Another one was tipped, but

that's because the pass rush was getting to him. I think actually wasn't tip, but he was hit as Even so, there are factors that go into these flukey turnovers that you need to try to eliminate as much as possible. But yeah, I mean, I think if you look at the balance of the season, as you said he had

almost no turnovers to the first eleven games. So the fact that the Buccaneers have nine turnovers and that doesn't even account they messed up fake punt nine turnovers in the last three games after committing probably just that many in the first eleven games. What what is more representative reality? Right, there's a bigger sample size that Buckner's being good at not and Tom Brady in particular being good at not

turning over the ball. So I don't think you go into this game thinking, well, we got a real turnover problem tom Brady turning the ball over all the time, because for the most party hasn't just did in that game, right, Yeah, well, there's gonna be some interesting things to watch for sure on Christmas, And of course right after this, we're actually gonna shoot our path to the Draft segment where we break down our path to the draft, path to the

playoffs for the love of fete. You know, it's not like I get paid to talk hair path to the playoffs. We still have a while before we rattled one to be the next three games to be a path to the draft. Yeah, you're right, that's the opposite of what

we're trying to do back to the playoffs. We're gonna shoot that right after this, where we're talking about all of the different scenarios that the Bucks are going to need to have happened, what wins they're going to need, what other teams are going to need to cooperate potentially or not. So make sure you stay tuned to that on Buccaneers dot com, and we'll be back here next week.