Unpacking Roster Updates, Matchups vs. Dallas Cowboys | Bucs Insider

comments section. For now, let's dive a little bit into last week's game, which feels kind of obsolete at this point in some ways of where it almost felt like a preseason game of a lot our starters, get a little work, pull them out, try not to get her go into the playoffs. So, um, what do you feel like the takeaways are that you can glean from a game like that that is a little unconventional. Not much, yes, not much, but I think you can take away that.

I think what coach Bowles wanted to do by playing the starters for most or all of the first half, depending on who they were, was to keep them sort of in the momentum. Like the week seventeen game had been pretty good, especially on offense, and so I think he didn't want them to rest for two weeks and just not you know, staying sort of game mode, but he also wanted to reduce the injury of risk as much, the risk of injury as much as possible, and so

in that regard it was kind of success. I know the team wouldn't call it a success because they lost, but they did get a fast start on offense, a fast start on defense, and they got out of the

game in pretty good health. Several guys have said this week, including coach UH, coach left Which and Tom Brady on his podcast, that they are as healthy now as they've been since like the O T A. S. That's pretty incredible and how rare in terms of typically you think you're you're least healthy most of the time at the end of the season, and how nice to be in that position. You know, that week a team game helped

us get there. We we didn't play nine guys because seven and actors that were injured in two more Tristan and Mike Ems didn't play. We didn't play nine guys that had some issue, you know, Tristan as an ankle, etcetera, Vita Bay with his calf. Actually Mike Ems was just sick. But um, all those guys had a chance to get better and they may all return this week, Yeah, which

would be incredible. Um, And I know that one of the guys that we just keep talking about on the show, we talked about it might just need to be a recurring segment is the Chris god Went updated the Godwin segment to tell me what the Godwin segment is about this week? Well, Chris came out of the game at the same time that Tom did, after five five drives,

a little bit before halftime. But even even so, he still caught six passes, and I was kind of hoping that he would stay in the game a little bit longer. I'm kind of glad he didn't now, so he didn't risk injury. But he just needed three more catches to break the Keyshaw Johnson's two thousand one single season record of a hundred and six. He ended up the season at a hundred four. But there's another record he could still get if you add the regular season and the

playoffs together. Keishaw's record is a hundred nine from two thousand and one, and Chris would only need six catches, and he generally gets six catches in the game, So there's a very very good chance by the end of this game and hopefully it's not his last game this season that he'll have the record if you count playoffs as well. That's awesome. I love that. So happy for him, and just what a cool story. We say this every time, but I mean this is this would be great no

matter why. We love Chris, no matter what. But to just remember where he was at with his injury last year and how hard he worked to get to this point and to be not just back, but back at this elite level is incredible. Yeah, he and he did that in about fourteen and a half games too. That is crazy. That is so impressive. All right, So now let's look ahead to this Cowboys game. Um, it just is so funny how we keep having these playoff games

that are rematches from the regular season. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad things. So far, it seems like it's worked fairly well for the Buccaneer except for the Rams. Except for the Rains game,

we don't have to think about that. So we thought we'd do a little tale to tape here and most of these what I did is I paired things together that our strength on strength, So the Cowboys are the second best team in the league behind the Eagles in terms of getting sacks, but the Buccaneers are the best in preventing them. Uh, the Cowboys have the fifth best third down percentage something like, but the Buccaneers have the sixth best defense. Interceptions have been They've thrown a lot

of them. We we don't we don't throw a lot of them, but they get a lot of them. Uh, they're they're good at wrecking a passing yards, but we're to stopping it. But then there's this one right here, that five down that I point out. The Cowboys have the best red zone offense in the in the league in terms of touchdown efficiency. It's something like and that's

been a real struggle for the Buccaneers this year. So that's an area where it's not strength on strength, And I just wanted to bring it up to say this is gonna be a critical part of the ballgame. When we beat them nineteen to three in Week one, they didn't get into the red zone. So that would be a good way to take care of that problem. But I don't think that you can count on that happening since they've the highest scoring team in the league over

the last eight weeks. So if it's a bit of a shootout or it's it's tied at the end, how well the Buccaneers defense can can hold off the Cowboys in the red zone could be key. And part of that is Ezekiel Elliett is fantastic around the goal line. Yep, that's gonna be so big, and I know that we've seen thankfully. In terms of that health. We talked about the difference in having both Vita Via and a Cheam Hicks out there together and what that means to this

rush defense. Talk about good timing to have both of them hopefully being a little bit healthier and playing alongside each other, because we have just seen what that means and we know that's what the Cowboys are gonna want to do, especially when you've seen Dak throwing interceptions in what seven strade games? Yeah, any type of league lead of fifteen, which is crazy, you got one on him. Yeah, you know that they're going to want to be able to run the ball and not force him to have

to be doing that. So that's going to be important. When a Kim and Vita were last on the field together was Week seventeen against the Panthers, who the previous week had run for three yards and the Bucks held him to seventy one. That ended up being very important. Yeah, that's a big deal. So I know also, as we talk about these strengths on strengths, the linebacker positions for

both groups pretty dangn good. So tell us what you see about those different position groups and where you think maybe there's an advantage or what these offenses are each going to try to do a combat that well, no offense to Dak Prescott. But when you talk about the Cowboys this year, the last couple of years, the first name you always mentioned as Michael Parsons. He was second in the voting for defensive Player not Rookie of the Year last year when he was a rookie, and he's

doing it again this year. But the Buccaneers kind of a sneaky good off ball linebacker as well. He doesn't line up as an edge rusher like Michael Parsons does on some of his snaps, but he does do a very good job of rushing the passer on blitz is usually up the a gap and as you can see in the two games of the Bucks and Plates. Since Michael Parsons joined the Cowboys. They've both done a lot, look at lots of tackles. Both of them have two sacks,

both of the tackles for losses Corbett hits. They both broken up a path. So I think Parsons gets a lot more attention than Devin White. But both of these defenses have a guy in the middle that can affect the game in a lot of ways, including rushing the passer. Yeah, that's gonna be so interesting to see. And so now looking at that, uh, this are one question we got, I'm sure you will not be surprised. Is any update

on Ryan Jensen's availability. We know that the Bucks offensive line is going to have their work cut out for them against that Cowboys defensive front. So, first of all, what is the overall health situation? As we saw Robert Hainsey left, but Donovan Smith didn't play, Tristan just kind of sat out. How how does everybody look, how does everybody feel? What our thoughts on is talking about all those guys. I think Donovan and Tristan are considered to be,

you know, definitely training in the right direction. They're they're probably that group that they were talking about everybody possibly practicing today. They had to walk through yesterday because the schedules pushed for word by a day, so they didn't the Bucks didn't have to put out an injury port. So we don't officially know if those guys would be

full goal or limited or what. But I can just tell you the viber on the building is very good about all the guys who have been working through injuries. So you're probably going to be fine on the tackles. But Robert Haynes he left that game with a hamstring injury, and Coach Bulls said on Monday that it was sore that they didn't yet know the severity of it. So what a story would be if Robert Haynes he can't go? But oh look who's bad? It happens to be, you know,

the the NFC's Pro Bowl Center. Just do you not always have Pro Bowls as as the backup to come in? Yeah, that ridiculous. There has been no indication by by Coach Bowls every time he's asked about obviously that this is definitely gonna happen, and I wouldn't bet on it, to be quite honest with you, but it's not been dismissed as a possibility. And then you wonder boy. He hasn't played a game in a year. You know, he hasn't practice. He's practiced the last couple of weeks, but he didn't

do anything else season. Is he gonna be able to step in there and be full range in Pro Bowl form? I mean maybe maybe it's hard to be It's hard

to bank on that. Absolutely, he does not have to be activated this week, but if the playoffs continue, if he's going to play, you'd have to be activated in the first couple of days of next week because after that the window closes and he just reverts to I R, which theoretically either means they just figured there's no harm in activating him give it a shot, or as we've seen, it means that they had an idea that maybe he would be ready to go by the end of that

twenty one day window. That's always the interesting thing is maybe they just were like, whatever, it's playoffs, just activate them, because otherwise you're just anyway, so you can get him out there. They said when this first started that they consider this part of his rehab process. So it's possible that that's all that this becomes, but you never know, and either way that's going to be good to be

getting him back on the right track. So for you, we talked a little bit about these linebackers and some of those stats that you showed up there, but what would you say, are going to be some of just the biggest keys in this game. And the way these teams match up is this is we looked at who they might get a chance to play. Are we happy about the match up? Are we worried about this matchup? What do you see about these two teams and where

their strengths and weaknesses matchup. Well, it's the playoffs, so you're gonna be playing somebody good. You know. Honestly, I'd rather be playing the Cowboys right now than for instance, especially considering how that went for us the first time around. You can have a little bit of confidence knowing what you did, but it was against the Cowboys the last time, but it was way back in week one, so you

don't know how much you can pull from that. But in terms of the formula for winning the Buckneers, that was one of the best running days of the whole season, and Leonard Fournett ran for a hunter twenty seven yards. Bucks had a hundred fifty seven UM they struggled in the red zone. Otherwise that would have been even more lopside of a victory. It was after that week that the Bucks were feeling really good about themselves, Like Glavante said, we thought we were hot stuff at that point. They

end up with a better record. You probably need to get and Coach Bull said this, you probably need to get off to a fast start like we did with the starters in Atlanta, because you don't want to get behind against a team that can rush the password this. Well, yeah, and or they can run the ball as well as they can stopping that would be helpful too. But just getting off to a fast start, getting some early momentum,

and just keeping it a tight game. I mean, sure, if the Bucks ran away with it, that'd be wonderful, but I'm not predicting that. So keeping it a tight game until the fourth quarter, and then you know you have Tom Brady and that's been a winning formula for the Buccaneers. So just starting fast and not falling behind, I think would be Mikey, all right, well that's going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Inside Are Live presented by Verizon. Thank you so much

for joining us. And we'll see it here next week, hopefully talking about another round of the playoffs.