What Will the Focus Be During the Bye Week? | Bucs Insider

do that. Scott, I just wanted to hear from you, um big takeaways from the game against Kansas City and then just looking at the bye week of you know, the importance of having it now, what you feel like their their goals are and things that they could want to accomplish during this next week. Well, I'd say those

two questions are very related. Um. You know, it ended up being yet another loss, a close one that the Bucks couldn't get the ball back for one more shot at the end, and and that was mainly because the team has continued it's trend recently of slow starts on

both sides of the ball. UH. The offense UH did not convert any of its first four third downs in the first quarter, all of which were six yards are fewer and you usually expect to convert those so they couldn't get any drives going, which is how they fell into that hole. But otherwise a seventeen point hole. But otherwise they kept pace with that explosive Kansas City offense and actually even held Kansas Cities offense to five points below it's usual per game average. So all in all,

giving up twenty seven points wasn't disastrous. The problem was falling into that early hole, uh, and having to claw your way back and getting unbalanced on offense again, and and having some troubles getting off the field every now and then on defense, and you know, erasing a couple of turnovers with penalties. So that's what the team is. It's not the team, they're the players. Have that time off. That's what you do with the bye week. For the

most part. You you will allow players to rest and recuperate, but the coaches don't take the time off. They use that time to self scout. And they had already compiled everything. Uh of course, you know, analyzed all the plays, and now they take that analysis of everything they've done to the first twelve games and look at what's working in what isn't, and what can be fixed and what needs to be fixed, and that's what you work on as

coaches this week. And I think one of their big things is how can we get back to those fast starts we had in the first five or six weeks of the season when the Buccaneers were outscoring their opponents something like fourteen in the first quarter. That's completely flipped now and that's the main problem that the team is

running into in recent losses. Yeah, and and that works perfectly because we had a question from Mitch asking why do you think we have given up so many points in the first half, But maybe we can even say specifically in the first quarter. Some of it has to do with You got to remember that every team, every single time that your offense or your defense doesn't succeed, the other team wins. So it's not necessarily a huge failure on your team's part. It's the other team is

pretty good. I mean, the Chiefs have good offense, and they're early going. Teams have like fifteen scripted plays, and just simply enough, in recent weeks, the opponents have done much better with their scripted plays than the Buccaneers half. And it's been execut You should in some parts, and sometimes you'd have to take a little time on defense to figure out what the team is doing to you did differently that you didn't expect and adjust to it.

And the Buccaneers have done a pretty good job in a number of games adjusting after slow starts on defense. But um, you know, sometimes they're just getting beat early on you know, that's all there's doing. Really. Yeah, and grag had asked, why don't the Bucks use a fullback to help with pass protection all Claire seems like he could be a good option. Well, I mean they do that occasionally in both Claire and some of their tight ends.

They'll motion them into the backfield and they're basically like a fullback. But uh, Bruce is more of a get as many guys out into the field and find one of them guy than a max protect kind of guys. So the past protection really hasn't been that bad. I'm not sure why that's an issue. Really. Uh. Tom Brady was only sacked once in this game, and actually only once in each of the last three games, and he's

had a pretty good amount of time. I'm not saying there hasn't been times when he's been pressured, of course there have, But overall, the past protection has been pretty good, So I don't think taking away one of your eligibles and adding more blocking is probably the direction that we're gonna want to go there. Daniel had asked, what do you think has been going on with our corners and uh in coverage recently? Well, I mean, in this case with Tyree Hill, Carlton Davis got beat on out and

up and that happens. I mean, Mike Evans beat one of their cornerbacks on and out and up and that happens. Uh. The second one to Tyree Hill way down field was one of those plays that we're afraid of going into the game where um, Patrick Mahomes moves around a little bit, backs up, backs up by his time, and it's just hard to plaster, especially on really fast guys for that much time. And the third one to Tyreek Hill, Carlson

Davis actually had really good courage. The passages insanely good. Um, you know, the cornerbacks, like most cornerbacks in the league, of that up and down play, but I think their body of work through the majority of the season has been pretty good. Of course, we were playing that game without Jamal Dean. Uh. He would have been helpful to have Meldan against this team in particular because he's our fastest corner and that team is just loaded with speed.

But overall, I think our corners have played well. Okay, and Michael had asked, what do you think we need to do to get into the playoffs? Does three and one do it? Does two and to do it? What? What do you think the record is going to need to be? I think three and one does it too, and two gets me a little nervous. Um. If you look at the the picture right now, the Bucks are sixth, Arizona seventh at six and five, and then the teams there's three teams Minnesota, San Francisco, and Chicago that are

all five and six. Now, if you look at any of those three teams, to get to ten wins, they'd have to run their table go five and oh, and you kind of don't really think that's gonna happen. I mean, I would be surprised if any any of those teams goes five and all the rest of the way. So if they don't go to five and oh, they can't get to tin wins. And if the Buccaneers go three and one, they're at ten wins by the same token four.

Winning all four absolutely gets you in, but I feel about confident that three wins would get it done as well two wins. And now it's getting a little Harry. I saw a couple different people brought up, um, why does the team not do more pre snap motion? Uh in some of the things on the offense, and just a few questions about the types of whether it's short, short throws or just there there are a few questions about the style of the offense and what you think

of it. Well, I'm starting to get a little amused at all the um why don't we use why don't we put in more pre snap motion questions that the coaches are suddenly getting as if you know, adding more motion to our offense is suddenly gonna miraculously cure anything that's wrong. Some teams use a lot of motion, like

the Rams, some teams don't. And has there been much reason to complain about our offense overall the production that they're getting through the majority of the season, the Buccaneers are like seventh in the league and scoring maybe sixth and uh that you have one of the best passing attacks in the league. I mean, I think to worry you know, things don't work sometimes early on and in

third downs, and you look for solutions. But Bruce arians Is offense has been pretty productive for the majority of the two years that he's been here. I think you're just gonna keep doing what you do, just do it better. UM. You know, having a lot of pre snap motion isn't some magical elixir to make plays that weren't working now suddenly work. You know, it's something. It's something you either do or don't emphasize in your offense. And some teams

doing some teams don't. It's like some teams are four three defenses and some teams are three four and you do your best to make it work within that UM. I think sort of hinted at in that question is some of the calls on third down, Like do you know you throw a low percentage play on third down? And that can look frustrating. I think sometimes though those plays, it's a decision of where you go with the ball.

You have some short options and you have some other options, and the quarterback sees something he thinks he can hit and he goes for it. I mean, nobody was complaining about the fourth and two past two down the field to Mike Evans that became a thirty one yard touchdown. So I think coaches here these questions over and over again, and and they think and they say it sometimes too. Is it's not always the decision making, it's the execution. You know what I'm saying. A play looks like it

was a bad call because it wasn't executed. Not to say every coach makes some bad calls from time to time and they regret it and they wish they would have done something different. But um, you know, I think it's you're gonna hear this from all the coaches and players.

It's more about execution, okay. And uh. We also had a question about Antonio Brown versus Scotty Miller of why they're using the guys in the way they are and and just the overall the different ways that um, the wide receivers have been used since Antonio Brown got here, and if there's maybe a way to still get Scotty

Miller a little bit more involved. When Antonio Brown first got here, Scotty Miller was still dealing with those hip and growing injuries and he was still as limited in practice almost every day, and and coach said very recently Uh, it might have been coach left, which that Scotty would be getting back to being more involved in the offense. But right off the bat Antonio Brown, Uh, they found

things that they could do with him. And in this lab game you only had a couple of catches, but in the two previous games he was one of our most targeted guys, was really productive. We haven't hit him down the field yet, just missed on a couple of them, but otherwise has been a guy that's caught six or

eight passes and moved the chains really well. Um. Yeah, And I think it's obvious that Antonio Brown's arrival has caused Scottie some snaps, but I think that they want to even that out a little bit more as the as the rest of the game's go on. All right, well that's gonna do it for us on this edition of Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thank you so much for joining us, Thanks for all those questions, and we'll see you next week. M