The day started hopeful for the Buccaneers, Sunday was the day to turn it around. Another Sunday, another ugly loss, the 2-6 Bucs are dead last in their division. I watched as the Saints manhandled our team. On the first play they tried running Doug Martin to the left for one yard, the second play went for 5 yards. It went downhill from there, the coaches needed to stick with the run instead they opted for a 2 yard pass. The offense is becoming too predictable, so maybe that’s why in the second half Dirk turned to Peyton Barber. Martin finished with 7 yards on 8 carries; the Saints defense determined to stop Dougie. Making the Tampa offense one-dimensional and tee off on Jameis. They got the job done.
The coach saw something, maybe he wanted to save Martin from getting hurt. Maybe he wanted to see what Peyton could do; he looked good on a couple of plays. Barber had a team leading 34 yards, not good enough by a long shot. I still can’t understand how we haven’t become a better rushing offense. Last year we weren’t the greatest, but we have a better offensive line than last year. Dirk should have gone with Doug more in this game, that’s why he paid millions of dollars. It’s hard to pinpoint why Dirk benched Dougie. I think he wasn’t running his hardest, and gave up much like the rest of the team did. Which brings up something else that I’ve noticed, once the team is down on the scoreboard Dirk abandons the running game? He puts some much unneeded pressure on Jameis, and the running back is there to take the pressure off the QB.
The best running back for the Bucs disappeared somewhere between the second quarter and the blowout, as it looks now the Bucs are playing for pride. We need to show up and at least not make it easy for the other team to win. Its week 9 and I’m already looking forward to the 2019 NFL Draft that’s how bad it is now. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we can one of the best teams in the NFL. We as fans were just hyped up to think this was a winning football team, and all signs point to the latter.
