The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took an embarrassing 26-7 loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday afternoon.
While many people will try to move on and focus on the Bucs’ next opponent, it’s still important to look back and try to figure out why exactly they stunk up the joint so bad.
Otherwise, you’re doomed to make the same mistakes.
We’ll start on the offensive side of the ball, because only scoring 7 points against that defense at home is inexcusable.
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It was pretty brutal across the board. The o-line was severely hampered by the absence of Luke Goedeke for a consecutive week, and Baker was unable to scramble and make noise with his feet.
They took 7 sacks for the game, and the blame could be pretty evenly distributed amongst everyone, o-line, Baker, and the receivers for not getting open.
Their running game was unsurprisingly meh, with only 91 yards on the ground with 16 attempts. The duo of Rachaad White and Bucky Irving were fine, with Bucky having some fun runs and Mr. White, uh, well, not so much.
Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan were virtually nonexistent, combining for 3 catches on 4 targets for a whopping 23 yards. Just brutal stuff.
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You can’t win games with your superstar receiver having a dud and no one else stepping up other than Chris Godwin.
J-Mac is a rookie, so he gets a bit of a pass, but the running game, Baker, and the o-line were all horrendous.
Now the defense, which got picked apart by rookie Bo Nix and Todd Bowles’ mortal enemy Sean Payton, had a few heavily impactful injuries.
Vita Vea, Antoine Winfield, Jr., and Calijah Kancey were all out. And it showed.
The pass rush was nonexistent (literally; 0 sacks), with Nix posting an 80.6 QBR, but their running game was quite productive, racking up 136 yards on the ground.
Vea was missed the most and hopefully his return quells some of these concerns, but Philly’s run game is really good on paper.
Their offensive line is still solid and the Hurts-Barkley combo is something to be wary of.
So, yeah, this loss sucked, and .500 might be on its way.
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