For the first time in… a while, the Buccaneers won a football. It wasn’t pretty. In fact it was pretty awful to watch. The defense was mostly good, but let up too many big plays and scores while the offense slowly pushed a boulder up the hill. Oh and Special Teams tried fuck us. Because that’s not happened often enough.
Let me start by giving a man his flowers considering I have criticized him mightily. Lavonte David. He looked like himself for the first time in a while. He had six tackles (tying Derrick Brooks all time) and a key fumble recovery. The Panthers for some godforsaken reason ran a flea flicker at the Bucs’ twenty. Rico Dowdle just kinda tossed it and Bryce let Lavonte jump on it. Still a hell of a play by 54 and an excellent way to close out the regular season.
On offense, a similarly maligned player showed up big. Cade Otton finally had a big game. It seems Grizzard was saving him for this game. He had 94 receiving yards on 7 catches, which was sixty more yards than the next leading receiver in Mike Evans. Plus he had the only TD for the Bucs. He just looked really solid in all facets. I think it may have been more good game-planning than him being elite, but still did quite a bit with what he had.
Don’t get it twisted though, the Bucs offensive gameplan was mostly a mess. They still ran the ball way too much. Bucky only averaged 3.3 yards per carry, and really only had 86 yards through sheer persistence in running it. Nearly every first down was a run play. Most defenses can predict that if you do it often enough. Mike, Chris, and Egbuka barely got any looks either. Wasn’t the biggest fan of that game plan, but that may have been on Bowles. Especially that atrocious end of half game management where the Bucs wasted a minute and a half and only got a FG despite being in opponent territory and had all three TOs.
Baker did not help the situation though as he had maybe his most erratic game. He made plays that looked like Patrick Mahomes and threw an interception. He did pull it together at the end to help stave off the Panthers attempted comeback, but he was erratic way too early. His interception was just inexcusable and he missed a wide open player in the end zone.
The defense really benefited from some terrible Carolina play calling. Bryce Young was struggling to get velocity on most his throws. It allowed Parrish to pick one off to T-Mac as it just floated in the air. The Panthers run game was even worse and it really hindered them. With that said, credit to Bowles for holding his opponent to 1/9 on third down and getting his defense locked in, especially vs the run. I thought he had a pretty poor game as a head coach, but did fine as the defensive coordinator.
This was very similar to the first Saints game where the defense did a lot of heavy lifting. The team did just enough to eke this one out. It remains to be seen if this team will make a playoff appearance, but they gave themselves a chance. I would’ve preferred not squandering a 6-2 start, but what can you do. The Saints need to pull off the upset if the Bucs want to compete in January.
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