Looking back on the Bucs’ loss to the Saints

by Gary Shelton on November 9, 2020

in general

Arians saw his collection of stars get clobbered./TIM WIRT

Tuesday, 4 a.m.

5 Thoughts

  1. Yes, Tom Brady has had a great career. Arguing against it is silly. But if he played in Super Bowl games the way he played Sunday night he'd still be behind Trent Dilfer as far as number of rings.

2. If you keep calling this secondary great, I'm going to demand a recount.

3. The toughest job that Drew Brees had all weekend was scraping the Buc off of his cleats.






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4. I think Mike Evans is a great football player. You think Mike Evans is a great football player. But does Tom Brady think Mike Evans is a great football player?

5. On average, I think Antonio Brown had one catch for ever 2.8 million words written about him last week.

5 Comments

(From Bruce Arians' Day-After Press Conference)

(On whether a loss like Sunday night can shake a team's confidence):" It can, but I don’t think our confidence is shaken one bit. I think it’s playing night games and getting better prepared for them the day of the game. It’s a recurring theme with all three night games – it’s (beginning the game with) three-and-out and you give up a touchdown. I’ve got to do something in our preparation to change that, but I don’t think our confidence is shaken."

(On reflecting on the loss): “You look at the film and you try to figure out why. Taysom Hill – when they ran the ball with him – they were having success just running the power. It’s just squeezing it and basic fundamentals of getting in there and blowing him up. He’s a big, strong guy, but you still have to go in there and blow it up. Offensively, we got out of that gameplan so fast (that) I felt terrible for the left side of the line because there was no threat of the run. I thought we had a really good plan for the running game, but when you go down 21-0, we tried to jumpstart it with the two-minute drive just to get something going. It just didn’t work. We got our (butts) kicked pretty good.”

(On playing more zone pass defense): “Going back, we blitzed more than I even thought we did on the field – it’s whether it was blitz zone or blitz man [and] we went zero [coverage] a couple times. We got him off the spot, but Drew [Brees] did a great job last night of moving in the pocket and still being accurate. Guys were getting ready to hit him and he threw some really good balls down the field accurately. It was the best I’ve seen him play in a while. Defensively, our safeties and our inside linebackers did not play very well. There was really, really poor communication.”

(On Mike Evans not being used more): “Mike was open a bunch in that ballgame. He didn’t get targeted – that was all. Mike was open.”

(On how to make sure Sunday's loss in an isolated occurance): “Learn from it. You don’t bury your head in the sand – you own it. You go in, you look at the tape, you figure out what went right [and] what went wrong, and then you move on to the next ballgame. That’s the beauty for players and coaches – it’s a 24-hour thing. You get to look at it, grade it and then you move on. Fans have to eat it until next week, but we get to move on to the next one.”

Game Balls

Offense: No one.

Defense:No one.

Special teams: Ryan Succop provided the Bucs' only points with a field goal.

Grades

Quarterback: It was Tom Brady's worst game in the history of history. Grade: F.

Running back: Nothing to see here. Grade: D-.

Offensive line: Can anyone here play this game? Grade: F-.

Defensive line: So much for it being hard to run on this team. Grade: D-

Linebackers: Not much to brag about. Grade: D.

Secondary: Ouch. Grade: F-.

NFL Stats

Passing Yards Tom Brady 6

Running Yards Ronald Jones II 9

Receptions Mike Evans 40

Tackles Devin White 5

Sacks Jason Pierre-Paul 9

5 More Thoughts

  1. A headline on NFL.com wonders if Drew Brees now would rank as the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All-Time)? Easy answer. No. He was much better than Brady Sunday night, but the Super Bowl wasn't at stake.

2. I see where Lavonte David said the Bucs were "pressing to be perfect." Well, they kind of under-reached on that one, don't you think?

3. According to Pro Football Focus, Brady has been pressured 32 times in two games against the Saints. That's easily more than one third of his pressures for the season. To the hard of reading, that means the Saints' defensive line has kicked the rear ends of the Bucs' offensive line.

4. When asked why the Bucs ran the ball only five times (four by running backs), Bruce Arians said "it's hard to run when you're down 28-0." True, but the game didn't start 28-0, did it?

5. When did Lovie Smith show up again?

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