Wednesday, 3 a.m.
The old man seems a little grumpy these days. Then again, there is a message of Bucs' coach Bruce Arians.
Pay attention to the little things.
The big things will come later.
After anther sweltering practice, Arians addressed a fourth-down given up
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in a two-minute drill and disturbing off-sides penalties. Such are the messages of training camp; take care of the details.
Take the fourth-and-one. Frankly, Arians wouldn't have been happy with either side losing the play.
"I was not pleased that the defense gave up that fourth down in that two-minute drill," Arians said. "I was happy the offense got it, but defense, we came back and won the next one, actually won the next two. I'm going to be pissed if one side wins all day; it's never good.
"That's why I thought it was a really good practice. We went inside to simulate halftime. When this thing gets this hot, cool them down. We talked a lot about the second half of practice – let's give them what looks like a halftime. Take seven minutes and give them [a break]."
The Bucs struggled with penalties early last season before straightening it out. Arians wasn't happy to see a return on Tuesday.
"We cannot have pre-snap penalties." Arians said. "Since [the 2020] Chicago [game] we kind of put that to bed and it cannot raise its head again. Some of the young guys I see, that's okay. But when I see Tristan [Wirfs] do it, he's getting his ass chewed out."
Don't get the idea that Arians isn't happy about some things, however. The defense continued to play well.
"It's more like who hasn't (stood out)?" Arians said. "Everybody in the starting group looks more than ready to play. That second field has been executing better than the first field, so we should be good in depth, getting all those reps. This should be the last day we'll do two fields. They've got a ton, a ton of reps and got some exposure and I was very pleased with where they were."