Friday, 4 a.m.
5 Thoughts
- Yeah, technically, the Bills were guilty of pass interference on the final Hail Mary play. But the Bucs had just spent 59:59 showing why they shouldn't win.
2. What does it tell you that Rachaad White rushes for all of 39 yards and think "For him, he had a pretty good night."
3. If the best coached teams don't have a lot of penalties, what does it say about the teams that do?
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4. Does it hit anyone else that Trey Palmer has more grabs on opposing players than he does on the football?
5.If Joe Tryon-Shoyinka was any more invisible, he'd be asked to join the Fantastic Four.
5 Comments
(From Todd Bowles' day-after press conference)
(On if he thought there should have been defensive pass interference called on the final play of the game last night): “They’re all like that at the end of the ballgame. When the ball is in the air, you’re not really looking for flags. The defense is trying to box out, the offense is trying to get position. Very rarely are you going to see a flag on that play. You either make the catch and get it up in the air and get a tipped ball or you don’t.”
(On what he saw from the pass rush last night). “We didn’t get much pressure at all. I thought across the board we struggled a little bit. We’ve got to have better from all the way around – outside to inside.”
(On what’s stopping the offense from being where they need to be): If it’s not missing a block here and there, then it’s a penalty here or there. We’ve got to clean it up together. It’s got to be clicking on all cylinders. When we get all our blocks, we get penalties; when we don’t get penalties, we don’t get all of our blocks here and there. Last week, it was one thing, this week, it’s another thing. We’ve just got to keep chopping at it and get better at it. That’s as best as those can be – if everything clicks at the same time.”
(On if he’s considered playing cornerbacks Jamel Dean and Carlton Davis III in man coverage more): “I would love to, but being that there [are] five receivers and we don’t have five man-to-man guys, it’s kind of hard. You put some other people in danger when you do that. We played a little more man last night than we normally play, but we’ve got to think of everybody and everybody’s situation, not just those two guys.”
(On why QB Baker Mayfield hasn’t been using rollouts and bootlegs like he was earlier in the season): “Every game is different – they’re not going to be there every game for us. We go by what the team is going to give us. Going into the ballgame, they were rushing four and it was good for him to sit back in the pocket. When they didn’t really send more than we could block, he had time to throw the football – we were okay there. We’ve just got to get open down the field and we’ve got to sustain longer. The plays getting out of the backfield, you could see going up the field and going into the game [that] they were pretty fast on the outside so we dropped him back a little more.”
Game Balls
Offense: If there has to be a winner, let's go with Chris Godwin, who had six catches for 54 yards.
Defense: Just call this the Lavonte David Award. He had 14 more tackles.
Special teams And this is the Jake Camarda Trophy. He averaged 50.8 yards per punt.
Grades
Quarterback: Too many nip and sip passes for Baker Mayfield. Grade: C.
Running back: Rachaad White caught passes for 70 yards. But he ran for only 39. Grade: D.
Offensive line: Mayfield was sacked three times and running backs gained just 45 yards. Grade: D-.
Wide receivers: Mike Evans spent too much of the game AWOL. Grade: D.
Defensive line: Not much pass rush, not much run defense. Grade: D.
Linebackers: David and Devin White were good again. Grade: B.
Secondary: A lot of money for so little impact. Grade: F.
Special teams: Except for the worst draw-them-offsides play in history (the snapper never put his hands on the ball), the kickers did what was expected. Grade: A-.
Power Rankings
- Kansas City.
2. San Francisco
3. Philadelphia
4. Miami
5. Baltimore
21. Tampa Bay
Bottom 5
32. Carolina
31. Arizona
30. Chicago
29. Denver
28. N.Y. Giants
5 Invisible Bucs
- Joe Tryon-Shoyinka
2. Ke'Shawn Vaughn
3. Trey Palmer
4. Chase Edmonds
5. Mike Evans
Approval Rankings
Coach Todd Bowles 34 percent
Quarterback Baker Mayfield 40 percent
O.C. Dave Canales 50 percent
Safety Antoine Winfield 96 percent
Linebacker Lavonte David 94 percent
5 Former Bucs Who Could Help
- Lee Roy Selmon
2. Warren Sapp
3. Derrick Brooks
4. Rinse Barber
5. Tom Brady
NFL Rankings
Quarterback Rating Baker Mayfield 15
Rushing Ave. Rachaad White 138
Receptions Chris Godwin 31
Tackles Lavonte David 7
Punting Ave. Jake Camarda 1