Sunday, 4 a.m.
Bad news for the Tampa Bay Bucs.
This season, they’re going to face a lot of quarterbacks who are better than Mac Jones.
Jones threw for 210 yards and two touchdowns to lead Jacksonville’s backups to a 21-7 victory over Tampa Bay’s backups Saturday night. In all, the Jags kept the ball 16 1/2 more minutes, ran 21 more plays and gained 136 more yards than the Bucs.
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Okay, okay. It didn’t count, which means it can promptly be forgotten. All those plays where the secondary got lost? Hey, the real starters weren’t playing. Right? The offense that got only one touchdown? Same thing. A practice game can be dismissed pretty quickly.
Still, even a practice game comes with a set of checkmarks.
For instance:
The pass rush: It was better. The Bucs had five sacks, three of them by Jose Ramirez, who could push for a rotational role.
The running game: The Bucs had just 76 yards, which was disappointing. But Sean Tucker averaged eight yards a carry (4-32) and Bucky Irving averaged 4.3 yards per carry.
The secondary: The Bucs gave up a touchdown and a first down on two third-and-long plays.
The offensive line: It gave up three sacks. Too many.
The receives: The competition is for depth. The starting positions are wrapped up. The third and fourth receivers are wrapped up. But Cody Thompson caught five passes for 66 yards to get a little attention.
The backup quarterback: Not much happened to make you think John Woolford can overtake Kyle Trask. He hit 12 of 18 for 108 yards. Woolford hit seven of 14 for 52 yards before he was injured.
In other words, there weren’t a lot of reasons to save a recording of this one.
On Friday night, the Bucs close out their home preseason schedule against Miami at Raymond James Stadium. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.