Wednesday, 4 a.m.
5 Thoughts
- Most of us like to think of ourselves as “go for it” guys. But give me a choice of gaining two yards on one play or stopping Patrick Mahomes on the road, and I’m definitely going for it.
2. By not covering Travis Kelce, well, at all, were the Bucs trying to curry favor with Taylor Swift?
3. There are statues in the park who can cover better than most Bucs’ cornerbacks.
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4. I’m not one to blame the officials, but doesn’t it seem like the Bucs are getting a series of raw calls?
5. Man, could the Bucs use Ronde Barber right about now.
5 Comments
(From Todd Bowles’ day-after press conference)
(On what he meant by the ‘wet conditions’ when speaking about not going for a two-point conversion in Monday’s game): “Well, it started raining more – it seemed like it picked up a little bit at the end. Even though we did a good job in it, I thought we could get a stop if we were on defense and the momentum we had on offense, I thought that would carry us into overtime and get us some points.”
(On who he had conversations with when making decisions during the final drive of Monday’s game): “We have people up in the box that look at that stuff – [Vice President of Football Research] Jackie Davidson as well as [Offensive Quality Control] Coach [Jeff] – as well as the whole offensive staff over there. We know the percentages of the league and how it goes and how we’re playing and what we want to do right there going forward and we decided that we’d go into overtime that game. We felt like we had momentum, we felt like we had a chance to win it in overtime and it just didn’t work out.”
On if he felt like the defense was getting tired at the end of the game): “No, I thought we were making some good plays on defense. We missed two tackles on the overtime drive that kind of set them up that way. The defense was, for the most part, tackling the yards per catch pretty [well]. Even though they had the ball, it’s not like they were getting big plays going down the field. We thought we could hold up and get them to third down. We’ve got to tackle better obviously and play situational football in that way better.”
(On why the Chiefs were able to convert so many third downs): “Too many third-and-shorts. They had nine of them that were third-and-5 or less, there were five of them on third-and-1, two of them on third-and-2, they had another one on third-and-3 – if not two of them on third-and-3 and one of them on third-and-5, so when you get that short of [distance], with a scrambling quarterback and a talented team like that – we had one stop on third-and-1. We need to do better [in] short yardage but that’s too tough of a clip to be stopping guys on third down. Early on, we had them in third-and-longs, we had some success. They were getting a lot of third-and-shorts that made it tough for us to finish converting them from stopping them from getting [first] downs.”
(On what needs to happen for the defense to solidify the middle of the field coverage): “I thought this game was one of our better games in the middle of the field. As he starts to scramble, the ball went to the middle of the field. I thought, initially set up – I know [Travis] Kelce caught one maybe the second play of the game and he might’ve caught another one somewhere else, but I thought initially we covered the middle of the field pretty well. When he starts to scramble and then gets open, we have to do a better job plastering but for the most part I thought they did a better job from a zone [coverage] standpoint where they were supposed to be.”
Game Balls
Offense: Cade Otton is quietly turning into one of the NFL’s best tight ends.
Defense: Vita Vea had 10 tackles and two sacks.
Special teams: Chase McLaughlin shouldn’t have kicked his last extra point (the team should have gone for it), but he made it.
Grades
Quarterback: Baker Mayfield needs to trust his young receivers more. Grade: C.
Running back: Bucky Irving had some wiggle, but 24 yards a game won’t cut it. Grade: D.
Wide receivers: They showed up late. Good night for Sterling Shepard. Grade: B.
Offensive line: No running game. Grade: C-.
Defensive line: Kareem Hunt turned back the clock. Grade: D.
Secondary: They still don’t make plays. Grade: F.
Power Rankings
- Kansas City.
2. Detroit.
3. Buffalo.
4. Pittsburgh.
5. Minnesota.
—-
18. Tampa Bay.
Bottom 5
32. Carolina.
31. Jacksonville.
30. New England.
29. New Orleans.
28. N.Y. Giants.