This Isn’t Getting Any Better

November 23, 2009 at 11:08am by Scott

I’ve been frequenting various message boards and whorehouse waiting rooms where people are talking about the Buccaneers and have heard more people jumping off the bandwagon after yesterday’s loss than any other week this season. And that seems weird to me. If you were going to burn your season tickets and finally give away your Bruce Gradkowski jersey, you’d think it would have been a few weeks ago. Maybe after the Giants game or when Josh Freeman was named the starter. But if you were going to buy into Freeman starting and getting some experience, you had to know he was going to start fucking up soon, right? Just as soon as other teams got some NFL tape on him, they were going to be able to shut him down just like they shut almost every other rookie quarterback down. We all knew this, so let’s not act like it’s some big surprise that he threw a bunch of bad balls and made some bad decisions. If you were in after the Green Bay game, you should be in for the rest of the season. The biggest surprise to me was that he started off looking pretty good and then melted down. I expected him to start off poorly and then rally the Bucs to a respectable loss.

Freeman had a bad day, but I don’t blame him for two of his three interceptions. The first one looked like Antonio Bryant slipped as he was running the route. It wasn’t a particularly well-thrown ball, but if Bryant had been there, he could have stretched to get it or at least knocked it away from the Malcolm Jenkins. And the third interception was a hail mary desperation heave that made no difference anyway. I’d prefer he do that than throw a meaningless checkdown. But that second interception was totally on him. That ball was way too high for Michael Clayton and there were Saints everywhere. Freeman was throwing shit balls like that all day. I may not be blaming him for a couple of his interceptions, but he was also close to being picked several more times than he actually was. If it wasn’t for some of the Saints’ DBs stone hands, Freeman might have had five or six picks on the day.

His biggest problem was overthrows, which is the risk you run when you make Byron Leftwich your mentor. For every Antonio Bryant pinpoint back shoulder throw or Michael Clayton touchdown pass on the run, Freeman had three or four balls badly sail on him. Looking at the stats, I can’t believe Freeman completed 51% of his passes — it sure seemed like less than that. Accuracy was never Freeman’s strength, but he has to improve at least a few percentage points if he’s going to keep teams from blitzing the hell out of him or playing the run with nine in the box.

Hey, speaking of the running game, did you know that Earnest Graham had 31 yards on three carries yesterday? It’s true! He ripped off runs of 17 and 12 yards in the first half; that sounds like a perfect opportunity to make a halftime adjustment and get Graham the ball more instead of Cadillac Williams or Derrick Ward, neither of whom were doing a heck of a lot with it. But, no. Graham got the ball one time in the second half for two yards, and that was the end. Is this because of some weird obsession Raheem Morris has with his running back rotation? Is it because Graham is now the starting fullback and you can only run him in single-back sets? Because both those reasons are bullshit. By definition, halftime adjustments are intended to take you away from your set plan and play to the circumstances that unfolded in the first half. Who gives a shit about the rotation? Play the hot hand! And if you can only run Graham in single-back sets (despite the fact that Chris Pressley was activated and looked good when he was in there), then run more single-back sets! It would have taken so much pressure off of Freeman if they could have gotten the running game going, and Graham was having the most success. You know the one scoring drive they had? Eight runs (including Graham’s two long ones) and five passes. I dunno… seems like they had a decent formula going there.

Oh, and Cadillac totally whiffed on Scott Fujita for that sack-fumble in the third quarter. Fujita couldn’t have been more obvious that he was blitzing, so I don’t know how Cadillac misses that one.

I never thought I’d say this, but Jeremy Trueblood’s false start was a bullshit penalty. I re-watched him on that play four times and never saw him flinch or rock.

Demar Dotson came in after Trueblood left with an injured knee, and didn’t look too good. I don’t know, is 6-9 too tall to play offensive line? Seems like if it’s truly a game of leverage that Dotson would be at a huge (no pun) disadvantage. You’ve heard the expression “low man wins”, right? How can he ever be the low man?

I don’t have much more to say about the offensive line. Three sacks, six quarterback hits, 89 non-QB rushing yards, Freeman having to constantly scramble. Not good.

The defensive line seemed worse to me, and I honestly don’t know who to blame. No sacks, very little pressure on Drew Brees, and 183 rushing yards from the Saints. Most of those yards were in the second half when New Orleans was trying to preserve a lead and grind down the clock and everybody knew it but no one could stop them. Their last scoring drive was two passes and 11 runs and they didn’t even care if they scored since it was already 31-7. But they did. That’s the front-seven’s fault collectively. I saw misses by Jimmy Wilkerson, Kyle Moore, Greg White, Barrett Ruud (holy hell, did you see him get dragged five yards in the first half?), Sabby Piscitelli, Corey Lynch and Geno Hayes throughout the game. There were probably more, but I have to admit that I stopped taking copious notes sometime in the second half. Ronde Barber and Tanard Jackson seemed to be the only defensive players who had reasonable consistent games, and even they made some boneheaded plays.

Let’s put it this way: When defensive backs are three of your top four tacklers against a team that only completed 19 passes as opposed to running the ball 36 times, things aren’t getting done up front.

Games like this are going to get Jim Bates fired fast. Players have to take some responsibility for missing tackles and not making plays, but coaching puts them in position, and it seems like the position they’re in is never right. Is this a learning thing where the players are still trying to get the hang of Bates’s scheme? Because it seems like they’re getting worse, not better. I would have expected improvement by now.

So, it’s two road games in a row now, at Atlanta and Carolina. Both teams are vulnerable, but neither are in nearly as much disarray as the Bucs. If you’re only going to be happy with victories, use your Sundays some other way. The Bucs may squeeze out another win, but it will probably have to come against a team that has already clinched their playoff position and is resting their starters and possibly their best backups. This season is about looking for improvements. Not yesterday, of course, but you know what I mean.