Players Seem Happy Now

November 24, 2009 at 03:38pm by Scott

In player interviews after practice today, most comments were enthusiastic about the return to the Tampa 2, bordering on, dare I say, happy.

Chris Hovan:

Am I more comfortable? Yes. I’m not a two-gapper. I’m never going to be a two-gapper. I can gap and a half. My abilities are to run, penetrate and create at the line of scrimmage.

Roy Miller:

“This is what I’ve done in college and made a lot of plays doing it,” Miller said. “It also helps us to get off on the pass rush, too. I’m just excited, I couldn’t be more excited. I dreamed of coming here. Warren Sapp, all those guys played in this type of defense and just excited to be a part of that.

“Just looking forward to going out there and seeing what I can do in this defense.”

Geno Hayes:

“It’s going to be real good, we’re going to have more plays to make on the run and the backers can be more involved. It’s going to be good,” Hayes said. “..it kind of simplifies things for the back guys who have to make all the run fits and you don’t put a lot of pressure on your defensive tackles to make a lot of two-gap plays. It’s going to be good for us.”

Jimmy Wilkerson:

“It’s going to be like riding a bike,” defensive end Jimmy Wilkerson said of returning to the zone-based scheme the Bucs were known for under former coordinator Monte Kiffin. “It never gets old. It’s going to be refreshing.”

Of course, most of these guys are coached in how to talk to the media. If Raheem Morris has proclaimed that they weren’t going to use any system and it would just be eleven guys out there trying to hit things, they would probably all extol how much freedom they all had and how they can all just “worry about making plays”.

Hey, speaking of Raheem Morris and talking to the media, here’s how not to do it:

“Jim’s still working here. It’s not like we fired Jim. Jim’s a big part of what we are right now. Everything we did from March to last week is Jim’s stuff and we don’t just get rid of that. …Don’t think that Jim’s stuff was bad. It wasn’t bad. We didn’t play it well enough. And when you’re struggling like we’re struggling, some certain situational football, you have to make some changes. That’s all we’ve done.”

There’s that shit about it being the players’ fault again. They relieved the defensive coordinator of his duties and (at least according to the players I just quoted) are changing the scheme that he installed, yet “It wasn’t bad. We didn’t play it well enough.” Certain situational football, my ass. YOU LOST 38-7! Jeremy Shockey says it could have been worse! What situation are you talking about? The whole game? I guess that’s technically a “situation”. This Thursday, Morris needs to give thanks that he hasn’t been stabbed by an insulted player yet.