One To Grow On

November 30, 2009 at 11:04am by Scott   •  7 Comments »

Here’s something we don’t get to say very often: The Bucs could have won this game. In fact, it could have been won pretty easily. They lost, of course. But it’s nice to know that at least a victory was possible. And the future is looking pretty good.

This was, by far, Josh Freeman‘s best game to date. He completed almost 69% of his passes, was nearly impossible to sack and mostly took care of the ball (one fumble in the fourth quarter on the one sack he did take.) The two passes to Antonio Bryant on his touchdown drive were well-placed and had excellent touch. Same for his touchdown to Cadillac Williams. Oh, and that second quarter pass to Kellen Winslow for 21 yards was beautiful. Winslow returned the favor by bailing Freeman out of a low pass with his awesome hands in the third quarter. Freeman didn’t make every throw and a couple of those third down misses came back to haunt him, but it’s hard to complain about his performance.

The only real problem I had with his game didn’t have as much to do with him as the coaching. After Tye Hill was exposed as a liability against Bryant, Freeman stopped going to him. Bryant had one more catch in the second half for 11 yards, and that was it. Freeman obviously has nice touch on his mid-range to deep passes. Why not let him air it out to these tall receivers against Atlanta’s inexperienced and short corners? Do you know who Chris Owens is? He’s a 5-9, 181 pound, third-round rookie cornerback out of San Jose State. He was starting yesterday. You think he’s any match for Winslow or Bryant or Jerramy Stevens? But when the game moved into the fourth quarter, all those matchups went out the window as Greg Olson went ultra-conservative. Even Antonio Bryant thinks so.

“Last year, I came out here (in Atlanta) and had 100 yards in the first half,” Bryant said. “This year, two catches, 80 yards in the first half. In the second half, it’s like, ‘Come on!’

And my favorite quote…

“When you have guys there, you have to put your foot on their neck and just stomp.”

Indeed. As I said, this isn’t Freeman’s fault. There should have been more urgency to score in the fourth quarter. Maybe later on, the coaching staff will trust him enough to let him air it out to extend a lead, not dump it off to try and preserve one.

At this point, you have to blame both the offensive line and the running backs for the running game’s lack of production. The running backs got less than 2.5 YPC, couldn’t find holes to run through, couldn’t make any of their own, and couldn’t break tackles when they did get something going. Just like we’ve seen so many times before, the offensive line excelled in pass-blocking but did very little run-blocking. One of the things the coaches are going to work on in the upcoming offseason is the running game. This may very well include cutting Derrick Ward, possibly allowing Cadillac Williams to walk in free agency (although that’s more of a stretch) and replacing Pete Mangurian as the offensive line coach. Raheem Morris wants the Bucs to be known as a running team and also have this air of violence and aggression about them, but when you can’t run the ball for shit, it’s hard to establish yourselves as hard-nosed.

As soon as I saw the Falcon defender (I never saw who it was) pull Jeremy Trueblood off the pileup after the fumble, I knew he’d get penalized for something. If he had just started a shoving match, it probably would have been broken up without incident, but he just had to rip his helmet off. The twelve yards it cost the Bucs wound up not mattering since Connor Barth got off a nice punt and Jason Elam missed the field goal anyway, but he’s got to be smarter than that. How many years have we all been saying that same thing? Although, I have to admit, when Trueblood ripped his helmet off and threw it to the ground, you saw nothing but hatred on his face. It was pure and raw and immediate and fucking intimidating. If Trueblood had gotten a hold of whoever pulled him off, I have no doubt that Trueblood would have sent him to the hospital. Those twelve yards may have been worth it in terms of Trueblood establishing a batshit crazy reputation for himself that may make defensive ends in the future worry about pissing him off too much.

If the announcers hadn’t made a big deal of Michael Clayton getting hurt and leaving the game, would you have noticed? Maurice Stovall caught three balls for 26 yards in relief of Clayton, probably more than Clayton would have gotten himself. The question is, would Clayton have been able to spring any of the runs for more yards with his blocking skills? I didn’t go back and watch the edge-blocking on the running plays specifically, but I can’t recall any blocks that Stovall whiffed on.

Can anyone argue that this wasn’t the best defensive performance of the year? It wasn’t perfect, but the defensive line finally came to life, the linebackers finally came to life, and the Bucs finally held a team to under 100 yards rushing. That hadn’t happened since the game against the Eagles, who didn’t care if they ran or not. Two and a half sacks for Greg White, one and a half for Tim Crowder (possibly Jim Bates‘s best contribution to the team) and another one by Ronde Barber, who I was sure had removed Chris Redman‘s head in the process (it turns out that Barber never actually touched Redman’s head — it just looked like it.)

I haven’t written a lot about the linebackers this season because, frankly, there hasn’t been a lot to say. They all have looked weak and a step slow up to this point. But yesterday it was like someone had spiked their Gatorade with crack because these guys were all over the place. Barrett Ruud looked like his old self, leading the team in tackles and finally spending some time on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Geno Hayes did what good weakside linebackers do and ran to the ball, broke up a key pass, and (for the most part) keeping all the plays in front of him. And Quincy Black had a sack, two tackles for loss, one quarterback hit and one pass broken up.

Even the secondary, who has been picked on all season long, looked energized. They allowed their share of passes completed, but Sabby Piscitelli had some nice pass breakups, Ronde Barber was all over the field, and young guys like Derrick Roberson and Elbert Mack filled in nicely.

Until the last drive.

Chris Redman looked like the lovechild of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady the way he methodically directed the Falcons down the field from their own 41. Geno Hayes was absolutely abused by Tony Gonzalez and Roberson committed one of the worst penalties of the year by unnecessarily holding Michael Jenkins on third-and-goal with 40 seconds left. Roberson made up for it on the next play by breaking up a pass to Roddy White in the endzone, and then he allowed the go ahead touchdown to White on fourth down. Roberson had good coverage and did everything he could, but White is just a better player than Roberson at this stage of their respective careers.

I don’t know where the whole thing fell apart on the final drive. Did Morris start calling too conservatively? Were the players wore out? Did they all fail to adjust to the faster tempo? They’ll go back and break it down and figure it out, but without that last drive, it was a fantastic defensive effort. It’s obvious that this is the scheme that these players will excel in. Bates didn’t even make the trip and there was no reason for him to. They don’t need him.

A couple other points: The 51-yard field goal attempt doesn’t bother me. Barth had proven he could kick the long ones, this was in a dome and there was no reason to think that the Bucs could pick up seven yards with Derrick Ward petering out at the end of that drive and the Falcons blanketing the first-down marker. What were they going to do, punt from the Atlanta 33? Dirk Johnson was hurting and there’s a good chance Barth would have popped it into the endzone for a net gain of 13 yards. The way the Falcons moved down the field on that last drive, 13 yards wouldn’t have mattered. The field goal was close — just outside the right upright. It almost worked.

The fake punt doesn’t bother me, either. What is there to possibly lose when you’re a 1-9 football team? Pull out the stops. Granted, it was ugly. Johnson looked like he hadn’t practiced it all that much. But, again, that far into Atlanta territory, too far for a field goal… why not? And, hey, guess what. It didn’t matter. The Falcons punted on their next possession as well. And it sure looked to me like John Gilmore was contacted before the ball got to him, but no flag was thrown.

Congratulations to Corey Lynch on his textbook swim move to get to Michael Koenen and block a punt. Lynch is a keeper.

This is the kind of game I thought we would get when I heard about a youth movement. Some daring plays, some obvious growth and improvement, some boneheaded rookie (or almost-rookie) mistakes — but progress. The Bucs gave the Falcons, a team who is contending for a wildcard spot, all they could handle. With more experience, this is the kind of close game the Bucs will pull out.