5 Quarterbacks With Something to Prove in 2013

[JC5100]

The season was over after we lost to the Eagles that put as at 6-7, so for you, or anyone, to use stats from the last 3 games as to why we missed the playoffs is beyond stupid.

We had no way of knowing if 9-7 would get us into the wildcard or not. It was a log jam and it was obvious that some 9 win and 10 win teams were going to get in. So who is really being beyond stupid here? Don't try to discard the facts that hurt your argument simply because you don't want to deal with them. It invalidates your entire post. The stats from the final 3 or 4 games are just as valid as the rest of the season. Picking and choosing doesn't make sense.

For us to get in at 9-7 it would have taken

1. Bears go 0-3 (went 2-1)
AND
2. Giants go 0-3 (went 1-2)
AND
3. Vikings go 2-1 or worse(went 3-0)
AND
4. Cowboys go 1-2 or worse (actually went 1-2)

something crazy like this. You guys using the last 3 games as your campaign to boot Freeman is cheap. They were glorified pre-season games.

[JDouble]

Are you serious right now? They were regular season games! They mattered! They count! Stop being an idiot. Seriously. **CENSORED**.

[1sparkybuc]

Bottom line.....it's a team game. You can't put all of the blame for missing the playoffs on one man. Also, i am one of very few here who even expected they would be in contention. How can you be disappointed when 7-9 either met or exceeded your expectations?

I predicted a minimum of 9 wins. I believe the only reason that didn't happen was because Nicks, Joseph, Clayborn, Bowers, Talib, and Wright, missed most of the season. With the first four back and another draft and round of free agency, the Bucs are a lock for 10 wins and a playoff berth in 2013. Freeman will never again throw 8 interceptions in two games in one season. He will be more comfortable with his receivers and the system. He will play better but still streaky at times just to satisfy the haters. He may never be an elite QB but so what? THAT is an unreasonable expectation. The Bucs have never had an elite QB. That's hardly our standard. He can be great. With a decent pass defense the Bucs can win games if he's just good. Whatever, he's the best and most immediate option we have for a team on the verge of being balanced and dangerous. We have never had an offense that struck fear in anybody. We've had great defenses, but so what? We couldn't get in the endzone.
The pieces are coming together. We have a young AND talented team. We have a HC who is doing all the right things and a GM who is helping him. Dominik started laying the foundation for a Buccaneer dynasty the day he was hired. The first important piece was his first draft pick. His most important piece was Greg Schiano. The Bucs will be contenders for years to come.

[JC5100]

If you wanna break it down, if someone wnats to take the time, I'd love to see Freeman's stats broken down into three categories. First four games, the next six after the bye when we went on a tear verse the NFL's worst teams, and then finally his last 6 games. It would be interesting to see those three chunks next to each other for comparison and contrast, because it was kinda like we had three different seasons in one. We were mediocre for the first four, really good for the middle six, and horrible for the final six.


It would also be interesting to see how Martin did during those same three chunks. Defense too.

Freeman
75.3 (4)
102 (6)
64.2 (6)

Martin yards per game
75 (4)
169.8 (6)
98.8 (6)

Defense, ppg and yards per game. I excluded D/ST touchdowns.
22.8, 419 (4)
22, (378) (6)
25, (355.7) (6)

[JC5100]

Are you serious right now? They were regular season games! They mattered! They count! Stop being an idiot. Seriously. **CENSORED**.

Meaningless regular season games.

And I'd be curious to know how many hours Ron Turner and PJ Fleck spent watching film of the college teams they took over and how much time they spent recruiting.

[acacius]

If you wanna break it down, if someone wnats to take the time, I'd love to see Freeman's stats broken down into three categories. First four games, the next six after the bye when we went on a tear verse the NFL's worst teams, and then finally his last 6 games. It would be interesting to see those three chunks next to each other for comparison and contrast, because it was kinda like we had three different seasons in one. We were mediocre for the first four, really good for the middle six, and horrible for the final six.


It would also be interesting to see how Martin did during those same three chunks. Defense too.

Here's what I get.  I double checked a few of the numbers, but the overall accuracy is NOT guaranteed.

First four games:
Josh Freeman: 65/119, 54%, 790 yards, 197.5 ypg, 5 td, 4 int (The Cowboys game really hurt his numbers here.  God, he was terrible in that game.)
Doug Martin: 71 att, 247 yards rushing, 3.5 ypc, 1 rushing td, 8 rec, 53 yards receiving, 0 rec td
Team defense: 1676 yards allowed, 419 yards allowed per game, 91 pts allowed, 22.75 points allowed per game, 8 turnovers

Next six games:
Josh Freeman: 115/200, 57.5%, 1715 yards,  285.8 ypg, 16 td, 3 int
Doug Martin: 126 att, 753 yards rushing, 6.0 ypc, 6 rushing tds, 19 rec, 266 yards receiving, 1 rec td
Team defense: 2268 yards allowed, 378 yards allowed per game, 139 pts allowed, 23. 17 points allowed per game, 12 turnovers


Last six games:
Josh Freeman: 126/239, 1560 yards, 260 ypg, 52.7%, 6 td, 10 int
Doug Martin: 122 att, 454 yards rushing, 3.7 ypc, 4 rushing tds, 22 rec, 153 yards receiving, 0 rec td
Team defense: 2134 yards allowed, 356 yards allowed per game, 164 pts allowed, 27.33 points allowed per game, 6 turnovers

[JDouble]

Another thing that needs to be said, as bad as our defense was last year, and they were bad, they weren't as bad as people make them out to be. People like to quote the passing yard totals or other horrible stats, but when it comes down to it, all that matters is points. When you look at points allowed last year, we ranked 23rd. Bad, but not horrible.
Passes defensed.....9th.
Interceptions....8th.
3rd down percentage....24th.

Considering we were thrown on more than anyone else in the league, and our defense was on the field 3rd most out of the entire league.....those numbers are not that bad.

[QaZ]

"In Weeks 12-17, the Buccaneers finished with a record of 1-5 and were outscored in those losses 147-80.

Additionally in the last six games of the season Freeman completed only 53 percent of 239 pass attempts while throwing six touchdowns in comparison to 10 interceptions"


But....but....we missed the playoffs cause the defense!!! 

Allowing an average of 24.5 points per game is not good, so the defense shares the blame for sure, but the offense averaging 13.3 points per game is why we missed the playoffs. The saddest part about that, is during that six game stretch we played some of the worst defenses in the NFL....and people wonder why so many have seen enough of Freeman. Go on game rewind, watch the those 6 games, and tell me with a straight face that you really want Freeman back. Most people won't make it past the 41-0 Saints game before they have to stop watching.

Seriuosly, it was Freeman and his offense that lost us the game vs Phillie, because they did not put up more points earlier in the game? The defense giving up 15 points in the last 4 minutes is not the reason why?

OK, but then, why does just he offense accout for the collapse at end of the year, us missing the POs, when it was clearly the offense that put this team in the position to play for the PO late in the year? The defense play like crap all year.

If the offense starts good and then stalls, its the offense to blame for the loss, not the defense that played like crap all year?
If the offense starts poor but then gives this team a lead late in the game, its the offense that blew the game, not the defense that played bad all year and played even worse in the end?
This offense did not cost us the POs, especially if you try to not account the defense for its 'collapse' ALL year.

Bottom line is, this TEAM can not win many games if our offense struggles, including Freeman. But we are still able to win games with our offense, even if the defense gives up a ton of points. How we should invest more into our offense, play lottery with our assets on offense, is beyond me. Is RB a top priority aswell, so we maybe get a RB that has a little more prodcution than D Martin, to cover up for our horrible defense?

All this cherry picking of stats gets us nowhere, our defense still sucks, and we are still wondering if Freemans good games show what he can do in the future with a bit more experience, or if his bad games are what his game will look most of the time. All we know is if Freeman, our offense,  plays bad THIS team has almost zero chance of winning. How about getting a little more help on defense, so we maybe win one or two games, in which freeman throws 4 INTs? As if finding a better QB than Freeman is so much easier than improving your #32 pass defense.

And still Freeman will have to step up, improve his game, even a top10 defense might not be able to carry him for multiple games, especially if those bad games happen vs good team, late in the season. Expecting a good defense to win the games alone vs good teams(combination of offense and defense) will be just as stupid. It is not about Freeman its about the TEAM, i do not care about the name of our QB.

[QaZ]

Another thing that needs to be said, as bad as our defense was last year, and they were bad, they weren't as bad as people make them out to be. People like to quote the passing yard totals or other horrible stats, but when it comes down to it, all that matters is points. When you look at points allowed last year, we ranked 23rd. Bad, but not horrible.
Passes defensed.....9th.
Interceptions....8th.
3rd down percentage....24th.

Considering we were thrown on more than anyone else in the league, and our defense was on the field 3rd most out of the entire league.....those numbers are not that bad.

None of those teams giving up more points than us made the POs. The worst team to actually win just one single game in the POs, was Baltimore...at #13.

[JC5100]

People like to quote the passing yard totals or other horrible stats, but when it comes down to it, all that matters is points.

Like the 25 the Giants dropped in the 4th qtr? The 3 the Redskins scored in 1:42? Or the 13 by Philly in 4 minutes?

[acacius]

Another thing that needs to be said, as bad as our defense was last year, and they were bad, they weren't as bad as people make them out to be. People like to quote the passing yard totals or other horrible stats, but when it comes down to it, all that matters is points. When you look at points allowed last year, we ranked 23rd. Bad, but not horrible.
Passes defensed.....9th.
Interceptions....8th.
3rd down percentage....24th.

Considering we were thrown on more than anyone else in the league, and our defense was on the field 3rd most out of the entire league.....those numbers are not that bad.

Actually, the fact that we were thrown on more than anyone else in the league (well, other than the Redskins) makes those first two figures less impressive.  In terms of percentage of passes defended, the team was 19th and in terms of interception percentage, the team was 11th.

A few other rankings:
Opposing passing completion percentage: 28th
TD %: 23rd
Sack %: 31st
Opposing QBR: 27th

None of this excuses the times when Freeman was terrible, of course.  But don't kid yourself.  The team's defense last year really was horrible.

[RogerGoodellSucks]

JDub getting destroyed in this thread.

[BucBalla85]

Jdoub actually was a defender of Freeman and then gave up at the end of the season. I think hes tired of defending him and just wants to move on. I still see reason to believe but I can see why others dispute those reasons and just call them "excuses". I just see them as legit reasons for why the guy can turn his game around.

Still young
Still learning system
Defense sucks
Oline injuries

These may look like "excuses" to others. To me they just look like legit reasons for why the guy can turn around his game. They are certainly possible. As long as they are possible theres still a way in my eyes. Others may not be that optimistic but thats the way I am and I dont care if I get called a "freepologists" or excuse maker because of it. To me its the optimistic view vs the pessimist. I understand the reason to be pessimist in this case but its not enough for me. Im still standing strong on the thought that he could turn his game around. If he doesnt, tell me I was wrong as much as you want. I just want the team to win lol.

[JC5100]

. To me they just look like legit reasons for why the guy can turn around his game.

He doesn't even have to turn around his game. He was at 25/8 and then the season was over. He throws 1 TD and 8 INTs in two meaningless games and now people want to crucify him.

[JDouble]

Seriuosly, it was Freeman and his offense that lost us the game vs Phillie, because they did not put up more points earlier in the game? The defense giving up 15 points in the last 4 minutes is not the reason why?

The offense goes three and out for the whole first half and scores zero points verse one of the worst defenses in football, which puts the defense on the field all day long and has them worn out and tired by the 4th quarter....but it's not the offenses fault? Freeman was absolute garbage in that game. That is why we lost. Same for the Saints game. Same for the Rams game.