It’s time for PewterReport.com’s 2-Point Conversion post-game column, which features two statements, two questions and two predictions based on the latest Bucs game. Tampa Bay followed the same script that has led to most of its defeats this year in Sunday’s 38-35 loss against the New York Giants – getting down early, losing the turnover margin and coming up short at the end. After losing four straight, the Bucs are now 3-7 on the season and are speeding towards another losing season.

2 BIG STATEMENTS

STATEMENT 1: The Yuccaneers Are Back
This is NOT breaking news. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. We’ve seen it.

The implosion of the 2018 Buccaneers after their 2-0 start – which seemed somewhat miraculous looking back – to a 3-7 team is actually the transformation back into the Yuccaneers.

Yep, the Yuccs are back.

It’s the return of the Yuccaneers – Tampa Bay’s lovable losers.

Don’t focus on the fact that the Bucs battled back (like they usually do) and just came up three points short (like they usually do). Don’t focus on Jameis Winston leading the team back from 24-7 points down to pull within three points twice with two touchdown passes and four touchdown drives in the second half after starter Ryan Fitzpatrick threw three interceptions.

Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter – Photo by: Getty Images

Winston deserves praise, and I’ll certainly give it to him, but he should have been starting this game from the get-go, as all three PewterReport.com staff writers suggested in Wednesday’s PR Roundtable. That was a mistake by head coach Dirk Koetter.

Do NOT give today’s Buccaneers a participation trophy for today’s valiant effort that was all for naught as it ended up being a defeat.

This team lost, and therefore the Bucs are losers. Tampa Bay’s record is now 3-7 after losing seven out of the last eight games, including four straight. That means they are losers, as I suggested this team was in Friday’s SR’s Fab 5 column.

Winners battle back and win, which is something Tampa Bay has only done once this year, and that was in an overtime victory against Cleveland.

Unfortunately, we are witnessing the return of the Yuccaneers, who are 8-18 (.307) in the last 26 games under Koetter, who went 5-11 last year and might be lucky to find two more wins on the current schedule to match last year’s awful record. This team does a lot of yucky things the old Yuccs used to do.

Today’s game featured several fluky things that just seem to happen too often to Tampa Bay, such as rookie running back Saquon Barkley – the second-most deadliest Giants weapon not named Odell Beckham, Jr. – being left completely unguarded near the goal line on a touchdown reception to give New York an early 7-0 lead?

Or how about Fitzpatrick deciding to run an ill-fated QB sneak right behind right guard Caleb Benenoch, who is the offensive line’s worst lineman, and getting stuffed for no gain on fourth-and-1 inside the red zone?

“We’ve got to be able to make that,” Koetter said. “That’s a no-brainer there. You have to go for it. As many guys as we’re missing on defense, it was going to be a high scoring game. We’ve got to get touchdowns.”

Giants LB Alec Ogletree – Photo by: Getty Images

Or how about Fitz’s second interception, which was almost picked off by cornerback Janoris Jenkins, who fell to the ground, then had the ball stolen off his fingertips by Giants linebacker Alec Olgetree, who got credited with the interception and returned it for a touchdown?

And once again the football gods toyed with the Buccaneers and their fans’ emotions. Perhaps feeling sorry for Winston, who fumbled the ball at the Giants 2-yard line after failed to get the ball to Mike Evans, who was wide, wide, wide open in the back of the end zone, the football gods allowed Evans to fall on the ball in the end zone for the most unconventional Bucs touchdown of the year. Just to keep Tampa Bay in it and set up yet another heartbreaking game of “close, but no cigar.”

Lest we forget the Bucs are now minus-23 in the turnover margin after another minus-4 turnover day. The Bucs have now gone seven straight games without a takeaway on defense.

“It’s a combination,” Koetter said. “If it was zero turnovers on offense and zero takeaways on defense we wouldn’t be talking about this. But the fact that we’re getting zero takeaways on defense and we’re turning it over four times on offense, that’s the number one – that’s the number one killer in football. We’re minus-20-something. That makes it tough.”

A minus-23 turnover margin – that may be the most Yuccaneers thing of all.

Back in the day we in the media used to call games like Sunday’s loss S.O.B. (Same Ol’ Bucs) games. Now a more clinically diagnosed has been applied – HWGA (Here We Go Again) Syndrome.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Bucs CB MJ Stewart – Photo by: Getty Images

The Bucs dug themselves into a big, double-digit hole in the first half in New York, down 14-0 in the first quarter – which happened against Pittsburgh (30-10), Chicago (38-3), Atlanta (24-13), Cincinnati (27-9) and Carolina (35-14) by halftime. Then the defense comes around a bit – but still doesn’t get any takeaways – and the offense rallies the team, but not enough to win.

Being down big early, combined with the awful turnover margin, has been the story of the 2018 Buccaneers. And Koetter has been clueless in terms of knowing how to stop it. That will prove to be his undoing by the end of the season.

Each of the last three head coaches the Glazers have hired and fired had their own “return to the Yuccaneers” moments. Raheem Morris’ team lost 10 straight games to end the 2011 season and his three-year tenure. Greg Schiano presided over the Josh Freeman debacle and went 0-8 to start his second and final season in 2013. Lovie Smith sputtered out of the gate, not being “Tennessee ready” en route to 2-14 before not being able to stop a slant pass on defense the next season.

Koetter can’t buy a takeaway on defense, nor can he stop the avalanche of turnovers that come from the offensive side of the ball. He doesn’t have any answers, and the ones he dials up, such as starting Fitzpatrick over Winston this week, are wrong.

The Yuccaneers are back.

STATEMENT 2: The Bucs Linebackers Are Overmatched
Tampa Bay’s defense didn’t have a chance today in New York because of the play of its linebackers. The Giants offense racked up 359 yards and scored 31 out of the team’s 38 points with a balanced attack that featured Eli Manning completing 17-of-18 passes for 231 yards with two touchdowns and a QB rating of 155.8, in addition to rushing for 163 yards and two more scores while averaging 5.3 yards per carry.

Bucs MLB Riley Bullough – Photo by: Getty Images

Giants rookie running back Saquon Barkley rushed for a career-high 142 yards and scored a career-best three touchdowns and the Bucs didn’t have a linebacker that could cover him or stop him. Adarius Taylor, who filled in for the injured Lavonte David on Sunday, had six tackles and a forced fumble that went out of bounds. But middle linebacker Riley Bullough, who started at middle linebacker, only had two tackles, as did strongside linebacker Devante Bond.

To illustrate how poor the linebackers played, just look at the production of starting safeties Isaiah Johnson, who had 10 tackles, and Jordon Whitehead, who notched eight tackles. When a team’s safeties are leading the way in tackles that means that the front seven isn’t doing a good job stopping the run.

Barkley’s first touchdown came on a 6-yard pass in which no linebacker covered him out of the backfield. Later in the game when Tampa Bay had pulled to within three points and needed a stop, Bond was beaten badly by Giants tight end Evan Engram on a 54-yard pass that proved to be the backbreaker and led to a Barkley’s final touchdown that caused New York’s lead to swell to 10 points again with just over four minutes left.

The Bucs can’t get David back fast enough, nor can they get Kendell Beckwith on the field soon enough. Bond, Bullough and Taylor are all backup linebackers that aren’t good enough to start on defense and make an impact.

2 PROBING QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1: Why Do Bucs QBs Throw Jump Balls To DJax?
Who knows? We’ve seen both Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston throw far too many interceptions in DeSean Jackson’s vicinity this year. It’s understandable to want to get the ball in the hands of a big-time playmaker like Jackson, but why they attempt to put the 5-foot-11, 175-pound Jackson in jump ball situations is beyond me.

Most recently, we’ve seen Fitzpatrick throw a jump ball to Jackson in the fourth quarter at Carolina, only to see Donte Jackson come down with the ball instead. On Sunday in New York, Fitzpatrick threw an awful pass in Jackson’s direction in the second half that wound up being his third interception. Then in the fourth quarter, we saw Winston throw a jump ball to Jackson to end the game with an interception.

Bucs WR DeSean Jackson – Photo by: Getty Images

If I’m either one of the Bucs quarterbacks I’m not throwing to Jackson unless he’s wide open because he’s not going to win jump balls. They aren’t even 50-50 balls, as Jackson has no chance of out-leaping our out-muscling defenders for the ball. If a receiver isn’t going to catch it, he has the responsibility of playing defensive back and preventing the interception. Jackson rarely does that.

If I’m Winston or Fitzpatrick I’m throwing to Evans, the team’s 6-foot-5 receiver, or to tight end O.J. Howard, the Bucs’ 6-foot-6 tight end. Heck, I would green-light throwing the ball to 6-foot-1, wide receiver Chris Godwin, who can win jump-ball situations – but not Jackson. Ever.

For as well as he played, Winston had no business throwing the ball up for grabs to Jackson on his last pass attempt. And speaking of jump balls, how about some fade passes to Evans or Howard in the end zone? Where has that been all year?

QUESTION 2: Did The Bucs O-Line Play Good Or Bad?
I thought the Bucs’ O-line was actually pretty bad. Stats can be misleading, and one of the biggest misleading stats in Sunday’s loss at New York was that Tampa Bay’s offensive line gave up just one sack. Normally, surrendering one sack and pairing it with 510 yards and 35 points means that the offensive line had a great day.

That wasn’t really the case.

On Tampa Bay’s opening drive, Bucs quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick was pressured twice on two of his first five pass attempts, and was forced to scramble three times for 13 yards. Tampa Bay’s ill-fated opening drive ended on fourth-and-inches when Dirk Koetter called for Fitzpatrick to do a QB sneak inside the Giants’ 10-yard line, trailing 7-0 in the first quarter. For some reason, Fitzpatrick ran behind right guard Benenoch, the team’s worst lineman, and right tackle Demar Dotson got beat inside, which has happened far too often this year, and got stuffed for no gain. That led to the Giants’ 95-yard touchdown drive that put New York up 14-0 early in the game.

On Fitzpatrick’s fourth down touchdown run in the first half, it appeared as if he was supposed to run a QB draw up the middle, but the offensive line didn’t open up a hole (shocker!), which forced Fitz to scramble off right tackle and dive for a touchdown. If not for Peyton Barber throwing a block at the edge of the defense and a great individual effort, the Bucs would have been stopped on fourth-and-short again.

Bucs C Ryan Jensen – Photo by: Getty Images

On the touchdown that came as the result of Jameis Winston’s fumble, that started off as a pass play, but protection quickly broke down and the pocket broke down, as usual, and he had to scramble for his life. Winston and Fitzpatrick combined for nine scrambles on the day – only two were originally called in as runs.

I don’t like how the Bucs run zone-blocking plays. They’re not very good at them. Tosses rarely work. Yet run game coordinator George Warhop continues to put them in the playbook. To be fair, when the offensive line resorted to man-blocking and pulling the results on the ground were quite good as Peyton Barber rushed for 44 yards on nine carries (4.9 avg.) in the first half and finished with 106 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries (5.9 avg.), but a good deal of those yards came from Barber breaking tackles and creating on his own.

Benenoch was bad, Smith, Dotson and center Ryan Jensen were mediocre and Ali Marpet was decent, but not playing at a Pro Bowl level like the team hoped he would after giving him a lucrative contract extension. I think the Bucs put up 500 yards and 35 points in spite of the offensive line rather than because of it on Sunday.

2 BOLD PREDICTIONS

PREDICTION 1: Winston Starts Next Week, Fitz Is Done
Jameis Winston should have been the starter from the first snap in New York on Sunday, but head coach Dirk Koetter blew that call on Monday when he named Ryan Fitzpatrick the starter instead. Now, after Winston completed 12-of-19 passes for 199 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, Koetter should name him the starter for Sunday – and the rest of the season.

“We’ll see,” Koetter said. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Bucs QB Jameis Winston – Photo by: Getty Images

When Koetter was asked how Winston played, he said: “Fantastic. You didn’t need to ask me that question. That’s pretty obvious. He came in and lit it up.”

The Bucs should ride with Winston the rest of the season as Fitzpatrick has accounted for seven touchdowns and 11 interceptions since taking over as the starter in the second half of the Cincinnati game. That’s just as bad as Winston’s six touchdowns and 10 interceptions were in just over three games as a starter.

PREDICTION 2: Bucs Don’t Win Another Game In 2018
I know this is pretty bold. This means that Tampa Bay will end the season 3-13, losing 10 games in a row. For those of you that follow the NFL Draft, value better draft pick positioning and get upset when your team wins seemingly meaningless season finales to improve to 5-11 instead of finishing 4-12, this prediction likely comes as welcome news.

The truth is that looking at the schedule I can’t forecast another win for a team that always seems to come up three points short, can’t create a takeaway and can’t win the turnover margin. Can you?