The Bucs certainly have a lot of issues to clean up on the defensive side of the ball. Tampa Bay allowed 509 yards to Falcons’ quarterback Kirk Cousins as the the Bucs’ defense also gave up 36 points. Maybe having a short week hurt their preparation, but that was still a mind numbing performance.

By the time that Tampa Bay plays their next game on Sunday at 1:00PM against the Saints, they will have had 10 days to evaluate what went wrong while also finding solutions to their pass coverage. One culprit of the Bucs’ woes was inside linebacker K.J. Britt. Before SirVocea Dennis went on injured reserve, Britt and Dennis would platoon at the inside linebacker position particularly because Britt struggles in pass coverage while Dennis thrives in it.

Bucs’ Defensive Struggles

There was no hiding Britt on Thursday night as he was on the field for 81 snaps and the results were ugly. Per Pro Football Focus, Britt received a grade of 46.5 in pass coverage from Thursday night’s game. This was his third lowest coverage grade this season, which speaks to his struggles, but the daunting part is this was his highest number of snaps.

Bucs ILB K.J. Britt – Photo by: Jeffrey Jones/PR

Britt has been a great vocal leader for the Bucs this season and typically excels in stopping the run while going north to south. But the NFL is still a passing league and the Bucs can’t afford to have a consistent liability.

As he usually does, Bowles defended using Britt so much, and how he defended the passing plays. He blamed more of the inefficient tackling for Tampa Bay’s problem, which is another issue of it’s own.

“It wasn’t tough because it was our normal stuff that we normally run but at the same time, you know, we want to have more speed on the field at certain times,” Bowles said. “K.J is a very good zone player but at times we want to have some speed guys on the field and the communication has to be better, especially with the safeties. When we lost Jordan [Whitehead], we lost some of the communication aspect of it and then we just missed some drops and missed some tackles.”

The Bucs have to come up with an answer for what they’ll do a linebacker. SirVocea Dennis isn’t going to fix it either because he’s not available.

“We’re not counting on him any time soon,” Bowles said. “His shoulder was kind of messed up this summer. We kind of knew it was a touch-and-go type thing there, so we’ll see how he comes around and we’ll play it week by week.”

Bucs Considering A New ILB?

As Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds pointed out, the Bucs could go to a dime package look, which puts more defensive backs and less linebackers on the field. But for argument’s sake let’s just say they stick with a two-linebacker system, would they platoon Britt again or even outright replace him?

The Bucs don’t have many options at inside linebacker. Their other options are third-year player J.J. Russell, who has a role on special teams and undrafted free agent rookie Antonio Grier Jr, who was just signed to the active roster from the practice squad last week.

Bucs LB J.J. Russell Photo by: USA Today

Russell has experience starting before in situations where other have been out. Is Todd Bowles considering this?

“We’ll see,” Bowles said. “I mean, we’re confident in K.J. [Britt] but at the same time, we need to make more tackles. I thought our zone drops and our tackling weren’t very good and that’s where we kind of got behind the eight ball.”

Another thing that could help is the Bucs staying consistent pressuring the quarterback. They’ve had 10 sacks over the last two games, so if the coverage can be cleaned up, the more the stops will come about.

“We got pressures up front, first of all,” Bowles said. “They go hand and hand with covers. Sometimes we have to cover better and we’re getting back there, and sometimes we have to get back there and we’re covering better. It goes hand and hand, but we made some progress last night. I thought we should’ve had a couple more, but the ball was coming out and there were missed opportunities all over the field.