Defense

Vita Vea, Better Than Advertised

We need to set the expectations for Vita Vea a little bit lower than they are, and that is not his fault. Vea is a classic run-stuffing nose tackle who can dominate the line of scrimmage and make life easy on linebackers behind him. He’s a throwback player in many ways, while certainly providing a little more impact as a pass rusher than most of the players in his mold that have come before him.

But Vea is never going to be a stat sheet stuffer, and we need to be okay with that if we are going to properly analyze him moving forward. He is a decent pass rusher, a great point-of-attack run defender and a below average defensive tackle in space. Is that worth the 12th overall pick in the draft? Not in my opinion. That’s why I had a second-round grade on him. But Vea is still a good player, and a major reason why Tampa Bay’s run defense is as dominant as it is – ranking fifth in the NFL after Week 1 by holding the Saints to 82 yards rushing and just 2.4 yards per carry.

Textbook two-gapping nose tackle play here, as Vea controls the center and sheds the block late to help make the stop.

Again, Vea stood up Saints center Eric McCoy and controlled the A gaps. That kept Devin White completely clean so the linebacker can make the stop. It’s so hard to move Vea on vertical run concepts that I wouldn’t even try it as an opposing team. Get him moving laterally or start running to other gaps.

This play revealed the power that makes Vea such a good player, but also the minimal athletic and explosive ability that limits his impact. He can’t make plays in space against more athletic ball carriers like the top defensive tackles in the league can. We saw it on this play and we saw it on the Alvin Kamara screen for a touchdown. It’s just a limitation to Vea’s game that we have to accept at this point.

I’ll say this though: Vea’s false start penalty on 4th-and-2 was the type of bone-headed error that absolutely cannot happen from a player who needs to be coming into his own as a mistake-free leader of a defense trying to turn a corner culturally.

The Good And The Bad Of ILB White

Watching the contest live, I thought inside linebacker Devin White played an exceptional football game. Going back through the tape there is still plenty of good, but also many examples of areas he can still grow.

First, the good. The dude’s range is unbelievable. He can make plays all over the field because of how fast and explosive he is. And he will really hit too, while also being able to make tackles outside his frame.

I thought White, who finished with 11 tackles and a pass defensed, may have overrun this play live, but instead he makes an exceptional tackle in space against a very elusive player. He closes ground so fast, and he’s willing to take off the instant he sees a play developing. It’s one of the reasons he’ll make a great blitzer, too.

Now, some of the bad. White is definitely an aggressive player, which teams can use to their advantage at times. He lost Alvin Kamara in coverage a little bit on the Saints’ first touchdown, then took a bad angle to the ball and got himself blocked.

There are still times where White has trouble reading-and-reacting to his keys in time to beat blockers to spots on the field, and he’s still learning how to play through blocks in the box. That’s an issue for almost all linebackers in today’s NFL though, sometimes you just have to see how much the positives in space and in coverage outweigh the negative of struggling to get off blocks.

Whitehead Needs To Be Better

This summer I highlighted how I felt Jordan Whitehead was not a starting-caliber safety, and much to my chagrin his performance on Sunday continued to prove that point. Whitehead is a physical safety, who plays the run really well and can tackle, but he’s too much of a liability in coverage to be trusted.

Outside of an unnecessary defensive pass interference that changed the entire game, Whitehead also looked lost in coverage on a number of occasions.

The Saints began the game with a fake split zone action where Taysom Hill comes across the formation but doesn’t block anyone on the play-action, instead leaking out into the flat. It’s a common call to begin the game, but Whitehead loses his assignment in the mess, reading run and attacking instead of doing his job. The result is an early 14-yard pickup for the Saints and the beginning of a rough day for Whitehead, who had six tackles, including a tackle for loss.

This is really sloppy footwork, and the result could have been a touchdown if Cook doesn’t drop this ball. Cook runs a decent route, but Whitehead ridiculously overplays the fade and opens his hips to the sideline, getting completely out of position to contest the throw.

Whitehead was a liability in coverage on Sunday for the Bucs, and the team should think about Mike Edwards at strong safety if the struggles continue.

Saints’ Scheme Saved Their Offense

Tampa Bay’s team speed and talent on defense is among the best in the league, but even though it played a great game for the most part on Sunday, New Orleans found a few ways to exploit them in ways that the Bucs will need to be aware of moving forward.

The Saints constantly used motion, misdirection and screens to take advantage of the Bucs’ over-aggression and lack of processing at times. I mentioned the Whitehead play early in the game, where he surrendered the catch to Hill because he was busy biting on play-action. I also mentioned the touchdown screen to Kamara, which caught White napping.

But another screen also killed the Bucs on Sunday, a play-action first down screen pass (run play-action passes and screens on first down, when nobody is expecting it!) that went for 17 yards and set up a field goal late in the first half.

The play-action gets the linebackers completely disoriented, and only rookie safety Antoine Winfield (who was brilliant all game) sniffs out the screen. He’s over-matched with a multitude of blockers in space, but still nearly makes the play.

The Bucs are a young defense, so mental mistakes could doom them despite all of their talent if they aren’t learning from them. Almost every big play they gave up on Sunday was the result of a mental error, over-aggression or a penalty (two screens, a wheel route to Kamara late on a blown coverage, a 46-yard pass to Jared Cook on a blown coverage, a 14-yard completion to Hill on play action, and the defensive pass interference calls), rather than Bucs players simply getting beat one-on-one.

It’s a fixable problem for Tampa Bay, but it’s going to take maturity and communication from their leaders to make sure they aren’t victimized in the same way again.

Defensive Notes

• Outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul was better than Shaq Barrett on Sunday, but both were pretty well-handled by the best offensive tackle duo in the NFL in Ryan Ramczyk and Terron Armstead. There will be easier match-ups moving forward, but if you want to be respected as the best edge rushing duo in the NFL, these are the games you need to shine in. Neither player did, and JPP had Tampa Bay’s lone sack.

Bucs DBs Jordan Whitehead and Sean Murphy-Bunting and Saints WR Micheal Thomas – Photo by: Getty Images

• Cornerbacks Sean Murphy-Bunting and Carlton Davis faced one of their toughest match-ups of the season on Sunday, and both of them were fantastic. Sure, they each missed a tackle and Davis got flagged for a facemask when he missed a stop on Emmanuel Sanders that allowed a short 5-yard touchdown, but overall they combined to limit Pro Bowler Michael Thomas to three catches for 17 yards while also holding Sanders to just three catches for 15 yards. If those two play like that every week, the Bucs will win a lot of football games.

• We need a separate article to talk about how well Winfield played in his rookie debut. We also need the All-22, since he’s off the screen most of the time in the broadcast view. Wow – what a player he is going to be.