The Bucs had Sunday off following their 17-14 win at Cincinnati on Saturday night before holding a rare afternoon practice on Monday. Then the team had Tuesday off as it traveled to Jacksonville to the Jaguars on Wednesday morning for the first of two joint practices. Tampa Bay looked like a team that had some time off as the Bucs seemed a step slow across the board to start practice.

Wednesday’s joint practice took place between 10:00 a.m. to noon with temperatures in the high 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies in hot and humid conditions. Both teams were in full pads for Wednesday’s practice. Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds, Matt Matera and Adam Slivon were in attendance this morning. Here were their observations.

Bucs Who Were Not Practicing

It was a bunch of familiar faces in terms of the injured Bucs who missed Wednesday’s joint practice with the Jaguars. Reserve left tackle Justin Skule remained out, as did defensive tackles Calijah Kancey and Mike Greene and wide receivers Sterling Shepard and Rakim Jarrett. Also still out were safety Jordan Whitehead, running back Chase Edmonds and outside linebacker Yaya Diaby.

Outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka continued his practice of doing everything except 11-on-11 drills. Inside linebacker SirVocea Dennis suited up for the first time in over a week as he was out with an undisclosed injury, but like JTS, he was held out of contact and the 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills.

Tight end Payne Durham suffered a knee injury during practice and did not return to action. The severity of his injury was unknown at the end of practice.

Bucs Secondary Was Torched Early By Jaguars Passing Game

The Jaguars were clearly the sharper team to begin practice. Both teams jumped into 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 periods right away, and Jacksonville’s passing game had Tampa Bay’s pass defense on its heels early. All three quarterbacks – Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones and C.J. Beathard – threw touchdown passes against the Bucs secondary, which struggled mightily in the red zone. Starting cornerback Zyon McCollum gave up a pair of touchdowns early in the red zone, including one to wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr., Jacksonville’s first-round pick.

The Jaguars would have had even more touchdowns if a few of their weapons hadn’t missed some passes in the end zone. The lone good Tampa Bay defensive play came from rookie Tykee Smith, who had tight coverage and broke up a pass in the back of the end zone. That red zone couldn’t have ended fast enough for the Bucs defense.

Bucs DB Tykee Smith – Photo by: USA Today

Thomas had quite a day and got deep a few times against a Bucs secondary, who was sluggish from the start. The rookie from LSU burned McCollum for one deep touchdown and safety Kaevon Merriweather downfield for an easy touchdown, and also got open deep against cornerback Bryce Hall, but the pass was overthrown.

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles called the defensive plays in the team’s preseason opener at Cincinnati because he “needed the work.” But Bowles plans on letting defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator Kacy Rodgers call plays on Saturday against Jacksonville, while inside linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator Larry Footer will call plays next week against Miami. Bowles spent the entire practice with general manager Jason Licht watching Liam Coen’s offense work.

Surprisingly, neither team had any turnovers on Wednesday.

Tampa Bay’s Defense Rallies Late

The Bucs overcame their lethargic start to Wednesday’s joint practice by heating up towards the end. Tampa Bay was dominated early but won the last 11-on-11 period to finish the practice strong on both sides of the ball. The Bucs seemed to be energized by a sack from blitzing safety Antoine Winfield Jr. on the first play of the final period. Defensive play-caller Kacy Rodgers dialed up multiple blitzes during this period because the Bucs have struggled to get pressure on the quarterback with a standard four-man pass rush, especially without leading sacker Yaya Diaby.

But Chris Braswell, who continues to start at left outside linebacker in place of the injured Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, really came on toward the end of practice. He had a nice bull rush for a sack and followed that up by staying home on a play-action bootleg and would’ve had another sack on Trevor Lawrence.

Defensive tackle Vita Vea also had a sack and a pass breakup at the line of scrimmage. Outside linebackers Jay Person and Jose Ramirez got sacks later in practice, as did inside Shawn Peterson on a blitz.

Inside linebackers J.J. Russell and K.J. Britt finally showed some passion and laid some thuds on Jacksonville running backs D’Earnest Brown and Tank Bigsby, which also seemed to fire up the defense. The intensity picked up on the defensive side of the ball late but was clearly missing early in practice. Perhaps better late than never.

Bucs Drop The Ball In Jacksonville

The Bucs had a severe case of the drops on Wednesday, especially from the two players that are vying for the No. 3 receiver role – second-year player Trey Palmer and rookie Jalen McMillan. Palmer has been the culprit in terms of dropping more passes during camp than McMillan, and he had three today while McMillan had two.

Tight end Ko Kieft also had a dropped pass for the Bucs offense.

Bucs’ Offense Takes Time To Get Going

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

Aside from the drops that the Bucs were committing, the offense could not get into much of a rhythm either. There were incompletions from bad throws by Baker Mayfield that were either too low or too ahead of the receiver as he attempted to lead them.

We have seen a lot of splash plays and big throws down the field so far by the Bucs, but there were none to talk about during Wednesday’s practice. Mayfield found Mike Evans for about 15 yards and Kyle Trask connected with Kameron Johnson a couple of times, but that was about it. The run game, which ran wild at Cincinnati, was rather pedestrian today.

Even in 7-on-7s in the red zone, the Bucs couldn’t score early. These drills usually favor the offense as there’s no pass rush to worry about. The opening three plays with starters all in resulted in incompletions. Even when they returned they still didn’t find the end zone.

Thankfully the Bucs started to get into a groove and Mayfield hit Evans on a slant for a score followed by a touchdown to Jalen McMillan and then another to Evans, who went in motion on the right side, getting him wide open on the left side of the end zone for another touchdown. Later the duo connected for yet another score in the back middle of the end zone.

Observations And Highlights From Day 14 Of Bucs Camp

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson – Photo by: USA Today

• Typically joint training camp practices lead to scrums and pushing and shoving between players on opposite teams. It was a surprise that neither side came even close to tempers fairing against each other.

• Overall, this was the Bucs’ worst practice of training camp thus far, but at least the team got better as the session went on and finished on a high note. The Jaguars made more big plays, especially on offense.

• Quarterback Baker Mayfield might have been the best skill player for Tampa Bay on Wednesday. It wasn’t Mayfield’s sharpest practice, but he didn’t throw an interception and threw multiple touchdown passes in 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 red zone periods. The Bucs offensive line was quite remarkable in pass protection, giving all three of Tampa Bay’s quarterbacks time to throw the ball.

• Bucs cornerback Zyon McCollum got torched early but did make a nice pass breakup against tight end Evan Engram on an out route.

• Jaguars quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence, Mac Jones and C.J. Beathard were using play-action passes with great success against the Bucs’ defense early. Tampa Bay’s defensive backs and linebacker kept biting on play-action, which was maddening to watch.

• Bucs cornerback Bryce Hall got victimized in pass coverage early on but did make a nice play punching the ball out on wide receiver Joshua Cephus to create a pass breakup.

• There were two Chris Braswells on the field on Wednesday. Jacksonville has a second-year cornerback named Christian Braswell, who played at Rutgers, and Tampa Bay has Chris Braswell, a rookie outside linebacker from Alabama.

• Bucky Irving found a nice groove scoring a touchdown from about 10 to 15 yards out after making a cut. He soon reached the end zone again on a 2-yard reception from Kyle Trask off play-action. Irving was stuffed at the goal line, too, when the Bucs tried to run it in from two yards out, so it wasn’t all perfect for the rookie runner.