Now that we are through with the Bucs offense, let’s see if you can get through the trainwreck that is the defense with me. Here are my notes from watching back the Bucs defense from last week:

• I’m going to jump straight to the second half to refute a few claims I have seen floating around. The Bucs defense did not buckle down in the second half, allowing just seven points.
  • The Falcons killed themselves with penalties for the most part.
    • First drive backed up first play with a Darnell Mooney holding penalty.
    • Third drive backed up first play with a holding call on Ray-Ray McCloud that nullified a touchdown. The Bucs would allow the Falcons out of a first-and-20 to an eventual score.
    • On the fifth drive the Falcons incur a facemask penalty on center Ryan Neuzil after the Bucs allowed two first downs that backed them up to first-and-22. Bucs would allow Falcons to convert on fourth down and were eventually bailed out by a missed field goal.

Bucs Pass Rush

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  Bucs DT CJ. Brewer and OLB Joe Tryon-Shoyinka – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

  There are just not enough 1-v-1 winners on this line for the Bucs to only blitz 19% of the time.

  • Kirk Cousins averaged +0.60 EPA/play on his 25 drop backs with no blitz and -0.52 EPA/pass on drop backs against the blitz.
• Best call of the game was an early third and eight when Todd Bowles put seven men on the line and brought five of them plus a sixth from the slot.
  • Dropped Calijah Kancey, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and Jordan Whitehead from a four-man overload to Cousins’ right. Despite Lavonte David being the only rusher from that side he was able to slip in unscathed to get the pressure and force an incomplete pass to end the drive.
  • Brought Winfield from the bunched right to put additional messiness between Cousins and his preferred side to find an outlet.
• Defensive tackle C.J. Brewer continues to flash as a rotational rusher. He can penetrate gaps better than most of the pass rushers on this team.
• As the team’s best pass rusher, Bowles needs to find more ways to leverage Kancey. He was only in to rush on 60% of Cousins’ drop backs. This number has to be closer to 75%.
  • I also want Bowles to get more creative with how he deploys Kancey. Against the Saints he had some high-end reps against both tackles. They should be looking to isolate him to one side and overload the other with Vita Vea, Yaya Diaby and JTS.
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  Bucs DTs Calijah Kancey and Vita Vea – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

  His 1-v-1 win against Chris Lindstrom to get a pass deflection in the first quarter was nasty and saved a big completion.

  • Combined a double-swipe with pure speed to blow by Lindstrom.
  • Then was able to make a quick turn to not get too deep and overrun Cousins.
  • Finished by making an athletic leap to get a piece of the ball.
• None of the outside linebackers are quick winners. This neuters the pass rush against a league that is getting the ball out in under 2.5 seconds almost half the time.
  • This also nullifies a lot of the stunts/games that Bowles tries to play.
• Diaby has to find a way to win to the outside. His inside bull rush is giving too easy of an exit for even Cousins.
• JTS’s refusal to use what was once an effective spin move as any type of counter for his long arm is perplexing to me. Limits him to an average-at-best, below-average more often rusher.
• Chris Braswell has shown some better pass rush awareness and is getting closer to the quarterback on a more consistent basis, but a lot of those are schemed up loops. Only had six pass rush snaps in this game. I’d like to see him get more.

Coverage Issues

• Todd Bowles isn’t lying when he says there a bunch of communication issues. Some are post-snap. Many are pre-snap.

2/2

Now on 2-15 they line up 3 over 4 to the field and run FZ from that side? With the boundary side LB running bluff?

I get baiting the checkdown but with all that room even with rally and tackle they give up 10+.

And yes a bad angle/rally from Iz.

ATL would convert 3-5. pic.twitter.com/LWhyOYy4oy

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) October 29, 2024

• • What is perplexing is that so many of the players in the back seven have multiple years in this defense. There is no logical explanation for why this is happening.
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  Bucs CB Tyrek Funderburk and Falcons WR Darnell Mooney – Photo by: USA Today

  Because of the lack of athleticism from the linebackers, and the insistence in play calling to protect against the deep ball, there are large swaths of open field for the Falcons to play to underneath. This works against the Bucs defense in two ways.

  • It allows for quick throws, killing the pass rush’s chances of affecting the quarterback.
  • It allows playmakers to still burn the Bucs for explosive plays with lots of yards after the catch. Falcons had five passes go for 20+ yards.
• Rookie cornerback Tyrek Funderburk was not good at all. Just can’t move with elite route runners.
• Josh Hayes replaced Funderburk and was better in coverage but also has change of direction issues due to stiff hips. Left him vulnerable on the outside against the run and had KIRK COUSINS juke him on a 13-yard scramble to almost ice the game.
• Reserve inside linebacker J.J Russell did not help the case for those calling for him to play over K.J. Britt. He blew the coverage on the Bijan Robinson touchdown catch by staying connected to Charlie Woerner coming across the field instead of passing the route off to Jordan Whitehead and picking up Robinson on the backside flat.
• Zyon McCollum had another great game.
  • Targeted once. Allowed no catches.
• Jordan Whitehead and Antoine Winfield Jr. actually played well overall outside of the bad angle Winfield took on the second Pitts touchdown.

Y’all wanna talk about the no call.

Should be talking about the window in between the LB’s and the uncontested catch.

The missed tackle by KJ.

AWJ angle on initial tackle attempt.

FB missed tackle.

Don’t care about the FF bc he never should have been at the GL to begin w/ pic.twitter.com/w2dZxDYLhp

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) October 28, 2024

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  Bucs DB Christian Izien – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

  This brings me to tackling. For a Bowles-style defense to work it requires sound tackling from its players. It’s a rally-and-tackle scheme.

  • Bucs missed too many tackles in key situations that either gave the Falcons explosive plays or key second/third down pickups.
  • 11 players with at least 100 snaps this season have a missed tackle rate of 15% or more. That’s unacceptable.
• I am hopeful for this week when rookie nickelback Tykee Smith should be back. While Christian Izien is a solid player, Smith will upgrade the slot and hopefully allow Izien to come in on long and late downs to play some dime.
  • Bucs tried dime once. Kaevon Merriweather got tossed by Kyle Pitts and Bowles shelved the idea for the rest of the game. Hopefully he won’t do that if it’s Smith/Izien as the extra defensive backs.

Run Defense

• K.J. Britt, in addition to getting exposed in space, is getting popped backwards in the hole on run defense. He’s just a net negative across the board right now.
• Some of the front structures just don’t make sense and give fantastic looks to the Falcons run game, which they largely exploited in the second half.
• Bucs struggled to defend pistol looks (in both pass and run situations).