All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs Secondary

We have a lot of things to go over so take your seat and we’ll get started.

I want to open up this film study with the “bad” because after this play there really wasn’t that much to be disappointed with when it came to the Bucs secondary.

The play shown above was the 53-yard bomb on Matt Ryan’s first pass of the game to tight end Jaeden Graham. Bruce Arians commented after the game and said it was a communication issue. This can be expected with a young secondary, even in the second half of the season.

In this play, it appeared the Bucs were in a Tampa 2 shell, which is Cover 2 on the back end with two deep zone safeties, but instead of having the cornerbacks responsible for anything deep up the sideline, their job is to sit in the short zone and guard things in the flat.

There are three weak points in a Tampa 2 shell: the open space between the cornerback and the safety on each sideline, and the seam up the middle behind the inside linebacker and between the safeties. In this play, it was the seam route that got them.

There just didn’t seem to be good chemistry on this play. On the top side, safety Jordan Whitehead had two players to his half who had the potential to go deep, so he had to keep his eyes there first. On the other side, safety Andrew Adams eventually had two players to worry about, but it was clear his focus was on Julio Jones on the outside. As the play unfolded, Adams continued to watch Jones, even though he wasn’t going deep, and Whitehead failed to rotate towards the middle of the field after both players to his side stayed short.

The safeties just got caught rotating late and not keying on the right player who went deep. Combination of a good eye by Ryan to look for the weak spot in the Tampa 2 and slow reaction from the safeties.

As stated before, though, that really was one of the only bad plays this secondary had. Not that they were perfect, but there weren’t the glaring errors that has caused them to be one of thew worst passing defenses in the NFL.

A reason for the boost in production from the secondary was the marriage between the pass rush and the pass coverage. Defense truly is a full-unit game. It takes all 11 guys doing their job on each play to not fail – that’s why it’s special when it works. If the coverage is great but the pass rush can’t get home, receivers will eventually get free. If the pass rush is fast but the cornerbacks can’t hang, short passes will beat you all day.

It takes full cohesiveness to get stops in the NFL, and the play above was an example of there being nowhere to throw the football in the time it took for the rush to get to the quarterback.

That trend continued throughout the game, and eventually the two units began to feed off one another. It’s not going to be a perfect showing for both each play. Sometimes the secondary will have to pick up the pass rush and lock up their assignments a little longer. Sometimes it’s the other way around. But the Bucs’ coverage and pass rush seemed to be in sync at a level they rarely have been this year. That’s a sign of true progress.

Now I want to get into some of the individual performances from the Bucs secondary players staring with rookie cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting.

As the Tampa Bay coaches have been trying to figure out where to best play these young DBs, Murphy-Bunting has been cross-trained to contribute at multiple positions. He started off in the slot, but then moved to outside cornerback when Vernon Hargreaves III wasn’t playing well, and then also in the game after VH3 was released. But now with Jamel Dean back in the starting lineup, SMB has been moved back to the slot in nickel formation (three cornerbacks to counter when three wide receivers are on the field). If you ask me, this is SMB’s best spot, at least in this particular personnel group with Carlton Davis and Dean as the other starters on the outside.

As the slot cornerback in the clip above, SMB was playing his guy in man coverage with inside leverage. This means that he was only responsible for the player in front of him, and the leverage part means he had his hips flipped with his back to the inside of the field as to anticipate and better jump routes to the outside.

Think of leverage for a cornerback the way you guard someone in basketball. If you know the guy you’re guarding is right handed, you’re going to want to try to force him left. This does two things. For one, it can force the player to use a hand they’re less comfortable with. But more importantly for SMB’s case, it allows also you to get a jump and be in better position if they do end up using their right hand to dribble and drive.

All of that to say SMB played that coverage assignment with the right technique, but was slow to recognize the route due to the fact that he yielded the catch. But I can live with that right now. A better break on that route is something that will come with more experience and reps in games. The technique was there.

The play above is an other one where SMB was late to recognize where the ball was going.

Motion pre-snap gave away the Bucs zone coverage shell (either Cover 3 or quarters). SMB was the inside cornerback who was lined up right near the line of scrimmage. At the snap, he backed up into his curl zone, sort of like a linebacker would do in base coverage.

He was in the right position to make the play, just couldn’t see it fast enough. If he sees it fast enough it might be a pick.

But then there was the good, and we got a glimpse of what it looks like on the plays where SMB does see the break before it happens.

As the man coverage slot player above, SMB was once again using that inside leverage to force the wide receiver out wide. Unlike last time, he didn’t hesitate when the receiver started his break to the sideline. That’s why he was right there to disrupt the pass at the catch point.

That’s the kind of confident play SMB is capable of from the slot. If you ask me, that’s his best role for this team. The more reps he’ll get there, the more plays we’ll see like that last one.

It’s time to talk about Carton Davis.

I’m not here to go look at receipts. Y’all can do that. But many of you were ready to give up on Davis about two weeks ago. Davis has been a slow burn so far during his NFL career. The press man cornerback by nature made his adjustment to NFL game speed early on with a lot of penalties – he was too handsy. Without the anticipation gained through experience, Davis was left to be overly physical as his way of not getting burned.

On the surface level, was this frustrating? Sure. Penalties are never good. But given the type of cornerback Davis is, these were his growing pains, and many confused that with “he can’t play.”

He can play.

In the play above, Davis was initially pegged as the outside cornerback lined up in press man coverage close to the line of scrimmage. But when the Falcons motion players to the sidelines, it turned into more of a slot rep for Davis (something he rarely does). In it, he stayed physical and sticky with the talented Jones and played the quick slant about as well as you could ask.

That was a huge sign of growth for a player who struggle to deal with wide receivers in space a year ago.

Speaking of growth, Davis is also handling speed assignment better than he ever has.

In the play above, Davis was up at the top once again in close man coverage against Julio Jones. At the snap, Jones took off horizontally in what is called a drag route. This has been an Achilles heel for this Bucs secondary group over the years, as they just have not had the athletes to keep up with long, short routes like that – former Bucs head coach and now Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter knew this.

But Davis kept up with Jones so well that he was able to make a play on the receiver at the catch point and force an incompletion.

On the very next play you know what the Falcons did? They went after Davis on the drag route again, thinking that him playing the route that well wouldn’t happen again.

They were wrong, and Davis played it even better than he did the first.

Davis was even able to get his hands on that ball for what should have been a pick-6, but he couldn’t haul it in. Routes in space, getting overly physical and just a lack of recognition were all areas where Davis has struggled before and had shown improvement now, even over the last few weeks. But getting takeaways has never been his MO, and after watching the ball go straight out his hands on that play, you wondered if it would ever be part of Davis’ game.

In a big “HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?” response later in the game, Davis got that elusive first pick of his career, and boy, was it a beauty.

As stated before, Davis struggled in space during the early starts of his career. If he couldn’t get his hands on guys in press or at least play close to the line of scrimmage, he didn’t know what to do; he didn’t have confidence in himself to keep up and it showed.

The play above was of Davis, at the top of the screen, in a Cover 3 zone role. His receiver ended up going all the way down the field with his zone, so Davis followed. But watch just how quick the feet were, how smooth he turned his hips to not lose speed and how fast he was able to get into his strides down the field to make a play on the ball. For as much as we liked Davis’ aggression, even the biggest Davis fans didn’t see that last year.

Combine that with Davis’ mentality to be tough at the catch point and you have the result above.

That was Davis’ first interception in a game since September 23, 2017 when Davis was a junior cornerback at Auburn.

Davis may never be the high interception guy, but it good to know the monkey is off his back. Now he can play with an even greatest sense of freedom. Less thinking, more play-making.

Finally, let’s get into some Jamel Dean.

Dean’s injury history going into the draft cycle was not pretty. Major knee surgeries brought up questions of whether or not he’d even play football again a few years ago. But when Dean was on the field at Auburn, he showed a rare combination of athleticism and length. And he’s fast.

He put that on display against the Falcons, as shown above.

Something I saw from Dean, both in this game and in the Cardinals game, is that he seems to be a quick learner.

Against the Seahawks, he was caught out of position a lot. Some of this was due to inexperience and other times it was just Seattle’s play designing putting him in a bad spot. Whatever the reason, the results were embarrassing. After the game Dean said he can’t remember the last time he played a game that bad – maybe ever. He didn’t want to experience that feeling again.

One way Dean got in trouble against the Seahawks was with routes that went in front of a lot of clutter. He got lost trying to sift through players and wasn’t able to track and keep up. The play above showed that Dean has a better eye for that stuff now, even just a few weeks later. You can tell he’s been watching a lot of film of where he struggled and was ready to contain it better this time around.

Dean just seems so smooth in his coverage.

In the play above, Dean was lined up as the outside cornerback assigned to Falcons wide receiver Calvin Rildey in man coverage at the top of the screen. Dean didn’t get his hands up to press early on, but did bump Ridley a bit at the top of the 5-yard cushion area. That allowed him to then stay on Ridley’s hip throughout the 9 route to the end zone. Because of how good the coverage was, Ryan’s pass had to go out of bounds for Ridley to get his hands on it away from Dean.

Though Dean is fast, he is also not afraid to be physical. I like that about him.

We mentioned in the clip above Dean doing a subtle bump at the end of the 5-yard cushion area where some contact is allowed by the defensive backs and the wide receivers. In the play above he did it again. That’s not typical of what we’ve been used to seeing from Buccaneers corners.

Finally there’s the play above, one that highlights Dean’s recovery speed, one of his best attributes.

Dean was playing in off coverage in a Cover 1 shell as the outside receiver at the top of the screen. This meant that though Dean wasn’t close to the line of scrimmage, he was still in man coverage (where he does his best work).

As Dean began his backpedal, the receiver quickly turned on what appeared to be a comeback route, but then when the receiver didn’t get the ball, he veered towards the sideline to find open space. When Dean saw this, he was able to burst towards the receiver and cut off the route as the ball was getting there. The only problem was the ball went right through Dean’s hands.

He did the hard work get there – a lot of these young Bucs secondary player are. The rewards will come.