FAB 4. Bucs – Redskins Game Notes

If time permits in my schedule, I plan on adding some notes about the previous week’s Bucs game from my film study during the week into each week’s SR’s Fab 5 column. I’m not going to spend a lot of time rehashing the obvious. Instead, I’ll try to dig deeper and offer some insight you may have missed when watching the game and tie it into the up-coming match-up.

Here are my thoughts from re-watching the Bucs vs. Redskins game. This week there are just a few points I want to dive into, but I’m going in deep on those topics.

Bucs DT Vita Vea – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

• First, it was nice seeing Bucs defensive tackle Vita Vea get his first sack on Sunday. That was by far Vea’s best game rushing the passer all year. You can tell that he’s seeing the field better and getting a better feel for playing the pass. Tampa Bay will need Vea and defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who also picked up a sack on Sunday against Washington, to have a big game against Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who isn’t mobile and needs a clean pocket to throw from.

• Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter made a serious strategic error when he decided to take over the play-calling duties against Washington. Let’s first look at what Koetter told the media on Monday.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think Todd Monken has done a terrific job calling the plays that why he’s continued to do it,” Koetter said. “But in this game, I just felt like the type of game it was going to be based on Washington’s offense, I thought that we needed to try to control the clock a little bit more and try to give our defense a little bit of time — maybe less time on the field that maybe we need to try to run it a little more and use our [run play options] a little bit more. That was the main reason behind it.”

The Bucs amassed 501 yards of total offense, which is quite good, but failed in the red zone due to poor execution and two missed field goals. The failed execution part isn’t on Koetter as he didn’t throw an interception or miss a block. But Koetter’s premise – to run the ball more to help out the defense against a ball-control team like Washington that has a good running game led by Adrian Peterson – was flawed. Running the ball does keep your defense well rested and on the bench. That’s true.

But do you know what else takes the ball out of Peterson’s hands? Playing with a lead, which the Bucs never did on Sunday as they trailed from the first quarter on. Who knows if Monken would have called better plays against the Redskins, but he likely would have called for more deep shots and less runs. Koetter likes to have more balance and has chided the Bucs – and thus Monken indirectly – for not running the ball enough.

What if the Bucs put up a couple of touchdowns on the board due to some deep shots to DeSean Jackson or Mike Evans with Monken calling the plays? A 14-point or 17-point lead in the second half would deter the Redskins from running the ball and that takes away a big weapon in Peterson, right? Sunday’s loss to Washington was the first game in which Tampa Bay didn’t have a pass play over 30 yards.

Bucs S Andrew Adams – Photo by: Mary Holt/PR

• Tampa Bay played the most dime defense against Washington I have seen it play in recent memory. Part of that was due to top linebacker Lavonte David missing some series while dealing with a sprained MCL. Instead of going with a nickel defense and having linebacker Devante Bond play alongside Adarius Taylor, defensive coordinator Mark Duffner had safety Andrew Adams line up at the linebacker level with fellow safeties Justin Evans and Jordan Whitehead behind him to get more speed and athleticism on the field. Adams had four tackles and the Bucs’ only pass breakup of the game against the Redskins.

Because the Bucs will likely be without David this week when they travel to New York to face Giants running back Saquon Barkley, look for Duffner to deploy more nickel and use one of the safeties to cover Barkley out of the backfield as he is a dangerous receiver. Bond is a backup who is more of a special teams player than he is a starting-caliber linebacker on defense.

• Caleb Benenoch is not a good, starting-caliber guard. In fact, he’s awful. Benenoch is actually worse than left guard Kevin Pamphile was last year. According to Stats Inc., Benenoch has given up a team-high 5.5 sacks and has been flagged for two false starts and two holding penalties through nine games. Last year, Pamphile gave up 2.5 sacks and had one holding call and one false start in 16 games, just as he had in 14 games in 2016.

Instead of pulling my own clips this week, I wanted to give a shoutout to Bucs fan and PewterReport follower Steven Cheah, who does a really good job of making his own clips and putting them on his Twitter feed.

Folks, this guy has been starting at RG all year #Bucsfilm2018wk10 pic.twitter.com/8S76kcuyLx

— Steven Cheah (@CHEAH_SAY) November 13, 2018

No NFL player is perfect. Everybody has a couple of bad plays now and then, but this kind of stuff happens to Benenoch multiple times in every game. Benenoch is not a guard, folks. He’s a right tackle and George Warhop is messing him up by putting him inside where the action happens in an instant and there isn’t much space to work Benenoch is top heavy and isn’t built like a guard.

I repeat, this guy has been starting at RG ALL SEASON! How is any QB supposed to succeed w/ a guy continually in his lap before he finishes his drop?! #Bucsfilm2018wk10 pic.twitter.com/uCtJjfrOhL

— Steven Cheah (@CHEAH_SAY) <ahref=”https://twitter.com/CHEAH_SAY/status/1062202234421817349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 13, 2018

I’m also concerned that rookie Alex Cappa is really a right tackle at the NFL and not a guard just due to his skill set, but I think Cappa has a better build to play guard in the NFL than Benenoch does. Cappa has some of the same issues that Benenoch does in terms of get-off and dealing with really quick defensive tackles. That’s why he is usually inactive.

• Kicker Chandler Catanzaro should have been cut weeks ago after he missed an extra point and a 40-yard field goal against Cleveland before drilling a 59-yarder to win the game in overtime. After the game I predicted the Bucs would audition kickers, which they did. The team held on to Catanzaro due to his miracle long-distance kick, but we could all see this coming, right?

This was so reminiscent of Nick Folk’s struggles early last year, missing kicks and then getting a reprieve for a week after making the game-winner at the end against the New York Giants, only to miss three field goals the next week in a losing effort against New England, which ultimately led to his release.

Instead of being released in favor of Cairo Santos, which we predicted and should have happened after he missed an extra point at Cincinnati, the Bucs held on to Catanzaro long enough for him to have yet more costly misses – this time against Washington, in which he was 1-of-3.

Bucs K Chandler Catanzaro – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Because there is little accountability in the Tampa Bay locker room, and kicking is the purest pass-fail position on the team, the Bucs’ brass missed an opportunity to cut Catanzaro after the Browns game like they should have. That would have sent shockwaves – in a positive way – through the organization.

“Congratulations – you just made the game-winning kick, but you put us in overtime by missing other kicks earlier in the game. Not good enough. Get out. You’re done.”

Perhaps a short leash on the kicker position would make some of the complacent Buccaneers nervous about their jobs.

Being a kicker is a mentally tough position. I would want a kicker that was mentally tough to understand that his job is on the line every game with every kick and he better make them. No kicker is going to perfect, but do you know which kickers get reprieves in this business? Guys that have proven themselves like Green Bay’s Mason Crosby and Baltimore’s Justin Tucker.

Crosby missed four field goals and an extra point in an eight-point loss to Detroit, but came back the next week to kick the game-winner against San Francisco. Crosby has been kicking for Green Bay for 12 years now and that game was an anomaly. He went on to make nine straight field goals after that game before having a miss on Thursday night at Seattle.

Tucker is regarded as one of the league’s best kickers, but missed his first ever extra point that would have tied the game against New Orleans on October 21. Tucker has been an ace for the Ravens for the past seven years, making 90 percent of his field goals.

If I were general manager Jason Licht I would continue to have kicker tryouts every week and leak the names to the media to make sure Santos knows that missing extra points and field goals with any regularity is unacceptable. That should have happened with Catanzaro.