Game-Balls: Buccaneers 38 Seahawks 15

The Bucs are hanging tough and didn’t miss a beat in their beatdown of the Seattle Seahawks yesterday in Tampa. The Bucs have a chance to get to 10 wins this season and with a Saints loss tonight in Atlanta, control their own destiny. The Bucs need some help to get into the playoffs, but they are already receiving help in the form of dominating play on the field. The offense of the Bucs exploded the Sea-Chickens for 38 points and everyone shared a piece of the love. But only five players stood out as players of the week.

LaGarrette Blount – Blount has had good games this season but Sunday was arguably his best. Blount finished with 164 yards of rushing on 18 carries. He was held out of the endzone which seems to somehow hinder his performance in the eyes of analysts (only Michael Strahan gave Blount on the Fox Post game show following the game). Blount’s night may not have had a touchdown but he added to his dazzling highlight reel he is putting together this season. In one spectacular play, Blount leaped over a Seattle defender on his way to his biggest gain of the night. Given the score of the game, Blount’s leap was way cooler than a TD.

Josh Freeman – Freeman had an amazing, spectacular… I’m not sure if words exist to describe Josh Freeman’s performance on Sunday. He started out like same old Freeman, then somehow busts loose throwing for 5 scores and only 237 yards of passing. Freeman completed 21 of his 26 passes and found two guys we all thought would be lighting it up this season, Kellen Winslow and Mike Williams. If Josh Freeman can repeat his performance he had yesterday on a consistent basis, then watch out because Freeman is coming and the Bucs are coming with him.

Kellen Winslow – The running theme here is players having their best games of the season; Winslow was no exception to that. His best game so far had been in Carolina where he racked up 65 yards on 6 catches and a TD. Yesterday, however, Winslow eclipsed that with by far his best game in probably the last three years. Winslow finished with 98 yards receiving on 7 catches for 2 TD’s. One of his touchdowns, it had appeared as though Winslow had fallen to the ground but rather than stay down he popped back up and literally walked around a Seahawks defensive back into the endzone. That was his second TD of the day and the exclamation point on his day statistically.

Mike Williams – Williams’ number may not be as impressive as everyone else’s on the stat sheet, but he’s so good he doesn’t have to. Williams only had 44 yards, but he also had two scores. One of his touchdowns came deep inside the redzone but the real stat to look at is his catches. Williams only caught three passes the whole game, and he had 2 TD’s. That right there shows just how big of a weapon Mike Williams can be for this offense and for Josh Freeman.

Buccaneers D – The Bucs defense has been banged up, patched together and continuously beat up all season long. Last week they got manhandled by the Detroit Lions and pretty much lost the game by not being able to stop Drew Stanton. This week they were having none of that. The Bucs D held Seattle to just 7 points through 3-plus quarters. The streak snapped when Leon Washington scored a fourth quarter TD and the Seahawks then scored a two-point conversion, but for allowing only 15 points in a game, thats major kudos to the D. Especially when something called Frank Okam comes off the practice squad and gets more tackles than Barrett Ruud.