The Pewter Plank » Matt Bryant

Pewter Planks Annual Roster Prediction – Special Teams

Dustin Staggers — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:35:19 +0000

This is going to be a short one, because I think this is a simple 3 man solely special teams roster.

P – Josh Bidwell

Only one P on the roster, and only one needed. Bidwell is great at inside the 20 punts, and is a key cog in our battle of field position.

LS – Andrew Economos

Once again, the only Long Snapper on the roster and the only one we need. Economos is great at his one and only job.

K – Matt Bryant, Mike Nugent

This should be one of the more interesting battles during camp. Nugent is the superior kickoff guy and Bryant is the superior accuracy guy as far as field goals are concerned.

Prediction: K1-Mike Nugent

25 Roster Spots Remain

The Bucs Road Woes Continue

Dustin Staggers — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:30:20 +0000

With the Bucs recently completed loss to the Cowboys, Tampa is now 1-3 on the road, and 4-0 at home. Our main problem on the road is our inability to score in the redzone, instead taking field goals in crucial moments. We lost to the Saints by 4 on the road, lost to the Broncos by 3, and followed that up with a 4 point defeat today to the Cowboys.

One touchdown and 5 field goals in our last two road games will not get it done in today’s NFL. This Bucs squad is solid up and down, extremely deep, and capable of making a big run through the playoffs but home field advantage is not an easy thing to obtain in the NFL, and without winning on the road, you have no chance of doing it. The Bucs need to find a way to improve on their 28th ranked red zone scoring offense, an offense which I’m sure is probably dead last in road red zone percentage.

Random thoughts from the game:

The Cowboys defense came out and had a good day against the run holding us to 48 yards on the ground, and 262 total yards.
The game was truly decided by the refs during the last drive of the first half. We got called for a horse collar on third down, an illegal contact penalty on a ball that was horribly thrown by Brad Johnson, and a ridiculous Personal Foul on Cato June on a play where Marc Colombo dropped a hammer on June after the play was over and June got into his face. A real travesty in retrospect.
I think I mention this every week, but Barrett Ruud is a machine of tackling. The guy is so solid in the middle of our base D. He combined for 5 solo and 7 assisted tackled today.
Gained Adams with two big sacks, and with each passing week is looking harder and harder to defend against.
Rookie Aqib Talib had a great defensive play late in the game, deflecting a well thrown ball from Brad Johnson to Terrell Owens that would have gone for about 50. Talib never turned around, but read Owens’ eyes perfectly and put his hands up at exactly the right time.
Antonio Bryant is firmly entrenched as Jeff Garcia’s favorite target. He had 7 catches today.
I was a little perplexed as to why with the Cowboys inability to move the ball in the first half, that we tried a 51 yard field goal with Matt Bryant. I could even see on the television that it was windy, and Josh Bidwell is just so good at pinning opponents inside the 10. The Cowboys subsequently put 3 points on the board.
Brad Johnson looked horrendous. I know they picked up the W, but it might be time to take a look at Brooks Bollinger if Tony Romo can’t go next week.
Jeff Garcia took a beating today, but had a fairly efficient day, and did a good job of getting rid of the ball right before getting sacked numerous times.
If I haven’t mentioned it already, we’re not going to do shit if we can’t score TD’s on the road.

Postgame Thoughts From Bucs vs Broncos

Dustin Staggers — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:06:29 +0000

I have never watched a game that went by as fast as this game seemingly went by. The first half seemed to go by with only a few possessions.
If you look at the team stats from the box score, this game was about as even as it gets.

First Downs – Bucs 17, Broncos 17

Total Yards – Bucs 307, Broncos 333

Time of possession – Bucs 30:47, Broncos 29:13

It is pretty obvious at this point that we are going to have a QB controversy looming on our hands, which is something that almost seemed inevitable after Jeff Garcia’s week 1 benching.

“Brian played pretty well and Jeff played pretty well,” Gruden said. “Denver used some strange tactics yesterday. They’ve been a man-to-man team throughout the first month of the season. Yesterday they rushed three 23 times. I thought under the circumstances both quarterbacks did some good things…Obviously health is going to be an issue. Jeff did some good things. His health has been an issue and his return to health is something we’re excited about. We’ll evaluate and let you know on Wednesday.”

While watching the game it seemed as though we weren’t very effective on the ground, but after looking at the box, we ran the ball 22 times for 139 yards.
The two best players in this game were the kickers, Matt Bryant and rookie Matt Prater.
Jon Gruden is catching a lot of heat the last few days for our decision to play it safe at the end of the first half and kick a field goal as opposed to taking a shot at the end zone.
Barrett Ruud who was hurt in the game and replaced by Adam Heyward is listed as questionable as of today.

“It was a freak play,” Ruud said. “I fell and looked like a non-athlete.”

Only one drop that I can recall, a large improvement over the first few weeks.
A decision on Cadillac Williams has to be made by the end of the game on Sunday. He has to come off of the PUP list, or remain there for the remainder of the season. If i had to take a guess, I think we put him on the 53 man roster even though we are already solid as hell at the RB position.
Just wanted to congratulate Martin Grammatica on his solid game last night!
Warrick Dunn passed Eddie George and Tiki Barber to move into 20th on the all time rushing list on Sunday.

“I’m still playing,” Dunn said. “I have a long season. I just hope I can play well and have a great year and that I can move up in the teens and you never know what happens. I think it’s good just to be, in a sense, recognized. I’ve played a long time and I’ve done a lot of positive things, but right now I really just want to help this team win games. The milestone is good, but there’s still a lot of football to be played.”

We ran a lot of no huddle offense on Sunday, something I hope to see more of this season.
I forgot to talk shit about Dexter Jackson before the game, and it showed, he played like shit.
Even after this dissapointing loss, we must keep things in perspective. If we win at home on Sunday vs the Panthers, we are 4 and 2 and will be the NFC South division leaders.