Buccaneers: Time to Let Vernon Hargreaves Get Aggressive

Remember this play, Bucs’ fans? This was Hargreaves’ second interception in week two of the preseason. Chad Henne attempted a long bomb to wide receiver Bryan Walters, but look who was stride for stride.

Hargreaves was man to man with Walters, and although he was off of the line, he didn’t wait for deep help. Keith Tandy was late, but that’s not the point. Vernon was aggressive on his guy, and he arguably had better position than the receiver.

Let’s fast forward to the game against the Panthers, and look at our first play.

The first play comes from early in the second quarter. The Panthers are lined up in the shotgun, with Greg Olsen wide to the left in the blue circle. They are in a stacked formation, so Hargreaves is off of the line, in the red circle.

At the snap, Olsen is going to make a quick move to the inside and find a whole at about the 25 yard line. Instead of challenging him and maybe getting aggressive, they have Hargreaves playing scared of the deep ball. He gives him a ton of room as we will see in the next picture.

You see the gap here? In this picture, Derek Anderson is releasing the football and there is at least five yards separating Hargreaves and Olsen. “VHIII” has no chance.

Hargreaves steps up to make the tackle. He clearly is a solid tackler as he doesn’t miss, but that’s not the point. He is allowing too much room. It’s OK to shade deep, but this guy can make plays on the football. Let him get physical, it will pay off.

Now we move to our second play, which took place later on in the same drive, just minutes later.