I honestly don’t want to discuss the dismantling the Buccaneers Sunday, but we have to.
The Bucs got manhandled in every phase of the game. What’s more, the guy under center in purple was CASE KEENUM. All is not lost however, the Bucs will rebound. The injuries sustained against Minesotta were huge losses but thankfully, the players will be back as far as we know.
The Offense
Other than the first drive, there wasn’t much to highlight. Like many have pointed out on twitter, the run game struggled to make anything happen (Get well soon Doug). One small positive was the deep pass to Desean for his first touchdown catch. Desean went up and snagged it out of the air. Anthony Becht pointed out in film session (If you haven’t ever seen it i highly reccommend it) that Desean does a great job of leaving space on the right to be able to go up a snag it. Other than that, the Bucs really struggled to make things happen and by the end of the game Jamies was forcing throws because of the deficit.
The Good: 9
Jameis spread the ball around Sunday with 5 different recievers getting a catch. One of the big reasons for Desean was to draw attention away from Mike and on Sunday, the Bucs made good use of their other recieving options. Mike and Desean give you the same thing every week, but guys like Hump, Godwin and Brate got more involved this week. Good to see Jameis spread it around. The more he uses the options at his disposal, the more his main targets will open up. They can’t cover them all.
The Bad: 1-6
The rushing total would be easy, but i wanted to go with something that is always a focal point in the NFL, third down conversion. The Bucs need to be better on third down. This will probably be a recurring stat in the negative, teams that don’t convert third down opportunities don’t win the close games. The Bucs were 6th in the league last year so it will be a focal point moving forward. From 2015 to 2016 the Bucs improved, will there be the more improvement this year?
The Defense
Anytime Case Keenum has a 76% completion rate, throws for 369 yards and three touchdowns, you didn’t have a good day. In their defense the Bucs defenders were dropping like flies. Gerald, Lavonte, Noah and Vernon went down at one point. The Bucs had one defender play the entire game, yea, you guessed it the guy coming back from an ACL tear, Kendall Beckwith. With so many injuries during the game and already missing two guys to start the game (Kwon and Brent) the Bucs were at a disadvantage all day.
The Good: There was none, let’s not sugarcoat it.
The Bad: 494
The Vikings totaled nearly 500 yards of offense without their starting quarterback under center. A team that prides itself on defense has no business putting up that many yards against our defense. We discussed the injuries, which definitely were a factor, but almost 500 yards is crazy talk.
What stats jumped out to you? Look me up on twitter @Bucsfan02 on twitter and let me know!