Tom Brady and Buccaneers blown out of L.A. by ten points

Tom Brady will look for revenge against the Rams later in the season.

It was the third week on our journey back to the Super Bowl, and Tom Brady’s first time in LA.  But look what happened! He gets blown out of town. Like my first time in LA.  Lots of pollution- not so much from the air in this case, but from the high decibel levels. Man, was that crowd worked up. They had their new state-of-the art SoFi Stadium and their new hot-shot quarterback, Matt Stafford (kudos Matt).  If you missed it or went deaf, the whole game had a “playoff feel” to it.

A bit too presumptuous for the Rams, but it ended badly for the Buccaneers, and I can’t understand how it happened. We were tied, then we were trailing, but we still had most of the 3rd quarter left to play.  I’m not going to say anything about that 15-yard punt in the 3rd quarter. But even when we were two touchdowns behind, I have seen Brady score two touchdowns with 2 minutes and 58 seconds left in the game.  With Brady making his 26th career rushing touchdown –why did it feel like a forgone conclusion in the 3rd quarter that we were going to lose?

I’ll tell you one thing. The Bucs need a lesson in math, or they should get a giant calculator projected onto their big screen and count off those loss penalty yards in unison: Uno, dos, tres . . .

Or maybe there should be someone on the coaching staff responsible for opening a dialogue with team members. What would that look like? He or she could say, “Stop the film right here. Answer this question: What could we have done, if we were not 3rd and 20 at this place on the field? Or, when we were here, at second and goal?”

If I had a dime for every Bucs penalty, I could buy a ticket to their next game at Gillette Stadium.  But it kills me to watch the Bucs push, bleed, break, sweat and smash their way for every inch of the field, only to get penalized by yards and yards. How many inches in a yard, guys? I thought that their bad rep, “Bucs lead the NFL in penalty yards after five games,” was behind them and they had changed. Dubious distinctions are just not worthy of Super Bowl Champs.

Besides, those losses on the field can contribute significantly to the one big loss. Fans sure hate to lose. But here’s the thing and there’s no getting around it. Could our loss have been avoided if the defense was not playing man to man for most of the game?

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