The Pewter Plank Player of the Week this week was honestly a tough choice! Our offense struggled mightily against the Saints defense, and the defense had multiple players really stand out. A case could be made for Devin White to repeat on last weeks PotW honors, Mike Edwards made a strong case with an extremely timely pick 6 for the Buccaneers….
But the winner this week is…… Jamel Dean!
A lot can be said for Dean getting an interception off of Jameis Winston on two-straight possessions. Those turnovers led to 10 Bucs points, setting the offense up for their only touchdown of the game on the first, and then for a field goal on the second. This was a HUGE momentum shift as our offense had been sputtering before that, and it also took clear points off the scoreboard for the Saints.
In a game where points were at a premium, Jamel Dean took points off the board for the Saints and put our offense in field position to capitalize with ten points, which just so happens to be the amount that Tampa Bay won the game by.
Asode from just those two key turnovers, Dean was solid in coverage all night, doing a really good job of locking up the Saints promising young receiver, Chris Olave.
Olave was the most-targeted receiver (13 targets) by Jameis Winston on Sunday, in part because major attention was paid to slowing down the proven veterans Michael Thomas and Jarvis Landry, but his production really didn’t match his volume.
While he did muster 80 total receiving yards, not all of his catches were with Dean as his coverage. By comparison, Mike Evans went for 61 yards on NINE less targets. That’s really strong work by Dean considering the amount of balls that were thrown in his direction.
At the end of the day I would say that he definitely did a good job of locking Olave up, keeping everything underneath, keeping the ball out of the end zone, and pouncing on any opportunity he had at creating a turnover, and that ended up being the difference in this game, that allowed us to finally break the voodoo that New Orleans has had over us in the regular season these past few years.
Great game Jamel!
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