Richard Sherman calls out Bucs defense, but defends Carlton Davis III

For the first time this season, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans are trying to reconcile the defense being the reason the team lost a game. By no means has that side of the ball been perfect, but it's largely been why Tampa Bay has been in games as much as it has, with the offense failing to pull its weight and secure a win.

This time around the offense scored a season-high 37-points but the defense allowed 39, including a game-winning touchdown in under 40 seconds at the end of the game. It was a disastrous performance, they type that defensive coordinators have been fired after having.

Too bad the Bucs defensive coordinator is also the head coach.

In the wake of the gnarly loss, everyone is trying to sift through the rubble and figure out how the Bucs imploded so spectactularly on Sunday. Most fingers remain pointed at cornerback Carlton Davis III, who had by far his worst game in a Bucs uniform.

Davis allowed three touchdowns, including the game-winner, and seemed to be on the wrong side of every big play. There was a 31-yard catch he allowed to Noah Brown in the third quarter that he was flagged for holding on -- meaning he held his man and still got cooked.

Bucs fans have been letting him hear it, but not everyone is blaming Davis for how the game ended on Sunday.

Richard Sherman calls out Dee Delaney for allowing game-winning TD against Texans

Richard Sherman lit into the Bucs defense on Undisputed, but none of his frustration was pointed at Davis. He pointed to Dee Delaney and explained that it was his busted coverage that threw everything out of whack and exposed Davis for C.J. Stroud to exploit.

"Double post in the red zone, since Jesus was a baby, is what people are going to run. And if you’re running it with a quarter safety, you pass off the first [post], you get back to the second post and the play is dead. That’s what Carlton Davis was expecting on that play. He’s expecting inside help from my guy Dee Delaney," Sherman explained. "He didn’t have it, that’s why Dee Delaney is jumping up and down. But you got to give C.J. Stroud all the credit in the world.”

To be fair, Stroud was exploiting Davis all afternoon so the game-winning touchdown was just more of the same.

It's interesting perspective, though, to hear someone other than Davis blamed for what happened. Ryan Neal also escaped the wrath of Sherman despite having another terrible game, although he wasn't on the field for the game-winning touchdown.

Davis was left on an island in more than one way on Sunday. Early in the first quarter the Bucs lost Jamel Dean to a concussion, which meant even more pressure was on Davis to carry the secondary. He failed in doing that, which it not what you want to see out of a team's top cornerback, but as we get further away from the embarassment of the loss it's becoming more clear how much of a collective failure Sunday was.

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