The Defense

I thought I would go ahead and chime in a little on this defense and what I thought of what's going on. To some degree I've already done that in some game reviews, but let's look a little more at it.

First let's look at the defensive line. Let's be honest...this DL is not nearly as strong as the one that one the Super Bowl. But it is, minus McFarland, the same one that helped the Bucs be the number one defense last year. Of course, there is still a problem with that; the pass rush. Even last year the pass rush was well off the norm. At one point, a few years ago, this defense had gone several seasons in which they had one or more sacks in every game. That's no longer the case. This defense current has 10 sacks. Far below the expectations of this defense. The pass rush has been absent for a while, and that's hurting the secondary. They also need to play better contain on the QB and RB. With Wyms starting, we're starting to see a little more production from this group, but Rice has still been quiet as well as Spires. Dewayne White has also produced in limited action, and I think it's time to give him the starting LDE spot and make Spires earn his playing time again. One thing is for certain, Sapp continues to outplay McFarland, and not having kept Sapp instead of McFarland has really put the defensive line in a bind. The Bucs need a dominant UT to get this line back up to standards. As I mentioned, this unit needs some top talent to replace the average players and the Bucs will be able to do just that through the draft and Free Agency (where they are well over $20 million under the cap for 2007). Expect a lot of movement on defense this off-season and the DL will probably be priority one, because it all starts up front.

Next comes the linebackers. Quarles continues to be productive, but he doesn't seem to be has stout in is tackling and play in the middle. Ruud, when he's been in there, has looked pretty good, but occasionally has been indecisive, causing him to be out of position. He'll be a very good MLB once he fully gets the defense down, but is a solid player and is young. Nece, when he's been in there, has been average, missing tackles at times, including on several occasions when he read the play and got up into the perfect spot, but then missed the tackle. That's happened way too often, and it's clear the Bucs need to draft a linebacker that is more in the 230lb range or slightly more, and one with good skills and tackling technique. I'm all for rolling Quarles over to the SLB spot and putting Ruud in the middle until a better SLB can be drafted or brought in. Then there's Brooks. He's still the second leading tackler, and still can make plays, but he's not making the big play hardly ever anymore, and he's missed more tackles the last couple of years then I've seen in the rest of his career. It's unfortunate, but Brooks' age, like Quarles, is starting to effect his play some. That was evident in his whiff on Westbrook, whom he had a clear and solid shot on, and even got the arms around him. Yet, he busted out of the tackle and ran for what should have been the winning TD for Philly. Despite this, the linebacking corps, with more practice in tackling, is still more than capable of outperforming most units in the league, which has me hopeful for the rest of the season. That said, it's time to spend a high pick on Brooks' eventual replacement.

Now we get to the secondary. With Brian Kelly out, the only other strong tackler in the secondary is Barber, who is the leading tackler with 4 more tackles than Brooks. Bolden has been starting in Kelly's place and has been pretty solid on some really tough assignments, such as Chad Johnson, but he's still prone to giving up too much yardage underneath the coverage, and has a nasty habit of missing a tackle. That turns 3-5 yard passes into 10+ yards. Cox has been pretty solid at nickel, but you would rather have Bolden there and Kelly playing. But the group that has killed the secondary, and the defense, the most is the safeties. Especially Phillips, who has been a horrible tackler and has frequently been out of position. There is simply no doubt that he needs to be replaced. Phillips has simply failed to live up to the expectations the Bucs had when they decided to part ways with Lynch in favor of Phillips. At the time Phillips seemed to be coming on strong, and Lynch just wasn't playing up to his normal ability (mostly due to his nagging injuries). It now seems like a no-brainer that the Bucs blew it when they made that decision. The other safety spot is manned by Will Allen who's done an average job, but isn't as stout against the run, so is often left back in coverage. His tackling is OK, but not where it needs to be. The Bucs could probably live with Allen's play, especially if he grows and gets better. Phillips needs to be replaced, however. I have a feeling that the Bucs will also concentrate on this position in the off-season.

So what about this season? Well, this is still the same unit, as I mentioned before, that was number 1 last year. If they can get everyone to better tackle, this defense can still be one of the better ones. We've seen flashes of it. We saw them hold the number one offense to nothing on their first 8 drives. We've seen them hold the strong offense of the Bengals down. This unit can be good enough. If they can get the tackling under control, and play like a top 15 defense, then this team might be able to come back and have a shot at the playoffs, but the hole is pretty deep, and we shouldn't get our hope to high. Let's just hope that the embarrassment of last week's defensive collapse is enough to light a fire under their rears. If it did, who knows how far this team can go.