Game Review - Week 6

It's a little late, due to my wife's computer requiring a hard drive rebuild, but here's a short (OK, it's not really short) version of a game review on the Bengals game.

Offense: B

The offense moved the ball well, though not spectacularly, racking up 300+ yards of offense again. The Bucs ran for over 120 yards with Caddy coming up a few yards shy of 100 after his last run went for -6 yards. The Bucs got into scoring position 4 times, getting 2 TD's from their two red zone trips (they've been phenomenal on getting it in the end zone once getting it in past the 20), missing a 40+ yard FG, and having a pick near the red zone. Gradkowski played well, especially his ability to turn third down into first down via his legs. But Bruce wasn't as accurate as in the Saints game, and had a problem sailing deep passes. Apparently he had a bit of an "excitement" problem when he saw guys open deep in front of the home fans. Hopefully, he'll get over that. Smith was solid again, catching another TD, and Clayton was looking more and more like his rookie self, scoring the winning TD on a play that the refs initially blew, but overturned on replay to give the Bucs the lead. Galloway was Galloway. The offensive line, though not getting a strong push on all of its run plays, played extremely well, giving up just two sacks on 44 pass attempts. Bruce had time to throw most of the game. Definitely look forward to seeing Joseph and Trueblood continue to get better and become very dominant.

Defense: A-

They gave up a little over 300 yards, but they held the Bengals to just 53 on the ground, and the Bengals got 111 of their 252 net passing yards on just 3 plays. The rest of the time the Bengals struggled to get any drives going, and held the ball just 24 minutes. The Bucs only allowed one TD, and that came off an extremely close 51 yard TD catch by Houseamenwhattheheck. He was very tightly covered by Barber, who made the catch an almost non-catch (still think he was out, but the refs said otherwise), and was a catch that required a perfect pass. So you can't totally blame the defense. The tackling was much better, though Bolden needs to practice up hard this week. The defense also managed to hold the lead, something they failed to do against the Panthers. Stronger secondary play would help reduce that passing yardage and make it even more difficult for teams.

Special Teams: C+

Special Teams were solid, but not spectacular. The Bucs generally got decent, though not great, field position most of the game. Bidwell boomed a couple of punts, though some were too long and went into the endzone. Bryant, however, missed another field goal attempt, though the snap was a little high, as it was Moore's first game back from the rib injury. Overall, they played well enough, but weren't a deciding factor in the outcome.

Coaching: B-

The team was much better prepared and played very well across the board and that reflects on the coaching staff. The offense did just enough and the defense was dominate again. My two biggest beefs are: 1) not enough runs, and 2) not enough blitzes. The Bucs should have run the ball more, especially later in the game, as it would have likely worn the Bengals down more and might have made the game a little less worrisome down the stretch. The Defense got to Palmer when they blitzed, and did so rather easily, but they failed to blitz very often except late in the game when they needed to keep Palmer from having the time to burn the Bucs deep. Other than that, a solidly coached game, and "Win" to boot.