Game Review - Week 8

I apologize for the late response to the game results. The house is keeping me busy. But let's move on to the disappointment that was another easily winnable game that the Bucs coughed up. This is the second straight week that the Bucs statistically dominated the opponent, but lost the game. The mistakes, once again, did them in.

On Offense, the Bucs moved the ball pretty well against a solid Jags' defense, and did so under a heavy blitz scheme. Despite this fact, the Bucs had receivers running wide open most of the game, and Garcia hit most, but missed on a few key ones. Twice Garcia missed Galloway wide open deep. He also missed Ike wide open deep for what would have been a game winning TD. Garcia was just a little off at times throughout the game, and was under pressure for good portions of it, as Jax kept bringing the blitz. Despite that, the Bucs put up 385 yards of offense, and easily could have put up 450+ yards. The signs of a quickly improving offense are there, but the opponents have been getting better at the same time as their offense, and the result is a little hard to see at the moment. Their opponents, during the 2nd quarter of the season, are 22-6 this season (yes, you read that right). Despite that, the Bucs could very easily be 6-2 right now. The running game was pretty solid, with Graham putting up 62 yards on 14 carries (4.4 per) and Bennett getting 23 yards on 2 carries, including a great bubble screen (ruled a running play) that went 19 yards for a TD. The receivers were constantly beating the Jags aggressive corner play, but some dropped passes, and missed passes by Garcia, led to the team not making quite enough plays on offense to win it. The offensive line is getting a lot of grief, but they actually played OK against a very good DL that had a lot of blitz help. Still, there were breakdowns, and Garcia went down a couple of times. What really killed the Bucs were 3 picks that Garcia threw. One was a great play by a corner, returning it for a TD, another was a poor play by Garcia making a stupid throw to avoid a sack, and the third was a bobbled ball by Ike, getting hit at the right time, that popped up and ended the game. Overall, the offense played well, but needed just one more big play, or one less turnover to win the game.

On Defense, the Bucs initially started the game having problems stopping the running game. They then manned up and forced the Jags to run 44 times to get just 133 yards, with 33 of those yards coming on two plays, (remaining average of runs is 2.4 yard per carry). They also kept Gray from consistently hurting them, but he did manage to connect on some lucky throws twice on the drive that scored the winning points. The defensive line had problems getting to the QB on the plays where he did throw, but they did manage 2 sacks on just 16 pass attempts. One of those could have been a safety or TD when Gray fumbled in the Jags own endzone. The linebackers played well, but Brooks missed a tackle on Greg Jones that could have forced a quicker punt and given the Bucs the ball back with closer to 4 minutes of time left. There were a few running plays where the LB's didn't fill the hole well and didn't get solid tackles, but the effort was pretty solid for much of the night. The DB's played well, but they did allow a couple of plays that should not have happened. I just wish Buchannon would have taken a swipe at Matt Jones' arm when he was hauling in the game winning TD. Would have been a different ending if the Jags had to settle for 3. Overall, the defense held the Jags to just 219 yards and 17 points. Not too bad of a performance in that context.

On Special Teams, the Bucs really struggled at times to cover or to get good returns. The result was that the Jags won the field position battle, which I mentioned would be a big key in this game. Every Jags' score, save the defensive TD, was off a short field. When the Jags had to go the distance, a punt was the likely result. The return game is already missing Mark Jones, and the Bucs may need to find someone else who can fill those shoes. Matt Bryant was solid on kicks, and Bidwell was solid on punts, including a couple of real nice punts that backed the Jags up. The Bucs got killed on a 76 yard punting bomb from the Jags which made it hard on their next to last drive. Overall, the results were mixed. This unit needs to get back to playing as they were during the first part of the season.

Coaching was pretty solid, especially from an offensive standpoint. Gruden's game plan was very good, and had the Jaguars blitzing constantly to try to stop the Bucs. The offense had numerous opportunities to put points up and move the ball around, and managed to capitalized on many of those, but failed on a few. The missed execution by the players was clear in this game, as this game was there for the taking. Defensively, Monte started out with a somewhat soft coverage, and it cost the Bucs an early deficit on the scoreboard. He then made an adjustment, and the Jags had problems moving the ball for the majority of the game after that. Special Teams has been a let down the last two weeks, and coaching needs to improve that. The unit seemed slow and lackadaisical early on in the game, getting down field long after the returner had passed the 20. This unit needed more fire and enthusiasm to perform the way it should have. Overall, the offensive and defensive game plans were pretty solid, and the special teams needed work, but the Bucs had a number of shots to win this game, but the players failed to execute. Hopefully, the staff will help the team get their issues corrected so they can finish the season strong.