Bucs Beat Pats 27-10

Yeah, I'm late with this post. Thought I put this up late Sunday night, but most of done something on the PR forum. In any case, we all know the Bucs rolled the Brady less Pats over and basically dominated from the start. The first and second team offense was strong, the third and fourth string...not so much. The defense was solid all night, only giving up points late with the back end of the defensive roster playing.

Offensively, Griese looked good on the first drive, but his lack of willingness to risk anything down field caused the Pats to roll their defense up to the line and stuff the Bucs on two drives after that. Then McCown came in and was pretty effective leading the Bucs on three scoring drives out of 4 possible. He was able to stretch the field, and also hit Antonio Bryant on a nice crossing pass that was turned up field for 33 yards. Simms and Johnson were mostly ineffective. The backs were solid, though Darby looks like the first cut of the group. Bennett was strong, and Dunn showed he still has it. Graham was highly limited, but scored a TD. Tight ends weren't involved a lot. Clayton only saw a handful of plays as it looked like the coaching staff was trying to get long looks at Bryant, Stovall and Hilliard to see where these three players are right now. The line looked dominating, opening some rather large holes against the Pats' 3-4 defense. While the Pats don't do a lot of coverage mixing in the preseason, they usually aren't push overs like that, so that should tell you something.

Defensively, the Bucs got some pressure on the QB's but failed to register a sack. On several occasions they got to the QB, but the QB's both had success breaking free of the initial tackle attempts and would get past the line of scrimmage. Thus, no sacks. The linebackers and secondary were excellent, stuffing the run most of the night, making plays against receivers. Sabby picked up a fumble snap and ran it back for 6, while Mack picked off a pass. Ruud almost picked off a pass as well, but it was later shown to hit the ground. Overall, the defense dominated the Brady less offense and held the Pats to 184 yards and 10 points. Another dominating performance.

Special teams was solid with all field goals made and some solid punting. The coverage teams were good until the scrubs got in. And the return teams were solid as well. A solid performance all around.

Overall, the Bucs took it to the Pats from the opening kick and never looked back. The Patriots really never got anything going offensively, and had a tough time stopping the Bucs running game which amassed 170 yards on the ground. Another strong performance to build on. Jacksonville will be the next and really last test for the starters. The Bucs aren't likely to use many of their starters against the Texans.