Passing On The Game

Dirty Or Not?

2011-12-13T23:29:00.065-05:00

Who was your favorite NFL defensive player growing up? I had a few. Here are some highlights of guys who were featured on NFL Network in the Top 10 all time of hitters in the NFL.

1:17

1:20

:24

For some of you younger whipper snappers you might have watched this guy growing up.

:19 and :22

Oh and I have to shout out my old teammate safety John Lynch.

Didn't you enjoy those highlights? Isn't that what we have been sold for decades what defensive football is supposed to be about?

Well you may be wondering what those numbers are for under each video. Those numbers signify points in each video where the player made a helmet to helmet hit on a "defenseless" player that they likely would have earned a stiff fine for today (no numbers under Lynch's video because...pretty much the whole highlight is him hitting "defenseless" players helmet to helmet). Do you consider any of these guys, several of them Hall of Famers, "dirty"?

And that brings me to the point of this blog. What signifies a "dirty" NFL player these days? Is it the guy who stomps people, or tries to wrench helmets off, or dives at guys knees, or hits guys late, or punches opposing players? Or is it a guy who's only infractions have come between the whistles when he was going full speed and after the fact someone judged his tackles to be "illegal"?

I'm speaking of course of James Harrison.

I don't particularly care if you are a Harrison fan or a Steelers fan or an NFL fan or even a guy that hates all of the above. This is about how a guy can get labeled as "dirty" because he plays the game the way we were all brought up to play it for literally decades. And this is a guy who didn't get an easy ride into the NFL anyway. He went undrafted and had to work his ass off just to make the team. Then he had to work his ass off to graduate from playing special teams to playing regular downs. And THEN he had to work his ass off to reach a perennial Pro Bowl level.

And he has done all this without what has been traditionally deemed as "dirty" play. He doesn't hit guys well after the whistle. He isn't fighting guys on the field. He isn't kicking people or spitting on people or diving at guys' knees.

What he is doing is busting his ass every single play to try to help his team win games. And for this he gets labeled dirty?

I don't get it.

Bigger than that, I don't understand how we got here.

Go down the list of Hall of Fame linebackers and find me one that didn't hit guys helmet to helmet (after the advent of helmets). Repeatedly. And to roaring applause.

I dare you.

You can't do it. For as long as I can remember Linebackers trying to knock the hell out of offensive players were what the game was founded on and helmet to helmet hits were right in the middle of that. Now you can say that because of concerns about concussions that the foundations of what made football, football has to change and that's fine. But the simple physics involved in making a tackle, especially in the open field, suggest that you will never be able to take helmet to helmet hits out of the game completely.

And I know some people will insist that James Harrison MUST be trying to hit guys helmet to helmet. Why? Because he has been fined several times?

Ok, lets do a little math.

According to this article this was the fifth illegal hit by Harrison on a quarterback in the last 3 years.

In that same time Harrison has collected:

28.5 sacks.

231 combined tackles.

13 forced fumbles.

Now if you ask me if he is "trying" to hurt somebody and can only muster up 5 "illegal" hits on a quarterback out of all those plays he made, he really sucks at being a dirty player.

But the reason why Harrison's hits are magnified is, well, because he hits like a Mack Truck. He basically gets penalized for being better at his job than most people. But that's football.

Let me say it again, THAT'S FOOTBALL!

Look at the play which prompted this suspension.

Now before I break this video down I just want to point out the fact that Colt McCoy had already run 6 times that game for 15 yards.On the year he has rushed for over 200 yards and averages 3.5 yards a carry. So its safe to say he is a mobile quarterback and the threat of him running to try to get a first down was real.

Also its important to note that once a quarterback breaks out of the pocket the rules change as far as how you can tackle him.

Here is the relevant part of the rule book

PASSER OUT OF THE POCKET

(8) When the passer goes outside the pocket area and either continues moving with the ball (without attempting to advance the ball as a runner) or throws while on the run, he loses the protection of the one-step rule provided for in (1) above, and the protection against a low hit provided for in (5) above, but he remains covered by all the other special protections afforded to a passer in the pocket (numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7), as well as the regular unnecessary-roughness rules applicable to all player positions. If the passer stops behind the line and clearly establishes a passing posture, he will then be covered by all of the special protections for passers.

Now I won't insult your intelligence by trying to make the case that Harrison's helmet didn't meet McCoy's facemask. It clearly did.

However look very closely at the play. They are running at each other full speed and at the last possible second McCoy decides to throw the ball. At that split second Harrison decides to lower his head. Now I won't pretend to know exactly was going through Harrison's mind but I will say most of the people casting aspersions because he lowered his head are full of shit.

Look at the replay again. Now ask yourself where, exactly, would Harrison have hit McCoy if he didn't lower his head?

I'll tell you where, he would have gone full face mask to face mask with McCoy and the damage would have been a lot worse. That he lowered his head, if anything, shows he was at least attempting to lower his aiming point. And in point of fact the top of his helmet only caught the bottom of McCoy's facemask.

The problem comes in with the force of the blow. But look one more time at the video for me. Harrison doesn't completely follow through on the hit and land on top of McCoy. Instead after contact is made you see him ease up and fall backwards as McCoy falls backward in the opposite direction. This isn't man on the grassy knoll conspiracy theory stuff, it's right there on the video.

But the force of the blow was great enough to give McCoy a concussion and leave him laid out on the field for a few minutes. That was very unfortunate and I never like to see a player get concussed like that. However would their be this furor to suspend Harrison over the hit had he sprang up afterwards and gone back to the huddle unscathed?

Somehow I doubt it.

It's also important to note that the Steelers were holding on to a 7-3 lead with just under 6 minutes left in the game and the Browns already at their 39 when this play occurred. Think Harrison might have had a sense of urgency to try to make a play to help his team win the game? I do.

At the end of the day the NFL has the right to change their rules and the right to punish players who they feel break those rules as they see fit. However that doesn't mean that the guy they're punishing is a "dirty" player or playing the game wrong. The truth is at some point you change enough rules and you are simply going against the laws of physics and watering down what football has meant for years and years though. That is the NFL's right but everyone doesn't have to act like they suddenly have amnesia about how the game of football has always been played.

And while I'm primarily talking about James Harrison here it applies to many other players who have been, in my view, unfairly fined essentially because they hit their opponent too hard.

***

Now I am sure there are those that instead of actually thinking through everything I have written will dismiss it and deem me as someone who just doesn't take concussions seriously. You couldn't be more wrong.

Let me let you in on a few things about me. I have always been considered to be someone of above average intellect. I had good grades through out high school, good ACT score, graduated from college and blew he Wonderlic out of the water. However nine years removed from having played seven years in the NFL there are days when my recall is just terrible. I have moments where I can't remember names or important numbers to save my life. And my memory is something that used to be a source of pride to me. I know that football has taken some things from me and I only pray it doesn't get much worse.

But where I differ from a lot of people is that having played the game I understand that so much about football in general, and defensive football in particular, is the physical contact. The physical intimidation that makes quarterback's throw that ball a second early when they feel the rush coming. Or makes a wide receiver think twice about making that catch going across the middle. And so no matter how many rules the NFL comes up with, these kinds of hits will always happen. And at the end of the day ex players will continue to suffer from brain trauma due to the time they spent playing football.

What would really help in my opinion, probably more than just on the field rules changes, is an overhaul of the process by which retired players have to go through to get disability benefits due to brain trauma suffered during their playing days.

Someone invoked the name of Dave Duerson earlier today on Twitter when talking down on James Harrison and I was so livid I had to log out for awhile. See so many people will bring up a guy like Duerson when trying to make a point about concussions on the field but I've seen few who will show the same focus about Duerson's time on the disability board where retired players were denied time and time again, by design, when they tried to get help while suffering from brain trauma due to football injuries. Everyone wants to bring up CTE but nobody wants to point out that the NFL has been fighting against that diagnosis and those like it for years and years in an effort to save money.

How many people actually remember this part of the NYTimes article on Duerson's death?

Duerson’s case is unique beyond the circumstances of his suicide. Since 2006, he had served on the six-member panel that considered claims for disability benefits filed by former N.F.L. players. Although individual votes are kept confidential, that board has been sparing in awarding benefits, including those for neurological damage.

Duerson himself told a Senate subcommittee in 2007 that he questioned whether players’ cognitive and emotional struggles were related to football.

However, Duerson’s legacy will almost certainly be how he apparently came to believe he had C.T.E., acted upon it and requested that his brain tissue be examined for confirmation and contribution to science

So if you want to impress me with your righteous indignation about concussions in football please take the time to speak out about the way the NFL has stacked the deck against former players to keep them from getting the disability benefits they both need and deserve. Trying to keep NFL players safe during their playing days is a noble and just cause. But taking care of those same players after they are done with the game should be as, if not more, important.

Otherwise who is really dirty in all of this?

***

P.S.

You may be wondering what my alternative would be. Well, I'm glad you asked. First I think most helmet to helmet hits should have a standard fine based on a percentage of that week's pay. That percentage shouldn't change but it should be high enough to be punitive while low enough to be excessively so. The only time
fines should increase progressively is when there is clear intent to injure an opponent. That would include hits clearly after the whistle, dives at players knees, forearms to the head (which I personally feel are much more egregious and a lot easier to avoid in that split second before contact than helmet to helmet hits), launching on defenseless opponents and low hits initiated from behind the opponent.

My reasoning is simple, helmet to helmet is going to happen in football and its ok to punish for the act. But there is no way to "deter" something that is a matter of physics no matter how high the fines go or how many games guys get for suspensions. Also in that same vein because a guy does it repeatedly does not necessarily mean he is trying to injure his opponents. Some people will have you believe that any time a defender lowers his head he is intentionally trying to injury his opponent without every acknowledging that many times lowering your head is an attempt to lower your aiming point to avoid helmet to helmet contact.

However when there is clear intent, meaning there is no way anyone can argue that the guy wasn't trying to injure his opponent, that is behavior that can be deterred and should be.

My Pass Rush Plan For The D Line

2011-11-17T10:16:00.002-05:00

I was on 1040 AM earlier this week and I was asked if the Bucs have a shot against the Packers. I said that they do have a shot but only if the Bucs defensive line dominates the game and gets Aaron Rodgers off his game. Now I know people are highly skeptical that this could happen and honestly while I think we have enough talent to do it I'm not sure we will get it done on Sunday either. However I did say the same thing two years ago before the game down here when the Packers were coming to town. And I think most people would agree we have more talent up front now than we did then. Sure enough that Bucs defensive line went out and had their best game of the season and helped lead the team to victory. But just like two years ago I understand the skepticism so I decided to post some thoughts about what our game plan up front should be in order to dominate their offensive line again in my opinion.

First let me talk about their Offensive line. The weakest link in my opinion is the left tackle. The reason being is his set is so predictable. He is basically going to kick step twice, then turn his shoulders and try to ride the defensive end past the quarterback. That makes it hard for a speed rush to work most of the time but it also opens him up to all kinds of well timed inside moves. My preference would be our right end take three speed rush steps up field low and hard then spin back inside but we don't really have a lot of defensive ends that like to spin. That is ok though because Adrian Clayborn has a really good inside rip move and a good bull rush to inside rip move as well. His biggest priority has to be to get off the ball low and hard first though. The reason is if he doesn't sell that he is going to try to run around the left tackle then he never will turn his shoulders and really jump on the speed rush. That means he will be in a better position to block the inside rush which will make it harder for Clayborn to win.

The right tackle is a back peddle guy and I'll be honest I always hated those kinds of pass blockers. He doesn't get much width on his kick step and he rarely jumps on the right end. What he wants is just to stay directly between the right end and the quarterback almost forcing you to run into him rather than around him to get pressure. The problem for the defensive end is that although the tackle is back peddling, he is also staying low and preparing to be bull rushed. So he tried s to give you only one pass rush to use in a bull rush and he is setting to block that same bull rush. That and the fact that Rodgers doesn't take many really deep drops makes for quite the conundrum for the left end.

I think the way you attack that guy is line up tighter (closer) to his outside foot, get a great get off, and try to beat him to a spot five yards behind his outside foot on every play. I believe that Michael Bennett has the explosion off the line and the speed to beat him to that point on a regular basis but this year he has started dancing at the line off his get off a lot. It is going to be hard for that kind of move to work this week because the right tackle isn't trying to jump on any inside fakes. He will just continue to back peddle putting even more space between himself and Bennett. I know the worry for most left ends most weeks is that the go too deep around the quarterback and allow him to step up in the pocket and or escape to his right hand. Just for this week I would suspend that worry. I would tell Bennett to speed rush outside until his tongue is hanging out. Eventually as he keeps beating the offensive tackle to that spot, even if he isn't getting sacks, it will cause him to adjust his pass set. And once he starts having to either bail out and or getting more width then he will be wide open for a bull rush/inside move. But I wouldn't try that until later in the game.

As for the two guards and center they aren't anything special but they work ok as a group. In general the guards are going to set back for speed and only jump set at the line either on play action or versus a blitz. Now this gives all of our defensive tackles the option of bull rushing or making a quick inside move off the snap. And because Rodgers doesn't take a deep drop its possible to get push in his face using just those two pass rush options. I wouldn't advise any of the guys to try to make an finesse outside rush this game because Rodgers is so effective at moving around the pocket and when necessary taking off up the field when he finds a lane to run. If you are going to bull rush you commit to it and go all in on the bull rush. If you are going to make a quick inside move do it right now and don't stop until you get inside and up the field. This will not be a game where the inside rushers can afford to be indecisive or get stuck at the line.

Now if you have been paying attention you might be able to paint a picture in your mind of how these different pass rush plans will all work together to put pressure on Rodgers. You have the right end coming inside getting quick pressure and cutting off running lanes, you have the inside guys getting push and or making quick inside moves to cut off running lanes and you have the left end coming around the horn in case Rodgers feels the push coming right at him from the tackles and right end and decides to escape by dropping deeper around the rush. And this isn't a game plan just for a few 3rd and longs, this is a plan I would have the defensive line execute on almost every drop back pass until their offensive line adjusted to it.

Don't get me wrong its definitely easier said than done for it to actually work out this way. The point is if every one follows their individual game plan and is decisive with their moves then it all fits together like a puzzle to put them in the best position to get pressure while not allowing Rodgers lanes to run around in the pocket.

I also believe the Packers' offensive line is susceptible to pass rush games but I would only use two. First and foremost I would use TEX games as the lead pass rush game. The defensive tackles start in a 3 technique, come off with a rip move in the snap then try to get to the offensive tackle's back. The defensive ends, and this is REALLY important this week, get up the field low and hard for at least 3 steps and when they feel the defensive tackle get to the tackle's back they loop back inside. If the defensive ends get up the field this week and really sell the speed rush the TEX games will be very productive. Especially since Rodgers will likely see the middle open up and believe he will be able to just take off running right up the middle. He will likely never even see the defensive ends looping back inside before they hit him. But if those defensive ends don't sell the speed rush then the game will get blocked up and give option time to slice our secondary up.

A TOM game with the two inside rushers would also be a good option against the Packers. I haven't had an opportunity to watch a lot of film and break down which way the center slides obviously but assuming the Bucs have then they should know which way the center is going in certain sets. And with the Packers' center being a guy who moves decisively to the side he his supposed to block and the guards taking deeper sets it opens it up for the defensive tackle away from the slide to make an inside move, get to the center's block and penetrate while the defensive tackle to the side comes off low and hard to attract the guard and center then loops around to the opposite B Gap. Its a little risky because if its run wrong or the center blocks in the opposite direction from where they anticipate then it could part like the Red Sea and give Rodgers a wide open lane to see down the field or take off running. But still it could be a home run for them so I would sprinkle it in.

The Bucs should definitely NOT us EX games this week where the end comes inside and the defensive tackle on that side loops around outside for contain. The reason is with the guards dropping back instead of coming forward its going to be hard to penetrate that B gap. And if the end doesn't get penetration the game doesn't work. I just don't see that working out well for us.

One overlooked advantage of using pass rush games also is that in my experience it helps defensive linemen recognize screens. The guys who loop inside or outside generally get to see the offensive linemen releasing down field. Thus they have an opportunity to get involved in defending the pass. That is extremely helpful when playing a West Coast offense like Green Bay's that uses screens almost as a part of their running game.

That would be my pass rush plan for the Bucs defensive line versus the Packers. It is just one man's opinion and for sure not the only way to get it done. But I do believe if they rush Rodgers in this fashion they would have a lot of success and as we have seen this year you aren't going to beat that guy with coverage. He is simply too good and he has too many weapons. But if he is on the ground he can't complete many passes so that is where my focus would be in the game plan.

See you on Sunday!

PS: Two things.

1. Albert Haynesworth doesn't seem to like to play with his left hand down. Its a small thing but technique wise it kind of takes his first step a little wide when he is lined up on the right side. For that reason I would keep him lined up on the defense's left side as much as possible where that isn't a problem.

2. JerMichael Finley isn't a good blocker at all at tight end. I know this post is about pass rush and the Packers aren't a big time running team but when they do dare run the ball with him lined up as a tight end at the end of the line our guys should totally dominate that match up.

Mike McQueary Is Full Of Shit!

2011-11-17T00:16:00.002-05:00

A few days ago it was reported that the Penn State assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Mike McQueary, who was the graduate assistant in the Grand Jury Report that witnessed Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the showers in the locker room in 2002, sent an email out to some former teammates of his from his playing days at Penn State asserting that he had in fact intervened to stop the rape contra the Grand Jury report and subsequent news reports about the issue. I believe the exact words he used were "he made sure it stopped".

When I saw this quote come come across my Twitter timeline it really pissed me off. First and foremost I thought it was bullshit. But even if he did more than what was in the Grand Jury report he didn't literally "make sure it stopped" because the whole reason there is an investigation in the first place is because there was another child who was sexually assaulted by Jerry Sandusky starting in 2007, five years later. And so I tweeted a message out to that general effect.

Subsequently there was a report from ESPN's Tom Rinaldi that an anonymous source told him that McQueary had in fact intervened. Now I am generally suspicious of any anonymous sourcing, especially when the source was termed as someone "familiar" with the investigation rather than someone who was actually "involved" in the investigation. Someone familiar with the investigation could literally be anybody including McQueary's own lawyer. But I decided not to question the veracity of the report because I felt like if it was a lie, with as big of a story as this all is now, some other news outlet would bring it all to light.

Two reports came out today that combined with some common sense make a strong case that McQueary is in fact full of shit.

Earlier today Sarah Ganim, who has done an awesome job reporting on this story even before most of us were aware of it, tweeted out this article. In the article she makes this declaration.

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary never mentioned that he talked to police in 2002 after witnessing an alleged sexual assault by Jerry Sandusky of a young boy, according to a hand-written statement McQueary gave to police during the recent grand jury investigation.

The Patriot-News has viewed a copy of the statement and verified it through a source close to the investigation.

The Patriot-NewsPenn State assistant football coach and Jerry Sandusky case witness Mike McQueary has hired a law firm that specializes in employment issues. He is on paid leave from the university.

In it, McQueary states that he witnessed a boy, about 10, being sodomized in a shower and hurried out of the locker room. He does not mention stopping the assault, and does not mention talking to any police officers in the following days, the statement says.

The whole incident, the statement says, lasted about a minute, and McQueary wrote that he would not recognize the boy if he saw him today

Now its true that the Grand Jury report didn't have a transcript of everything every witness said. And that fact has led to plenty of speculation that maybe McQueary had in fact testified that he stopped the rape but it just wasn't included in the report. However this news account directly contradicts that notion completely.

Another claim in McQueary's email was that he had in fact gone to police, again contra the Grand Jury Report. But several outlets including USAToday looked into that assertion and found it to be false as well.

Those last two reports obviously call into question these new assertions both from McQueary's email and Rinaldi's reporting but I admit they aren't necessarily definitive. There is still a chance that perhaps he just didn't tell the Grand Jury about intervening but he had done so and it just didn't come up. Or maybe he did tell the Grand Jury and there just isn't any evidence that he did so. But if he did intervene and stop the rape that night in 2002 I just have one question.

What happened next?

I'm not talking about the phone call he placed to his Dad, we already know about that from the Grand Jury report.

What I want to know is after he stopped Jerry Sandusky from raping this young boy, by whichever means he employed, what did he do then? You have by his description a 10 year old or so kid who has just been sexually violated and I want to know what McQueary did to calm him down? What did he do to check and see if he was injured? What did he do to find out who the child was? What did he do to make sure that child got home safe?

But lets go back to the report from Sarah Ganim that I quoted. According to McQueary he probably wouldn't recognize the boy now if he saw him. And we know that so far investigators haven't been able to find the child and don't even know his name. Now you tell me how that is possible if McQueary really did intervene?

This wasn't some mugging in a dark alley that he just happened upon, this was a rape committed at his place of business in a locker room he was very familiar with both from his playing days and then later as a coach. So just yelling out for Sandusky to "stop it" and then continuing about his business wouldn't reasonably be considered enough to constitute "stopping" the rape.

And regardless of whether he called the police or not, he witnessed this child being raped and didn't attempt to call his parents? Or failing that at the very very least call him a cab to get home? Because Sandusky obviously brought the kid to the locker room with him or at least that is the assumption I think most people would have made that night. So if McQueary stops the rape how did the kid get home?

These are all questions that should have easy answers if in fact McQueary intervened and "made sure it stopped". But it doesn't appear any easy answers will be forthcoming. More than likely because he didn't intervene and he is now just trying to cover his ass.

And as outraged as I was when I was sure he didn't intervene that almost pales in comparison to the anger I feel now knowing that he is trying to sell this fiction that he did. I understand that some will want to give him the benefit of the doubt but for me there is just no rational way that he intervened and stopped this rape and yet he couldn't recognize that child today, he doesn't know his name and he didn't do anything in the way of making sure he was transported home safely by someone other than the man who was just raping him.

He and whomever Rinaldi's anonymous source is, is full of shit and should be called out on it.

Why Joe Paterno Was Fired: The Grand Jury Findings

2011-11-10T11:07:00.001-05:00

I wasn't going to blog about this. I felt that all of the news organizations and other bloggers would probably inundate people with so many different articles and posts that nobody would care what I had to say anyway. Besides it seems that most reasonable, after reading the Grand Jury Report in this case, all agree that Joe Paterno had to go. The only folks who didn't feel that way seemed to be people that either did not read the findings and or just have lost their moral compass blinded by loyalty to someone they have always seen as a hero. In that case its not likely I would be changing their minds anyway.

But at this point I feel a need to blog about it because some of the reactions from last night when the Penn State Board of Trustees announced Paterno was out, both in Happy Valley on on social media, have so thoroughly disgusted me that I think I need a release.

Lets start with this, we are talking about this incident today not because of Jerry Sandusky anally raping a child around the age of 10 in the showers of the locker room at the football facility and being caught by a graduate assistant, although that is what makes this story so much more morally reprehensible.

No, we are talking about this today because six years later in 2008 the mother of another child reported to her son's school that Sandusky had sexually molested him as well. Abuse that started in or around 2007, five years after that graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Athletic Director Tim Curley, Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Gary Schultz, University President Graham Spanier, and Executive Director of Second Mile Dr. Jack Raykovitz all had an opportunity if not a duty to stop Sandusky's serial underage rape of underage boys that stretched back at least into the mid 1990s with just one phone call to the police.

But not a single one of them placed that phone call. And we now know that their collective inaction led to at least one more little boy being molested.

These are Penn State University officials and an Executive Director of a non profit who refused to do what officials from a high school had the good sense and courage to do almost immediately in 2008, report the crime to the police.

Side note: I've seen some on social media repeating the lie that Paterno or Schultz or Curley or Spanier reported the crime to campus police. According to the Grand Jury Report that is demonstrably false. They investigated and no report was made to either a police entity nor a Child Protective Service official, which is required by law in such a situation, by any of them . And that is precisely why Curley and Schultz have been charged. Don't ask me to tell you why Paterno et al wasn't charged as well because I have no answers. I will say that if the law declares that what McQueary and Paterno did was "enough" then its obviously time to change that law.

It is precisely because of the investigation of the assaults reported in 2008 that we know anything about the other seven victims unearthed by the Grand Jury. Otherwise Sandusky would probably still be freely sexually assaulting little boys and that 2002 situation would likely still be swept under the rug.

He did "enough" or he did "what he was supposed do".

Ive heard Paterno apologists spew that garbage since the arrests and allegations came down last weekend. But if the fact that another child was molested after Paterno knew about the sexual assault Sandusky committed in the showers on a young boy isn't enough to prove what Paterno did in the aftermath wasn't enough, lets go back to 1998.

In 1998 Jerry Sandusky was Joe Paterno's Defensive Coordinator and had been for more than 20 years. It was also the year that a yet different mother had to report Sandusky for molesting her child. Where did this occur? In a shower. During the course of the investigation Sandusky both admitted to police that he had showered with this woman's little boy and possibly had sexual contact with him (he used the word "maybe"), he was also over heard by the police admitting the same directly to the child's mother.

Now I can't fathom how he wasn't charged in that case and I imagine most other reasonable people cant either. And unfortunately we may never get to the bottom of how that happened because the prosecutor assigned to the case has been missing since 2005 and is now presumed dead. However according to the Grand Jury Report Gary Shultz admitted that he was aware of the 1998 investigation and that the University Police, which are under his umbrella, reviewed the case against Sandusky. Further he admitted the similarities in the two cases of something sexually inappropriate happening between Sandusky and a child in the showers!!!

The report doesn't express whether Joe Paterno was aware of the 1998 investigation and or also saw the similarities in the two assaults, but lets look at what happened a year later in 1999. Sandusky was long thought to be the heir apparent to Paterno as Head Coach of the Penn State football team and he was in the prime of his career coaching wise at 55 years of age when suddenly he "resigned". But in the Grand Jury Report we do learn that just a year after he avoided being charged with molesting a child in 1998, Sandusky was molesting yet another little boy who was told by Sandusky himself that Paterno informed him he would not be the next Head Coach in May of 1998 shortly before he "resigned".

Don't you have to wonder what precipitated this meeting and change of heart from Paterno towards a man who had coached under him for so long and helped him win 2 National Championships? Don't you have to wonder what the justification was that Paterno gave him that day?

Biggest of all don't you have to believe that Joe Paterno, who many have thought over the years was the most powerful man in Pennsylvania and many more have been sure was the most powerful man in Happy Valley, knew all about the 1998 investigation?

And if that was indeed the case how can anyone look themselves in the mirror and believe that Paterno did "enough" in 2002 when a very similar assault occurred, and when he knew that Sandusky was never reported to police and instead was just "disciplined" by the Athletic Director. I mean Sandusky was still allowed on campus at least up until last year. Am I or you or anybody else supposed to believe that Paterno never saw him on campus over the last 9 years acting as if nothing ever happened?

While I'm at it I have to point out how absurd going to the Athletic Director about someone who is no longer employed by the University is. What exactly was the Athletic Director going to do? He couldn't fire him, he couldn't suspend him. I suppose he could have rescinded his privileges on campus but he didn't even do that. Instead he "banned" Sandusky from bringing kids on campus with him, as if the kids just there was the problem. And Curley himself admitted the "ban" wasn't even enforceable. The Grand Jury Report doesn't explicitly saw Paterno was told what the "punishment" would be for Sandusky but it does say McQueary, the graduate assistant, was told. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to whether Paterno was told too but in my ind its not even a question.

For some reason when discussing Paterno's firing some people bring up McQueary and the fact that he hasn't been fired yet as some reason to be upset or push back on the idea Paterno deserved to be. Well for me its simple. They both deserve to be fired and probably prosecuted for not reporting the assault to police. McQueary may in fact deserve to be fired more than Paterno, but that doesn't change the fact that Paterno deserved to be fired too.

Let's keep in mind that the Grand Jury found that Schultz and Curley had lied to them and yet Paterno released a statement shortly after the story broke that closely echoed their testimony and contradicted his own. In my mind that alone is enough reason to lump him right with those scumbags and bring him up on charges as well. However, again, the law may be unfortunately be on his side even if common decency isn't.

When the story first came out I saw the words "graduate assistant" and immediately assumed he was fresh out of college. But it turns out McQueary was 28 years old when he witnessed Sandusky raping a little boy in the shower. That's plenty old enough to be man enough to step in and stop the assault and protect that child, but he didn't. One detail that I missed until today was that McQueary didn't immediately leave after he witnessed the assault. According to the Grand Jury Report he was still at the complex when he called his Dad to tell him what happened. And how sorry does a father have to be to tell his 28 year old son to leave the complex and allow that assault to continue?

Pretty damned sorry in my opinion.

Another thing I hadn't realized until I read a profile on McQueary today was that he was the quarterback for Penn State while Sandusky was still the Defensive Coordinator. So i think its safe to say he was familiar with the man. And yet from that day until now he never, not once, picked up the phone to call the police after it was apparent nothing was being done to bring him to justice. No, instead he stayed at Penn State and rose through the ranks all while Sandusky was still enjoying his retirement as well as access to the campus.

So you're damn right he should be thrown out on his ear as well.

But that's the point. They all should.

And that included Joe Paterno.

So far there have been reports that 12 or more new victims have come forward since last weekend. Unfortunately I think its likely there will be even more. And many of them may be victims who were assaulted after 2002. We already know of at least one and one was more than enough to clean house. Because even one more victim after 2002 exposes one undeniable truth.

None of the people who had an opportunity and a moral responsibility to end this back then did "enough".

And they all probably should've been fired long before now.

ICYMI

2011-11-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I went on the radio around 4pm on 1040 AM with Tom Krasniqi amd Ronnie "Night Train" Lane to talkAbout the Penn State scandal and then did my regular Tuesday night hit at 8:25pm on the 2 Hand Touch show with Old School aka Derek Fournier to discus the Bucs' loss to the Saints on Sunday. I havent really posted many podcasts on this blog lately but both of those topics got me fired up for obviously different reasons and I figured I would share it for anybody who might have missed it.

Check it out.

My thoughts on Penn State/Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno et al.

My thoughts in what happened to the Bucs against the Saints.

Tim Tebow Sucks....And That's Ok

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Tim Tebow sucks at being an NFL quarterback.

That is an objective fact at this point.

I could go all sabermetrics on you and list a LOT of statistical categories to back that statement up, but I won't. The truth is the "Tebow" argument is no longer, if it ever was, about objective facts. Its about raw emotion and what goes wrong when one player's fans not only will not accept reality, but also attempt to force THEIR reality on everybody else.

I'm a fan of Tim Tebow as a person. I think some of the things he has done in his life are incredibly remarkable and would be even if he weren't a Heisman Trophy winning, College BCS Championship winning, first round drafted NFL football player. But being a great person does not equal being a great player.

Never has, never will.

Rest assured there have been plenty of great guys who just weren't good enough to play in the NFL at every position. A recent example is Myron Rolle. This guy was a Rhodes Scholar. Let me repeat that A RHODES SCHOLAR!!! And to be sure he is an impressive young man. But although many casual football fans were outraged that he wasn't drafted until the 6th round it turns out he wasn't very good at playing safety in the NFL. And that's ok too.

It happens.

But the central problem in the Tim Tebow debate is that his fans refuse to allow anyone to acknowledge the reality that he isn't very good right now. Any person who dare point out that he has completed better than 50% of his passes in only one game of the five he has started is derided as "hating" on him, usually for something other than his football play like his devout Christian beliefs, by many of his fans.

Ben Roethlisberger in his "bad" rookie season completed over 66% of his passes.

Doesn't really matter if the person pointing it out is themselves a Christian. Nope, all that matters is that you dared to "diss" Tebow.

Vince Young completed over 51% of his passes his rookie season.

I played football for quite awhile and a 50% completions percentage has ALWAYS been the demarcation line for bad quarterbacks. I don't care how many yards you run for. I don't care what leadership qualities you display. If you can't complete 50% of your passes then just about every analyst is going to admit you aren't an NFL quality quarterback.

Right now out of 33 quarterbacks ranked only 1 has less than a 53% completion percentage this season.

But now people seemingly want to change the rules of the game for one guy. A guy who has a lot going for him indeed, but if you can't complete half of your passes how can you even be considered an NFL quarterback, let alone a good one?

And the irony of it all is that because these fans, and lets be real many people in the media, are trying to force those of us who know a little something about football to lie and say Tebow is a good quarterback when he isn't they are making more and more people turn against him. And they are making themselves look like fools in the process.

Donovan McNabb and Rex Grossman have both been benched this year while completing more than 55% of their passes.

I actually watched his last two starts and I will give you that he looked better against the Lions than he did the previous week against the Dolphins. And truthfully there were some dropped passes by his receivers. But he was still awful. But you have people like Skip Bayless who OBVIOUSLY didn't watch the game against the Lions who just one week prior were calling for the Broncos to try to tailor the offense to Tebow's strengths and open up the play book and then when they do exactly that he and they complain that they opened it up TOO much and didn't give him enough easy short passes to complete.

Let me just say clearly that that is a bunch of bullshit.

For much of the game the Broncos appeared to be trying to run a lot of the kinds of plays Tebow ran in college. The problem of course is that he isn't in college anymore and a lot of those plays are just not going to work against a quality NFL team. Especially with a quarterback as inaccurate as he is.

Hell I have to give the Broncos props for even attempting to totally change their offense in a week just to give him the best opportunity to be successful. To be sure other teams have been castigated for doing the same thing when they had an "unconventional" quarterback. Yet Tebow fans not only accept that the Broncos are changing to an offense that likely will reduce their chances of winning any games the rest of the season, they are demanding it!

And the sick part is that no matter what the Broncos do if Tebow isn't successful his fans will still blame everybody BUT him for his failings.

Kyle Orton was completing almost 60% of his passes when he was benched.

I saw countless people on social media lamenting how bad the Broncos' offensive line played because Tebow was sacked 13 times the last two weeks. Now again I remind you that I watched these games. His offensive line may not be stocked with All Pros but they have been doing a decent job. They can only blocks so long though and Tebow seems content to not throw the ball away and run around trying to make something happen even when nothing is there. Then there is also the hitch in his follow through when he throws the ball that all of the scouts and people who know football criticized him for when he was coming out of college. That hitch is directly attributable to at least one sack he took against the Lions when Cliff Avril came around and was able to strip him at a point in his windup where the ball should have been out of his hand.

I have to point out that the same offensive line only allowed 8 sacks in the previous 5 games with Kyle Orton starting but I know that for Tebow fans stuff like that doesn't matter.

Its also very interesting to me that these Tebow fans will laud his skills running the ball to try to bolster their case about him being a good quarterback. But many of these same folks were cautioning heavily about other running quarterbacks coming into the NFL saying their health wouldn't hold up. I know that some people would like to think Tim Tebow is indestructible but I unfortunately remember that hellacious hit he took against Kentucky in college when he received a concussion. If you think the same thing can't happen at the NFL level you are fooling yourself. And I'm not wishing that on him, just stating a fact.

Now here is the rub, none of us know what Tebow will be by the end of his career. There is a chance that he will find a way to fix some of his technical issues and over time become a more accurate quarterback. I personally don't believe that he will ever be a Pro Bowl type of quarterback but that doesn't mean he can't be a quality starter in the NFL. But the more I hear and see fans of Tebow ignoring reality and demanding I do the same the closer I get to rooting against the guy. That has nothing to do with his Christian beliefs and everything to do with the "Cult of Tebow"'s douchebaggery.

JaMarcus Russell, yes that JaMarcus Russell, completed almost 54% of his passes his second year which was his first as a starter.

So if you like Tim Tebow and want to see him do well please do us all a favor and just accept that right now he isn't very good. You can like him and root for him and still acknowledge reality, you do know you can do that, right?

At some point I just hope that the section of Tebow fans who think he can do no wrong will come to understand that most of the people criticizing him are doing so honestly. Is there a small minority of people criticizing Tebow for reasons other than his play on the field? I'm sure there are. But most of us either like the guy as a person or have no problems with who he is off the field. However we can't sit with blindfolds on complimenting the guy when our eyes tell a totally different story. That would mean compromising our integrity for the sake of people who don't seem to have any. And I, for one, am not going to be able to do it.

Who knows, by the end of the season Tebow may not suck anymore. Maybe he will improve his accuracy and lead his team to several victories to close out the year. But until that change happens he sucks.

And its ok to admit it.

Trying Something Different

2011-08-29T16:19:00.000-04:00

If you follow me on Twitter, and a lot of you do, you probably know that I announced a few weeks ago that I probably wouldn't be blogging much if at all this season. I kinda came to this reality/decision watching the first Bucs preseason game and not having the slightest inclination to rewind the plays or make notes for a blog. I was just enjoying watching as a fan for the first time in quite a while and it felt good. Now there are obviously other factors to this also but what I said a few weeks ago hasn't changed. At the same time however more than a few people have tweeted me and emailed me asking that I continue blogging which has been both gratifying and humbling that so many people enjoyed it.

So I thought about trying a compromise. A lot of what takes up time with blogging is trying to take notes about the game and then translate them into easy to understand verbiage for all of my readers as well as trying to keep it at least somewhat entertaining. This is a lot harder than it probably sounds but I was thinking that maybe I could incorporate Twitter into my game review commentary and just give you all short and to the point comments about what I am seeing. Its still going to be a little time consuming but I won't feel the pressure I used to put on myself to make it into such a polished product and have it out as quick as possible.

I don't actually know if this will work or how many people will be interested but I think I will do a trial run tonight. What is going to happen is this, I will tell everyone what time I will be doing a film review on Twitter on the defensive line. The time will generally be later so I don't blow up my other followers timelines and I won't be able to answer questions, however you will be able to go with me pretty much play by play and find out who played well and who didn't. Tonight I will be doing a review of just the first half of the last Bucs preseason game against the Dolphins at 11pm. So if you want to get in on it just follow me on Twitter at sgw94 if you aren't doing so already.

If there is a sufficient level of interest then I will have the next session like this after the first regular season game and I will give everyone a few days notice to plan for it. If not then I'm just going to take this season to get back to being something I haven't really been in years, just an average fan enjoying the games.

Oh, before I forget, I'll also be contributing to great friend of the blog and all around good guy WhatTheBuc's radio show which runs on Tuesday evenings from 8pm-10pm on 1010 AM locally. If you get a chance tune in and show your support.

My Random Thoughts On The Decertification/Lockout

2011-03-12T12:46:00.001-05:00

I have a few things on my mind about the desertification/lockout yesterday and it was more than twitter would hold so I figured I would come back here to hash it out.

First off, yes my loyalties like with the players and the NFLPA. Don't like it? Don't read it.

Now lets talk about the NFLPA decertifying. In the event of a lockout one of tools available to the NFLPA to block it and try to force cooperation from the owners through litigation is to decertify as a union so that players can then file injunctions and anti-trust lawsuits. Now to me the problem is that the CBA required the union to basically fire the first shot.

The collective bargaining agreement says the NFLPA in effect must wait six months to decertify if it does it after the collective bargaining agreement expires.

I would say it was PR genius from the owners on that accord. See I'll bet there are a lot of you out there that feel like the union forced a lockout yesterday because they had to act first. Only problem with that is there is literally no way for the union to force a lockout. Even without a union to bargain with the owners could have set up free agency last night. They just chose not to. Which should have been utterly predictable.

And yet I'll bet you most of the stories today give the impression that the NFLPA caused the situation we are now in. But that would ignore the fact that it was the NFL ownership that in fact opted out of the previous CBA and hadn't participated much in negotiations at all until the eleventh hour when they were forced to. Yes the NFLPA HAD to act first in order to protect the players' rights to bring litigation but this was far from their doing.

And I know some folks are salty about De Smith's "ultimatum" yesterday. Well I'll get to that but first lets talk about a really big deal that is THE tell about how we got here and why

I would hope by now almost all NFL fans had heard the term "lockout insurance". It of course refers to contract the NFL owners signed with the TV networks which included money that owners would be paid even in the event that games weren't played during the 2011 season. It was to be a war chest of sorts to help keep owners rolling in the dough while players were going broke from being locked out in order to force them to take whatever deal the owners decided to offer.

Now I'm sure if you haven't really followed the case and or have it set in your mind that "both sides" are at fault for the work stoppage you probably think I'm embellishing the situation. If anything I'm probably being kind.

If anything I'm probably being kind.

Please please please do not take my word for it though. What you should do instead is read Judge David Doty's decision for yourself in full and see for yourself the kind of fuckery the owners were on with those TV contracts.

I know that most of us, myself included, are not lawyers and a lot of us, myself included, tend to be lazy when reading blogs and don't always click the link. So allow me to excerpt just a few parts of the ruling here with relevant parts highlighted.

Here is one section:

Broadcast contracts are an enormous source of shared revenue
for the Players and the NFL. Under the SSA, the Players rely on
the NFL to negotiate these contracts on behalf of both the NFL’s
own interests and the interests of the Players. In May 2008, the
NFL opted out of the final two years of the CBA, and recognized
that a lockout in 2011 would help achieve a more favorable CBA.
Thereafter, the NFL sought to renegotiate broadcast contracts to
ensure revenue for itself in the event of a lockout. See, e.g.,
Exs. 98, 102, 110, 131, 228. The record shows that the NFL
undertook contract renegotiations to advance its own interests and
harm the interests of the players. The NFL argues that the SSA 4
does not require it to act in good faith in 2011 or subsequent
seasons, that lockouts are recognized bargaining tools and that it

The NFL’s “Decision Tree” is one glaring example of the 4
NFL’s intent and consideration of its own interests above the
interests of the Players. See Ex. 216, at 00081969. Moving
forward with a deal depended on the answer to the question: “Does
Deal Completion Advance CBA Negotiating Dynamics?” If yes, the NFL
should “Do Deal Now”; if no, the NFL should “Deal When Opportune.”
Id.

is entitled to maximize its post-SSA leverage. The court agrees. 5
However, under the terms of the SSA, the NFL is not entitled to
obtain leverage by renegotiating shared revenue contracts, during
the SSA, to generate post-SSA leverage and revenue to advance its
own interests and harm the interests of the Players. Here, the NFL
renegotiated the broadcast contracts to benefit its exclusive
interest at the expense of, and contrary to, the joint interests of
the NFL and the Players. This conduct constitutes “a design ... to
seek an unconscionable advantage” and is inconsistent with good
faith. See Ashokan Water Servs., 807 N.Y.S.2d at 554 (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted).
The NFL next argues that any injury to the Players’ interests
will occur after the termination of the SSA. The court disagrees.
As a result of the broadcast contract renegotiations, the NFL
demanded and received “material[ly]” different, immediately
effective work-stoppage agreements. See, e.g., Bornstein Dep. 168-
69. Moreover, at least one broadcaster would have considered
paying more in the 2009-2010 seasons “to have [the work-stoppage
provision] go away,” Tr. 410, indicating that the NFL’s
inflexibility with respect to lockout provisions resulted in less
total revenues for the 2009-2010 seasons. The NFL also argues that

The court notes, however, that a lockout is usually an 5
economic weapon employed in response to a strike. See 48B Am. Jur.
2d Labor & Labor Relations § 2652 (“A lockout is a legitimate move
by an employer in the face of a strike....”).

the broadcast contracts were renegotiated to avoid defaulting under
certain loan covenants. That fact alone substantiates value to the
NFL without a corresponding increase in total revenues. Moreover,
the value of the renegotiated contracts far exceeds the amount
needed to satisfy loan covenants, and the DirecTV contract creates
a financial incentive to institute a lockout. Further, the
decision to lockout the Players is entirely within the control of
the NFL, thereby rendering a debt default also entirely within its
control. Lastly, the debt covenants are of the NFL’s own making.
The risk of debt default brought about by a lockout does not excuse
or justify a breach of the SSA. Therefore, construing the good
faith obligation as modified by “consistent with sound business
judgment,” the NFL breached the SSA by failing to act in good faith
so as to maximize total revenues for each SSA playing season.

Here's another section:

To the extent that “consistent with sound business judgment”
modifies the best efforts requirement, the NFL may consider its
long-term interests but not at the expense of maximizing total
revenues for each SSA season for the joint benefit of itself and
the Players. A promisor’s consideration of its own interests
becomes unreasonable when it is manifestly harmful to the party to
which it has obligations. See Van Valkenburgh, Nooger & Neville,
Inc. v. Hayden Pub. Co., 281 N.E.2d 142, 145 (N.Y. 1972); accord
25
CASE 4:92-cv-00906-DSD -SPMS Document 675 Filed 03/01/11 Page 25 of 28
Dist. Lodge 26, 689 F. Supp. 2d at 242. “Consistent with sound
business judgment” does not permit the NFL to enhance its long-term
interests at the expense of its present obligations. The record 10
shows, however, that the NFL did just that. In considering
broadcast contract renegotiations, the NFL consistently
characterized gaining control over labor as a short-term objective
and maximizing revenue as a long-term objective. See, e.g., Exs.
142, 201, 228. The NFL used best efforts to advance its CBA
negotiating position at the expense of using best efforts to
maximize total revenues for the joint benefit of the NFL and the
Players for each SSA playing season. Moreover, at least three
networks expressed some degree of resistance to the lockout
payments. As it renegotiated the contracts, the NFL characterized
network opposition to lockout provisions to be a deal breaker and
“clearly a deal” it would not consider. Ex. 163. To the contrary,
the evidence shows that maximizing total revenues for SSA seasons
was, at best, a minor consideration in contract renegotiations.
Therefore, the court finds that the NFL breached Article X,

The NFL urges the court to follow an unpublished Fourth 10
Circuit case, which held that the duty to use best efforts
“consistent with its overall business objectives” allows the
defendant “to act in accordance with its own objectives if they
conflict with those of [plaintiff].” Mylan Pharm., Inc. v. Am.
Cyanamid Co., Nos. 94-1502, 94-1472, 1995 WL 86437, at *6 (4th Cir.
1995). This unpublished case is not persuasive or controlling
authority. See 8th Cir. R. 32.1A; 2d Cir. R. 32.1. Moreover, it
provides no analysis or substantive reasoning for its
interpretation.

§ 1(a)(i) in extending or renegotiating its broadcast contracts.
Accordingly, the special master committed legal error in failing to
properly interpret the SSA’s requirement to act in good faith and
use best efforts, consistent with sound business judgment, to
maximize total revenues for each SSA playing season, and thus
finding no breach.

Now I really, REALLY encourage you to read the whole thing if you can. I mean hell I might be just excerpting the part that helps my case right? But the truth is there is MORE in there than I excerpted. A lot more.

But this is also an issue that has pissed me off to no end. The owners stood to rake in $4 billion dollars from those deals during a lockout.

FOUR BILLION DOLLARS!!!

And yet pundit after pundit tried to downplay the effect before the ruling of them having that money and the effect after that ruling of them losing that money. Some said it was only for the second year of a lockout, others said it was only a loan.

And you know what on paper they might have been right.

But lets be real here, $4 BILLION dollars in your pocket spends RIGHT NOW. And you can bet your ass that if the owners didn't need it they wouldn't have played hardball to get it in the contracts and wouldn't have worked so hard to keep it after the litigation started. Oh yeah, that's that word again, "litigation". I imagine you will hear it a lot from the owners over the next few weeks and months to try to demonize what was essentially the only approach the players could take once the owners revealed they had no interest in negotiating.

And yes you can make that determination from the response to Doty's ruling. Hell the owners were no where to be found prior to that ruling, famously cancelling meetings to meet with the players during the Superbowl and also never seriously offering any proposals until the last few weeks.

And then all of a sudden they show up RIGHT AFTER THE DOTY RULING. And yet you STILL didn't see pundits connecting the dots. None of them dared say that the ruling had changed the owners policy of just sitting on their hands until they could lock the players out.

And so I ask to the people who are still on that "both sides are at fault" bullshit, what could the players do to compel owner's to negotiate with them prior to that ruling on the lockout insurance. I mean yeah they could have just accepted everything the owners demanded but that's not a negotiation at all. And is that REALLY what you're telling me they should've done?

And don't miss this point from the part I highlighted: The owners themselves argued that they didn't have to "act in good faith" when negotiating those TV contracts. Seriously its right there in the ruling. THAT was their argument.

So let's get back to De Smith's "ultimatum" from yesterday.

Earlier this week I happened to read one of the worst reported, bordering on libelous reports from ESPN's Adam Schefter. You see Schefter, probably force fed by a shill for the owners, claimed that ownership this week had offered to show De Smith and the NFLPA ALL of the financial data that they had been asking for and De Smith said no. The reason Schefter gave, covering his ass by saying an anonymous person "with knowledge of the process" was his source, was that De Smith didn't want to lose face with the public after demanding the owners open the books.

One slight problem...it was total bullshit.

After Schefter's article got a gazillion links on blogs everywhere covering the negotiations the AP came out with their own report where by they actually did something CRAZY. They asked De Smith about the financial data he had been asking for and then he did something crazy. He gave them a letter from two years ago that he sent ownership asking for 10 years of audited team by team statements.

And you know what ESPN and Adam Schefter did? Well first I'll tell you what they didn't do. They DIDN'T offer De Smith and the NFLPA leadership a public apology. They did go back and totally rewrite the story from the information inside of it to the tone (seriously, the story is a 180 turn from the original) and put a nice "updated" note beside it. As if that would explain everything.

Now you may recall that the original CBA deadline was a week ago. It was extended first for a day and then for a week. But the question was and always had been whether or not the owners were just stalling or truly committed to reaching a deal. And yet after two years of demanding the 10 years of audited financial statements the owners were still acting as if they had access to their lockout insurance and didn't really need to show the NFLPA anything more than what they chose to. And remember that an appeal on Doty's ruling is coming soon which could be another reason to just stall out negotiations. And what do you know...

Even after federal mediator George Cohen began presiding over the sessions, union negotiators thought they were being shined on by the league, as most or all of the owners were absent from the bulk of the meetings. Finally, last Wednesday – the day after Doty’s decision – 10 executives from the league’s labor management committee showed up for the talks at the FMCS building. They left to join the rest of the league’s owners at a meeting 25 miles away in Chantilly, Va., and Smith and other union negotiators were under the impression that those owners would return for the next round of discussions.

Instead, the union leaders learned that those owners, including the Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Jones and the New England Patriots’ Robert Kraft, had flown home on private planes, leaving only two members of the league’s labor committee (New York Giants owner John Mara and Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy) to attend Thursday’s crucial session.

Even after negotiating a pair of extensions, the league’s negotiating team showed up this past Monday without displaying a sense of urgency. On Thursday afternoon – with Friday’s deadline looming – Smith and other union negotiators left the FMCS building and walked back to NFLPA headquarters. They were told by Cohen to expect a call before 4:30 p.m., at which point they’d be summoned to return for another session of talks.

The union officials waited as 4:30 arrived, then 5, but the call never came. Finally, Atallah learned via a reporter’s post on Twitter that the owners who’d been in attendance were on a conference call with the rest of the league’s owners.

Said Atallah: “I turned to De and said, ‘Oh, that’s funny – we were supposed to be over there right now. “He said, ‘Are you serious?’ At 6:15 we called the mediator’s office, and he told us, ‘Well, they’re packing up to go, so we’re not doing anything tonight.’ And then we heard they all went to dinner.”

So yes, De Smith put conditions on continuing the negotiations and I thought he was entirely right in doing so. For two years now many in the media have, again, tried to downplay the significance of wanting the owners to open their books. Hell one ex NFL coach this week went so far with his shilling that he said NFL owners were "small business owner". You know like the folks running the Mom and Pop store on the corner.

Yeah...Ok.

But let me break this down in two different ways.

First I keep getting folks tweeting me saying something to the effect of "hey dude, if I asked my employer to open their books they would just laugh at me".

Well yeah, DUH!

If any single person goes to their boss out of the blue and asks them to open their books I'm sure they WOULD get laughed out of the room. But this ain't Peyton Manning going to Jim Irsay asking him to open the books, and this ain't out of the blue.

If you want a more valid comparison you would say "Hey dude, if they chose to cut everybody at my job's pay by around 15% after they made record profits before we all renewed our contract and then we all banded together and decided to go ask the owner to open the books to justify it or else none of us would sign on to come back...."

Well it gets kinda convoluted after that but I think you get my drift. But see the comparison will never really make sense for two reasons. Now you might not like to hear this but playing in the NFL is not something the overwhelming amount of people can do. Hell its not something the overwhelming amount of people who play college football can do. And so they players themselves are a precious commodity that owners know they can't replace wholesale and keep the same or close to the same quality level.

On the other hand NFL players are pretty much captive employees to the NFL because there are no comparable professional football leagues out there where they can make around the same amount of money doing what they do.

But if you have a job outside of the NFL then there are probably other people that can do your job and at the same time there are probably other companies that you can leave and go work at if your job start's tripping and trying to lower your compensation.

Now I have been rude to a few of the people who have tweeted this at me. And honestly I don't take any of it back. Mostly because they were unsolicited tweets to me and I feel like if you are going to say something to me out of the way you should at least know what you're talking about. Otherwise either stay silent or ask somebody who might know. But at the end of the day the truth is people should understand that these differences in how the relationship with their job is with the players and their job make those kinds of comparisons unrealistic.

And yes, dumb.

Now let's back up a minute and come back to a very important point. This is mostly about MONEY.

Read that line again. MONEY!!!

Yes, 18 games and a rookie scale are very important issues too. But make no mistakes ladies and gents this is about money.

About $5 billion dollars worth to be exact.

Now some of yall are probably scratching your heads right now because you thought it was either about $9 billion or $1 billion. $9 billion being an approximation of total revenue or $1 billion, the amount the owners are asking players to give back of that revenue.

Well see that $1 billion the owners want back is per year. Mean if a CBA is for 5 years they are really asking for $5 billion dollars back. I thought of this after De Smith made reference to writing a $5 billion dollar check which at first kind of threw me off.

Now you tell me and be serious about it. If you had $5 billion dollars to spend on an investment, just how damn much information would YOU want to know on that company?

See the owners are asking the players to give up $5 billion dollars of revenue they themselves help to generate because, and I'm paraphrasing here, "they said so dammit". The information they have released to the union so far has been by all accounts underwhelming. The supposed reason that the owners believe the players HAVE to give back this money is because, according to them, the owners are starting to lose money. Now they give a list of reason's they deserve more of the revenues like building new stadiums etc. But they have been reluctant to actually show players the information that would prove quite clearly the financial direction the NFL is headed in.

Because if the profits aren't actually dropping, how could they possibly justify wanting to take more money from the players than they were getting in the last CBA?

The core of their argument is something they have the ability to prove. And its apparent at least to me that if the league could prove that the owners were losing money public opinion would decidely shift to their side and there would be enormous pressure on the NFLPA to give up that money.

And yet they have, up until now, refused to do so.

You take from that what you will. I'm sure you probably know what I think.

And while we are on the subject lets talk about why the money is the most important part of this negotiation and integrate why you shouldn't buy the spin from owners in the current weeks about what the active players "walked out on" yesterday that would have benefited both them and the retired players. Supposedly.

Until we find out how the money will be split up we don't get to find out what that financial implications are for an 18 game season if it's implemented. See one would assume there would be additional revenue with additional games. And so how much more the players would get from actually playing in those games would likely color whether they were more likely or less likely to even negotiate on the issue. But how can you know what that is if you still don't know how the revenue is going to be divided?

Also with the rookie cap again how could the NFLPA possibly decide if they should agree to such a cap without knowing how much of the revenue the players will be getting to offset the lost income draft picks will see due to a rookie cap?

It is obvious that, as with many things in life, the real issue here is the money.

And so when you here the NFL's shills talk about how much money active and retired players are going to miss out on by rejecting their final offer just remember that they are proposing to you that in some sort of new math that players were going to get more with less of a share of the revenue.

I don't know about you but I can't get my calculator to figure that one out.

And that's kind of why I wrote this blog today. You see, and I'm not saying all because obviously there is some good reporting going on out there, I just don't see a lot of NFL writers shooting it straight on this labor issue. It moreso appears that they are either trying so hard to refrain from blaming either side or that they simply do empathize more with the owners, that the reporting tends to strain credibility. I mean last night the NFL sent out a statement that the owners hadn't decided whether to lockout or not. And some folks were sending that out as if it had ANY credibility behind it. Look back up at Judge Doty's order. THEY PLANNED FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS FOR THIS LOCKOUT. And yet now we are all supposed to believe that they just weren't sure about it?

C'mon Son. Thats ludicruss <

So it is that kind of reporting that to me has been the biggest problem as far as public opinion is on this issue. If more reporters just stuck to the facts and refused to publish some of this spin I don't think there is any question that more NFL fans would be siding with the players. I just don't know of too many people who think $5 billion dollars doesn't warrant some serious interest in the financial data. And yet, because the owners' spokesmen say so, writers are reporting that the NFLPA maybe doesn't really need all that information.

Now if you read this post and like it I would just ask you to do one thing. When you see people on other social media who are fans of football and either confused about which side they should support or say stuff like both sides are at fault, I would just ask you to send them the link to this blog. I'm not trying to garner sympathy for the NFLPA or De Smith but I do believe that the facts in this situation are decidedly on their side. I just don't think that most of those people with that point of view have been exposed to the facts and or have been spun hard in the media by the owners about what those facts really mean.

One last note, there won't be any replacement players because this isn't a strike. When the owners lock the players out business stops. There won't be any games unless the current players are involved and the lockout is lifted. Just FYI to a frequently asked question on twitter.

Aight peace

Your Week Seventeen Leader

2011-01-07T14:48:00.000-05:00

And winning the crown in the final week of the regular season was...

drumroll

1Bigg_ER

Funny thing is I was all set to ALSO hand over the overall title to 1Bigg_ER after he edged me out by 40 points but it turns out that the fun continues into the playoffs!!!

So make sure you sign in and make your picks because there is still time to make a push for 1st place.

Good luck to everyone!

Everyone but 1Bigg_ER that is. I wish only the worst things in life to that guy LOL

Happy New Years!!!!

2011-01-05T01:39:00.000-05:00

Ok so maybe I'm a few days late with this.

But at least I won't have any Bucs posts up any time soon either!

Wait, that didn't come out right.

So look it, I figured I wouldn't have a Bull Rush or TGTBTU post up for the Seahawks game and if you paid attention closely I said I wouldn't be posting for a week or so in my last post. But I didn't realize at that time that I also wouldn't be able to post on the Saints game either. I didn't see much of the Seahawks game any way but I did catch most of the Saints game (great game by the way) but I wasn't able to tape either unfortunately. And I know my limitations, there is no way in hell I could do a write up based solely on what I saw one time as it was happening with very few replays. Sometimes life just gets in the way and this is one of those times.

So I apologize for that, but I want to thank all of the folks who have been reading my blogs all year and especially those who participated in the fantasy football pick em league as well. I probably would have blogged about the Bucs this year no matter what but having people appreciate my work definitely gave me added motivation each week to git er done.

As for what's next, I'll probably do a post mortem on the season as a whole in the coming weeks and I'll also probably do individual breakdowns on each member just like I did last year as we head into the off season. At the same time I have felt the pull of the coaching profession once again and I have decided to test the waters to see what opportunities may arise. Therefore I can't promise that blogging will be regular but when I blog it will probably be substantive and worth your time. Maybe something will happen, maybe I'll still be blogging the Bucs next year, who knows. But I just ask that you bear with me for awhile until something happens....or doesn't.

I would be remiss if I didn't shout out the Bucs for doing what most folk, including even myself, didn't think they could do and that was get to 10 wins. The turnaround this season was truly amazing and if it didn't give you reason to be hopeful and excited about next year you're either dead or not a real Bucs fan. What those coaches and players accomplished despite all the injuries and the suspension of one of their best players can not be over stated. That we didn't have a single Pro Bowler is instructive on how much respect there still is out there to be earned though. Another year like this one and I don't think that will ever be a problem again.

Again I hope everyone had a happy holidays and I'll have at least one more post up this week crowning the champion of the fantasy football league.

Later

Your Week Fifteen Leader

2010-12-22T09:36:00.000-05:00

Oh yes, the crown has come back home to yours truly. And with two weeks left I am now just 3 points out of second place, and 23 out of first. Its going right down to the wire and every single pick is maginified now. And you know what they say, pressure bursts pipes!

I won't be blogging for the next week or so, so consider this your reminder to get all your picks in before tomorrow night's game. As always good luck, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Bull Rush

2010-12-20T10:07:00.001-05:00

Not much to say about the game yesterday.

But I will say this, if the Bucs don't get back to having everyone in their gap on run fits then it won't matter whether you call it Tampa 2.0 or any other nickname you can come up with, it ain't gonna work.

I don't give a damn how many blitzes you call.

Oh and boy did Coach Morris call them.

32 by my unofficial count.

And yet after all that the Bucs still didn't have any sacks, no interceptions, and very few pressures.

If you can't play your base defense eventually its going to come back to haunt you.

It wasn't as if the Lions came in with some kind of exotic blocking scheme. They ran basically what the last few Bucs opponents have run at them, zones, split action bellies and Iso belly cut backs (AKA The Saints' play). And yet the defense still hasn't seemed to fix it.

Every time one of the Bucs defensive ends face a kick out block its a potential for disaster. Either the End doesn't get under the block and the running back runs straight down hill into the secondary, OR the defensive end DOES get underneath the block but then the guy who is supposed to cover his back doesn't and the running back gets into the secondary on the perimeter with the potential for a big play.

No matter how many times teams have run kick out blocks against the Bucs this season it seems like one of these scenarios continues to play out several times during the game each and every week. And the run defense continues to get carved up.

I'm just going to give a few more comments about the defense and then the individual breakdowns.

- It appears that the injuries finally truly caught up with the Bucs. For one when you look and see Myron Lewis and Elbert Mack playing important roles in dime then you know there's a problem. Mack just is not a good secondary. Lewis has the potential to be but its obvious he isn't ready right now.

Nothing to be ashamed about there, most rookies aren't ready to play their first year. Ask Ronde Barber about whether that's such a bad thing.

But unfortunately because of injuries the Bucs don't have a choice but to play both guys.

With Lewis his technique is just so bad right now that him making any plays at all would be a massive feat. He turns the wrong way when looking for the ball, sticks out the wrong arm when trying to make a play on the ball, is not the greatest tackler. And yet the Bucs don't really have anyone else.

So you try to hide them with big cushions. But then a team picks on them BECAUSE of the big cushions. So you put them up in bump and then teams bomb them out of the stadium. It's clear to me that those guys being out there would severely hamper what any defensive coordinator in the world's play book.

Similarly with Gerald McCoy out now there is no big time pass rusher inside for the Bucs. That means that on first and second downs its not as likely that the defensive line will get a pass rush all on their own against play action. Do you blitz to help out with the pass rush? If you do then you might leave Lewis out there on an island by himself.

Is that really a risk you are willing to take?

But then again even if the Bucs play zone and rush four the fact that the quarterback won't be pressured means that the secondary will still be stressed.

That's the conundrum that Coach Morris is faced with because of the loss of McCoy.

And lets not forget about the free safety position where the Bucs have gone from a potential Pro Bowler, to a helluva late round gem, to a guy who has ball skills but just isn't very physical.

You put all that together and you have what we all saw yesterday.

It is what it is.

- By the way, the people who continue to make asses out of themselves complaining about Barrett Ruud will look particularly silly when they try to pin the terrible run defense on him this time. I don't think he was out of position the whole game. But hey, for some folks in this area it doesn't matter whose play it actually was, its still Ruud's fault, smdh.

- It still bothers the hell out of me that the Bucs defensive line isn't good at running pass rush games. Yesterday Mike Bennett and Tim Crowder try to run an EX. Crowder sets the guard up beautifully with a fake bull rush. Crowder, however, gets up field too much to come in and pick the guard so both he and Crowder ends up stuck in their one on ones.

Alex Magee and Stylez White are on the other side attempting to run a TEX with Stylez as the inside rusher. Stylez does a great job of getting off the ball, making a move on the guard, and then trying to get to the offensive tackle's back. Magee, however, only took two steps up field and then came inside allowing the offensive tackle to follow him right into Stylez's rush and pin him inside.

What is it about "looping inside late will allow the inside rusher a chance to get to the offensive tackle's back" that's so damn hard to understand?!?!?!

- Again, the Bucs ran somewhere in the area of 32 blitzes yesterday. And yet they came away with no sacks, few pressures, and no turnovers on the day. That, my friends, is a major problem.

On to the individual breakdowns.

Tim Crowder: Crowder had 1 tackle and two assists by my count. He was ok for most of the game but he was one of the ends who didn't get underneath the kick out block against the run. That HAS to get fixed.

Frank Okam: Didn't really know what to expect from Okam but I thought he played ok. He was in his gap most of the game and I had him with 2 tackles and 3 assists. As I did expect though he wasn't much of a factor as far as pass rush goes. They did have him drop underneath a tight end one time which showed they believe in his athletic ability. Not a bad start for his career as a Buccaneer.

Roy Miller: Roy is a guy who played well most of the day but again he got washed on some of those kick out block plays and made it easier for the running back to come down hill. I had him with 1 tackle and 1 assist.

Stylez G White: I thought Stylez played ok but he didn't get near enough pressure on the quarterback. He had many opportunities one on one against the offensive tackle but didn't even have a pressure. He did almost get to the quarterback late in the game but he was just a half a second late and it gave Drew Stanton just long enough to get the ball off to Calvin Johnson for a 1st down.

I had him with 1 tackle and 2 assists and he did hustle well to the ball all day. But the Bucs needed more production out of him yesterday and didn't get it. With McCoy out he has to find a way to make more plays if this defense is going to have a shot at being any good.

Michael Bennett: I still believe that playing Bennett at undertackle instead of Okam was the better option. Okam played ok but he wasn't dynamic and I believe Bennett would have been.

Just had to say that.

I only had Bennett with 1 assisted tackle. He did force a holding penalty with his penetration one play which was good. But he is another guy who needed to be more productive yesterday and wasn't. Potential is great but unless production follows it all goes to waste. At some point Bennett is simply going to have to play better or he will be one of those guys that get labeled as never fulfilling his potential.

Al Woods: I had Woods with two tackles. He played well most of the day but on a simple ISO play he got knocked into the opposite A gap opening up a huge lane for the running back to go through. He is going to have to work on anchoring in their against double teams.

Alex Magee: Magee got a lot more oportunities on Sunday and I had him with 1 tackle. He had an opportunity for a sack but he missed the tackle on Stanton. I thought he played ok.

Well that's all for now, see you in the comments section!

Spiderman Shiiiiiiiiiii

2010-12-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

This kick was BANANAS!!!

Your Week Fourteen Leader

2010-12-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

And the winner last week was....Butt Watter Drinkers. LOL I crack up every time I type that handle.

In other news, oh how the mighty have fallen! 1Bigg_ER has come back to the pack in 2nd place, and yours truly is now only 27 points out of 1st.

Watch out fatmosh, these last 3 weeks are going to be intense!!!

Don't forget to get your picks in today, and as always good luck!

Bull Rush

2010-12-14T03:05:00.001-05:00

I, like many Bucs fans I imagine, was fired up during the first half of the game on Sunday about how turrible the Bucs looked playing the run against the Redskins. I figured, hey I just bought this new webcam and I have a lot to say so screw it, I'll just do a vlog!

Well after several attempted installations and troubleshooting I'm pronouncing that effort an EPIC FAIL.

I was so frustrated I just about said to hell with it and refused to blog about the game, especially since the Bucs won. But I figured that would be kind of trifling this late in the season to just drop the ball like that.

Which is why I'm up at 1:30 blogging right now instead of sleeping.

SMDH!

Anyway this will be another one of those instances where I just get it all off my chest in one post and then move on so get ready for a long post and probably a good bit of rambling thoughts.

I figured first off I might as well address the dismal performance by the Bucs defense in the first half. No diagrams this time but I'll give you the short version of what happened and who was at fault.

Keep in mind that in most of the Bucs' base defenses every guy has their own gap. It's why they call it a "one gap defense"(!). So all it takes on any given play is one guy to screw up and the running back can be out of the gate. But if you compound it with people in the secondary screwing up then you turn a good gain into a 54 yard run.

Other times however a team just runs a better scheme than your defense. This actually was the case several times as I will point out. Even when everybody essentially did their job the defense was still at a disadvantage.

You will notice many of these plays were back to back. It was truly unbelievable to see so many screwups in such a short period of time but the good news is the Bucs were still able to overcome it.

13:09 1st and 15 The Redskins just run a simple one back zone play. The first problem is that Roy Miller, who played a lot better in the second half, went up field and got reached by the center. Its the same problem he has had in other games and this time the defense paid for it. The ball ran in what was his gap after the guard went up to block the linebacker Barrett Ruud. Now Ruud is in decent shape to make the play about 6 or 7 yards up the field or at the least turn it to the safety, in this case Corey Lynch, who SHOULD be filling the ally. What ACTUALLY happened was that Lynch took a poor angle and ran right into the back of Ruud taking them both out of the play and opening the flood gates. 54 yards latter the Bucs at least kept the Redskins out of the endzone which although underplayed by many in the media, was really the catalyst for them winning the game. If they gave up TDs then there never would have been those missed field goals and the game would have been out of hand early.

Just thought I'd point that out.

6:48 1st and 10 The NFL being a copycat league, the Redskins featured that Saints play I drew up a while ago with a new twist. Instead of using two tight ends they used two wide receivers. And instead of both of them going to the flat on the snap, this time the receiver that was wide and the one that was close to the tackle in the slot criss crossed. The effect this had was the slot receiver still took one defender, usually an outside linebacker, out of the box while heading out to the flat, but the receiver that was out wide had the opportunity to come back in the box and help double team the middle linebacker.

Let me say this, I watched those plays over and over and tried to come up with a defense to stop it and short of calling a blitz, which obviously you can't do every play, I had a hard time coming up with an obvious way to stop it. So kudos to the Redskins for their ingenuity. (of course I STILL wonder why the Bucs aren't using the same play which gives their own defense fits)

This particular time the problem was Tim Crowder not getting under the kickout block along with the fact that Miller allowed himself to be pushed too far inside by the guard. The result was a lane big enough to drive a Mac truck through and the Redskins ended up picking up 12 yards. The WR didn't make it to double Ruud but he didn't have to because Ruud went with his correct fit inside of the offensive tackle which walled him off from being able to make the play.

6:13 1st and 10 The Redskins ran a zone iso strong. I've wondered several times this year why the Bucs line up with a 3-4 look a few times a game. It hasn't really hurt them most of the year but I can't remember it ever being some huge help either.

Well this time, it hurt. The Bucs tried a cross blitz with Ruud running up in the A gap and Geno Hayes crossing behind him to the B gap. Unfortunately the guard was waiting on Geno and grabbed him and kept him from getting over the top. Up front Gerald McCoy was lined up in a 5 technique outside of the offensive tackle but on the snap he went inside to try to make a play. Instead he missed the tackle and gave up the C gap between the offensive tackle and the tight end.

Now Quincy Black was on the line outside of the tight end but he isn't a true 3-4 linebacker obviously so he got pushed off the line and wasn't able to squeeze the hole at all. At that point there is nobody on the second level to tackle the running back and there are blockers in front of him damn near like a screen.

End result, 23 yard gain.

5:29 1st and 10 Redskins run that Saints play again. This time the defensive line does a decent job. McCoy gets enough penetration to get a hand on the running back but can't bring him down with the offensive tackle still hanging on his back. Crowder did a good job of playing the kick out block which was a cut block and makes the ball bounce a gap wider. Unfortunately Ruud is doubled by the WR and offensive guard and Black is being blocked to the outside by the slot WR. That creates another natural lane and the running back finds it for another 10 yards.

2:22 1st and 10 The Skins run a zone cutback. Michael Bennett at left end decides not to try to get under the kickout block and instead go for the tackle on the running back. Unfortunately he missed and allowed the running back to continue basically going north and south instead of having to cut behind him. That was really unfortunate because this time the Bucs played a defense where Strong Safety Sean Jones was in the box to Bennett's side and was a free hitter to make the play if it has to bounce. Instead the free hitter was wasted and the running back gained 12 more yards.

2nd Quarter

13:53 3rd and 5 Redskins run a zone cutback with the tight end coming across the formation to kick out the end man on the line. Because its 3rd down the Bucs have their pass rushing group up front in and they blitz. Everyone is in their gap for the most part but Geno gets held by the offensive tackle and can't come off the block to tackle the running back coming straight through his gap. It was a pretty obvious hold to me but I'm not making any excuses.

What killed me about this play though was that Corey Lynch flew up into the box on the snap but instead of going for the running back he basically just ran blindly into the pile. He was a free hitter who could have, in theory at least, stopped the running back short of the 1st down marker. Instead there was nobody home and the Skins picked up another 8 yards and the 1st.

13:13 1st and 10 They ran the Saints play yet again. This time Alex Magee is at defensive end and he doesn't get under the kick out block. Also Jones comes flying in trying to get a knock out blow on the running back and instead misses the tackle. Instead of a gain of maybe 5 yards or so, it becomes a gain of 12 yards and another 1st down.

2:17 1st and 10 This was just a simple zone play. I'm sure the Bucs were in 2 minute mode though and they had Magee in at nose tackle I presume for pass rush. Well just like Miller, Magee got reached and the ball ran right into his A gap. Ruud had to give a little ground to play the cut block but he maybe could have been a little faster over the top but not by much. Everyone else pretty much played it correctly but one guy getting reached was the catalyst for a 20 yard run.

So lets do the math.

54
12
23
10
12
8
12
+20
131

7 8 runs for 131 yards. Not a good look at all but mostly fixable. Not sure about that Saints play though.

Injuries

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge all the injuries the Bucs have been hit with of late. It sucks when you lose 6 starters in 3 weeks. It hurts doubly when you are the youngest team in the league. And yet the Bucs still are finding ways if not to win, to at least stay in pretty much every game.

And I'll be honest with you, my biggest complaint and concern heading into the season was what I thought was a lack of quality depth behind most of the starters. I am officially eating my words now.

I'm not saying every guy that has gone from the bench to starting or contributing has been a world beater, but at the least they have been good enough to keep the train rolling. If there is one reason in my mind that most personifies why I think Coach Morris should be up for coach of the year in the NFL, its how he has been able to keep this team together and playing well in the face of all of losing so many key people. I may not agree with every decision or every scheme, but you would have to be a blind man not to see the phenomenal job he has done with, and I don't mean this as a knock, somewhat average talent in a lot of spots.

The one thing I do worry about though is how some of these players will come back next year off their injuries. For the Bucs to take the next step guys like McCoy and Brian Price etc will have to take big leaps forward next year and that's hard to do without having a full season of game experience and also trying to just get your body back to 100%. But I'm hopeful that they will dedicate themselves to their rehab and come back ready to roll by training camp.

- One thing about injuries is that it gives other guys opportunities as I kind of alluded to before. One such situation is Bennett potentially being the undertackle the rest of the season. Coach Morris was kind of coy about who would be at that spot today in his press conference but as I look at the roster I don't really see anybody else that fits the position.

Roy Miller CAN play undertackle but at this point he is more off a bulky run stopping guy than a pass rusher. And make no mistake, an undertackle has to be an up the field disruptive pass rusher in addition to being a terror against the run. Al Woods seems like more of a nose now too. And although I don't know a lot about Frank Okam, 330 pounds doesn't exactly sound fast and agile.

Could be wrong though.

The only other guy that I think might be a good match for the position is Magee. He played a little inside in the second half and when he wasn't at nose he looked decent. He has some pretty good pass rush awareness about him too.

But having said that I still think Bennett is the best option for now. I don't think it will be a long term place for him, but this is a chance for him to become a huge factor on the defense. I'm sure teams will run right at him and test his ability to play a double team or a slip block and that's fine, as long as he plays with reckless abandon I don't think it will matter.

But that's just it though, he NEEDS to play with reckless abandon. Its pretty obvious by now that I'm a big fan of who I think Bennett COULD be. He has every tool you could want in a defensive lineman. But its also obvious to me that he is still feeling his way through.

Last year and the beginning of this year Bennett's get off was so much better than everybody else's on the defensive line that he put them all to shame every time the ball was snapped. But here recently his get off has been average at best. When he plays blocks the way he is supposed to he makes plays, explosive tackles, against anybody. But he still tries to free lance a little too much. On pass rush his speed and power should be giving offensive linemen fits. But instead he has started relying way too much on finesse moves and head fakes instead of just smoking a guy around the corner or going right under their chin.

Or hell a combination of both!

If I could get that kid in the lab for a week or two I guarantee you I'd turn him into a monster. Basically I'd just teach him to unleash the beast that he already has shown he has in him and he would end up destroying people.

But since I don't have that kind of contact with him let me write one piece of advice for him at the under tackle position in hopes that somehow some way he gets to see it.

When in doubt, haul ass!!!

One of the things that drove me crazy about McCoy here lately is that he started relying too heavily on inside moves. For one they rarely worked. For two he was basically running himself into a double team if the center had any awareness about him.

With the undertackle you want a guy that pierces the heart of the offensive line's pass protection. That means a guy who is getting upfield and making the quarterback move in the pocket. It doesn't always matter if the undertackle gets a hand on the quarterback or gets the sack. If he can get around the guard and make the quarterback feel him then more than likely he will give the other three defensive linemen an opportunity to get the sack or force the throw.

I've talked before about a natural game where the undertackle gets up field and the defensive end sees the quarterback stepping up and just falls back inside to make the sack. Well that will never happen if the undertackle is never trying to get around the corner on the guard. And so you end up with everyone just stuck on blocks and the only guy really having a legitimate shot at pressure being the backside end who could possibly have a one on one.

This is where Bennett can really shine though, especially against play action pass. If he can start back flying off the ball and getting up the field as an undertackle he will be able to help not only his fellow defensive lineman but the secondary tremendously.

And really, if he isn't hauling ass and using his speed and quickness which are his best assets, what's the use of having him in the game anyway?

- It appears that Mike Williams has caught a mild case of the butter fingers here lately. Thankfully fellow rookie Arrelious Benn has caught fire to take up the slack. Imagine what will happen if both of them start balling out. I asked a question on twitter Sunday and I didn't get a response but I'll ask it again here. Has there ever been too rookie wide receivers on the same team that were both as dynamic as Benn and Williams? I'm not engraving their names in Canton yet, but those two guys are explosive as hell, even though they aren't mirror images of each other. If they can stay healthy......DAMN!!!

- I expressed concerned about Derek Hardman starting at guard last week but I thought he played pretty damn well. I know some folks will blame him for the fumble on the goalline but it wasn't his fault. Either you don't call that play on the goalline, OR you don't have Josh Freeman reverse out for the handoff. One of the two. But aside from that play and another when he got knocked on his ass on a pass rush where Freeman got sacked, he held his own in there.

- Speaking of Freeman I thought he bounced back well from two "slump" games. He wasn't perfect but the biggest thing he did in my opinion was not turn the ball over (even though he came close a couple of times). And he still took his shots down the field and burned the Redskins with the big play a couple of times. His TD pass to K2 was one of the best throws he has made all year. Indefensible.

- Cadillac Williams made so many little plays in the game yesterday to help the Bucs win that its hard to point them all out. The one handed grab that moved them close enough for a field goal. The catch in the flat where he makes a move for the first down. He continues to be an asset and he has accepted his demotion with as much class as I think anyone could. I don't know what the future holds for him but I for one wouldn't mind seeing him continue here in the third down role he has carved out for himself.

- I have to give it up for Ronde Barber again. All he did was go out and make 10 total tackles by my count, get a pressure, a PBU and and hit on the quarterback. The old guy continues to be the glue that holds the Bucs young defense together.

Here are the defensive line breakdowns:

Tim Crowder: I had him with a tackle for loss, 1 other tackle, 2 assists a pressure and a pass broken up. Very good game for a guy that was questionable heading into Sunday with a bad shoulder.

Gerald McCoy: Only had him with 1 tackle before the injury. Thought he was getting good penetration though. He also tried another bullshit spin which made my head start spinning.

Roy Miller: As mentioned before Roy had a rough start to the game but he got better as the day went on. I had him with 4 tackles and 2 assists and I have to point out that on Crowder's tackle for a loss it was Roy who PWNED the center and drove him back into the running back which made that play possible in the first place.

Now he just has to work on getting off to a better start.

Stylez G. White: I had Stylez with 1 tackle for loss, 2 other tackles and an assist. He didn't get the pressure we are used to seeing from him per se, but I will say I was encouraged to see him working a lot more inside moves. He needs some help from the rest of his line mates though.

Mike Bennett: He wasn't always perfect but he made some nice plays. 3 tackles an assist and a pressure by my count. That one tackle he made down at the goalline was just ferocious. Hoping to see more consistency out of him in these last three games though.

Al Woods: I thought Woods played well at nose tackle. I had him with 1 tackle and two assists. He seemed to play the center reach block as well as anybody on Sunday.

Alex Magee: Magee continues to show flashes that intrigue me. He only had one assist by my count but I saw him make some pretty nice pass rush moves. In particular he had a nice hands move when rushing inside and he had a good long arm when rushing at defensive end. He, like Bennett, has to be more on the details but I'm hoping to get to see more of him the next few weeks to see how he progresses.

Well my eyes are glazing over so that's all for now. See you in the comments section!

Shaming The Devil

2010-12-13T13:04:00.000-05:00

The NFL screwed up yesterday in the Bucs vs Redskins game.

To compound matters they lied about screwing up.

And in fact the media helped them try to pull a fast one on the fans.

Well, you know me. I'm calling bullshit.

At the end of the game the Redskins were driving on the Bucs and got the ball down to the 12. I know it was at the 12 for several reasons. For one the line judge was standing right on the 12 looking down the line to see if anybody was lined up offsides. For two the ball was lined up on the 12. And for three the official scorer listed the ball as being on the 12 on the play by play viewable on nfl.com.

Now I'm no math major but that means the Redskins would have had to get to the 2 yardline or beyond for a first down. Well instead they completed a pass down to about the 3, and this is where it gets wacky.

The scoreboard, one sideline set of sticks and the Fox broadcast all had the next play as 2nd and 1. On the other side of the field however one set of sticks had the play as 1st and goal. How did this happen?

Well for some odd reason the people on that side of the field put the yard marker for a first down on the 3 instead of the 2 and instead of actually measuring the yardage after the catch on 1st down the officials just decided it "looked like" a first down. Now the thing of it is everything would have been fine had they just called for the chains for a measurement. It would have shown that somebody screwed up in putting the marker on the 3 instead of the 2 and it would in fact have been 2nd and 1.

Instead an official just pronounced it a 1st down albeit VERY quietly.

Notice on the play by play that the only way the official scorer can cover for the officials is to indeed list the ball as being on the 2. But it wasn't on the two. AND THAT WAS THE POINT! If you recorded the game its quite obvious that the ball is on the 3 at best and not close to the 2. Its at least a full 2 yards from the 2. But if the official scorer doesn't list it at the 2 then they are admitting that it wasn't a first down.

Technically the Redskins didn't get a 5th down. What they got was 5 opportunities when according to the yardage they should have only had 4. I don't know if their play calling would have changed had they been aware that they didn't have a 1st and goal but that doesn't change the fact that the officials screwed up that spot.

But what's most discouraging about the whole fiasco is that once the NFL saw that Fox had pointed this out and they went into spin mode, most of the media just repeated what they were told instead of checking it out for themselves. And in fact several were kind of cavalier about it, blaming all of the confusion on the Fox broadcast instead of the refs.

Well at least one journalist, AP writer Joseph White Jr. (no relation) saw the same thing I saw and tweeted this:

Watching replay, I see how #Redskins got "5th down": Chains only measured 9 yds for 1st down. (12-yd line to 3-yd line)

See the only way the explanation possibly works is if the ball was spotted on the 13 or further away. The mere fact that the NFL's own scorer listed the 12 as the spot before the supposed 1st down destroys the NFL's own explanation.

In the end the Bucs still won and for that we are all thankful, but I hope the journalists who so enthusiastically put out the NFL's version of events last night take a second look and question the NFL further about this. If not they really aren't doing their job in my opinion.

Your Week Thirteen Leader

2010-12-09T08:22:00.000-05:00

We have another newcomer to the weekly crown as Keanu Reeve's Beard took the title this week. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has continued to make picks every week even when it seemed like you were out of contention. Hopefully next year we can get a lot more participation.

As for the overall lead this 1Bigg_Er character is still in the lead but I'm closing at third place. Its going to come down to the wire and you know the old saying, pressure burst pipes!!!

Everyone remember to get your picks in today since we have another Thursday game and as always good luck!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

2010-12-08T00:26:00.000-05:00

Not going to go through any of the categories this time just going to give some thoughts on the game.

- Several people have asked me in the comments and offline whether I agreed with Coach Morris' decision to punt late in the third quarter. My answer is an unequivocal YES! I understand that people may have the opinion that we should have gone for it there but I'll explain my thinking on it.

First we were up 3 late in the third quarter and our defense this year has been very stingy in the second half. We were already on the Atlanta 41 true but that meant that if we didn't convert on 4th down we would give the Falcons the ball close to midfield only down a field goal. Also we had just tried to convert a 3rd and 1 and we were stuffed. Better to punt the ball, pin the Falcons deep and hopefully get them to punt backed up and play the field position game. In that scenario we get the ball back after the punt somewhere close to midfield which in theory would put us in better position to score.

Now the punt did indeed pin the Falcons back at the 3. Unfortunately we let them get two first downs so they were able to punt from their own 29 instead of from inside the 10, but we still got the ball back after the punt at our own 37 which is pretty good field position. And in fact the drive got off to a decent start but we had a penalty on 3rd and 6 when we had converted for a 1st down and ended up not converting on 3rd and 11. Our punter then booms a punt into the endzone so the Falcons got it on the 20 instead of it being again inside the 10.

So that part didn't work out. But hindsight is always 20/20. Punting on 4th and 1 in that situation and knowing our team was exactly what most coaches would do. And its definitely what I would have done in the same situation. And lets keep it real here, the Falcons ended up throwing an interception and we ended u scoring a touchdown to go up 10. It still worked out and I doubt anybody would be second guessing the call now had we not given up a touchdown on the subsequent kickoff.

- Speaking of that kickoff. I know that Mo Stovall has taken responsibility and that's admirable, but he should have been far from a lone in owning up to that play. Hell Stovall missed the tackle and at least got up and ran his ass off to try to get the return man from behind. Let's talk about the other guys responsible.

Elbert Mack, Myron Lewis, Sammie Stroughter, Vince Anderson and Adam Heyward ALSO all had opportunities to tackle Eric Weems, the Falcons' return man. Although in fairness Stroughter was blatantly blocked in the back WHILE HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE THE TACKLE!!! There is no excuse for the officials missing that call, it was egregious and definitely effected the outcome of the play and the game.

I will say though that the media shouldn't have just taken Stovall's word for it and stopped looking for who was at fault because there was a LOT of blame to go around.

- The injuries to Jeff Faine and Aqib Talib were of course huge. I will say though that E.J. Biggers stepped up big time to fill in for Talib against Roddy White. He played like a starter and there wasn't much of a drop off at all. Myron Lewis however, who was pressed into Biggers' role, played like...well a rookie. He had some good plays but everyone will probably focus on the game winning touchdown he gave up to Michael Jenkins. I'll point out though that the kid was in really good position and I really think had he stretched out his close arm which was his right arm to knock down the ball instead of his right he probably would have gotten a PBU. That's not to say whether the Falcons would have scored or not, but it just shows how something that small technique wise can be a huge thing during the game.

Faine going down however kind of exposed a quirk of the Bucs' decision to keep Derek Hardeman, a tackle, up for the game instead of the Brandon Carter, a guard, whom they had just brought up off the practice squad to take Davin Joseph's roster spot after he went on IR. Now I don't pretend to know what kind of week of practice Carter had last week, but I do know that with Trueblood up the Bucs didn't really need another tackle active. At least not on paper.

Now I'm not trying to knock Hardeman because I thought he came in and held his own, but you could tell that the offensive line was missing something with all the shuffling. Maybe ultimately Hardeman will be a decent guard, but it just makes me wonder if Carter would have been the better backup option on the interior on Sunday.

- The Bucs have not one but the top two steals of the draft this year in my opinion. Mike Williams is obviously supremely talented but Legarrette Blount going over 100 yards was huge on Sunday. I really believe his running was the main reason the game was so close to begin with. If these young guys we have that are performing can stay healthy the foundation has been set for many years to come.

- I really wish the 3-3-5 would die a spectacularly gruesome death. Check the comments section on that post also for my answer on how successful it was, or rather wasn't on Sunday against the Falcons.

- Josh Freeman was pretty bad on Sunday, but at the same time he made several outstanding plays both with his arms and his legs. But the interceptions including the one that was overturned, just appeared to be cases where he stared down the receiver and tipped his hand. In fact it appeared that the Falcons were sitting hard on all of the Bucs' short routes which made it curious to me that Freeman didn't take the shots downfield against them like he did against the Ravens the week earlier. I hope he didn't lose some of his aggressiveness. What he has to do is find that happy medium where he hits the open guy to keep the sticks moving but once he has an opportunity down the field he takes it and makes the opposing defense pay. But that last interception was picked practically before it left his hand. He gave himself no chance of success throwing at Grimes who was in tight coverage when staring down Mike Williams whom its apparent he favors a lot.

- The defense fell apart on the drive where the the Falcons scored the game winning touchdown, but not in the way some probably think. Yes they gave up the 3rd and 20 which should have been a gimmie, but they also committed two very costly penalties to keep the drive alive. On 3rd and 1 Ronde gets called on a PI on a pass that I think was probably uncatchable by Tony Gonzales. And in reality I think it looked worse than what it was because Gonzales fell down after stepping on Geno Hayes who had fallen down covering someone else. That was another spot where we could have gotten off the field. And then of course the horse collar by Quincy Black on 2nd and 8 from our 31. With a horse collar you can't grab a guy by the back of the shoulder pads BUT if you let go and don't take them down by the back of the shoulder pads its not a penalty. Black on the other hand didn't just grab Michael Turner by the back of the shoulder pads, he grabbed him with one hand and then grabbed him with the other to make it painfully obvious. And the tragedy of it all was at that point Turner was already headed out of bounds, Barrett Ruud was right there to help out on the tackle, and it was going to bring up an 3rd and 8. Instead it turned into 1st and 10 at our 16 and well...we all know the rest.

- Arellious Benn had a fantastic run after the catch on a simple smoke route to set up the Bucs just shy of the goalline in the fourth quarter. To be honest I can't understand why he doesn't get more of those opportunities when corners are 7 to 10 yards off him pre snap. I'm not talking about a WR screen which tends to bring defenders over with the blockers. I'm talking about Freeman getting under center, raising up and throwing it to Benn and letting him work to make the corner miss in a one on one situation. It's what I thought was missing from the game plan against the Ravens and I thought the Bucs could have used it more against the Falcons as well. I'd definitely try to use it more going forward if I were them.

- Speaking of plays I'd use on offense, remember some weeks back when I drew up the Saints' running plays? Well diagram number 7 is a damn monster. With the variation of sending both tightends out to the flat at the snap it makes it hard as hell for a defense to stop that play because of the angles and the rules most defenders have to follow. If I were the Bucs I would run that play 4 or 5 times a day if not more. I can tell you this much, damn near every opponent they have faced this year have run some variation of it and they have all found some degree of success too. Hell what's good for the goose is good for the gander and that's one way to get Blount up into the secondary with a full head of steam on a consistent basis.

Well that's all for this week. See you in the comments section.

Bull Rush

2010-12-06T16:02:00.001-05:00

When writing my posts about the Bucs I try to stay as objective as possible. You may not notice it but a lot of times I have to go back and substitute "they" for "we". Its because no matter what I will always feel allegiance to a franchise that I played for for six years of my life. But I don't want to give the impression that I am biased towards them in my posts because I don't want anyone to be able to question the credibility of the substance of my critiques. But every once in awhile the Bucs will play a game where its damn near impossible for me to hide my biases.

The Atlanta game yesterday was one of those games.

We should have won that game.

Don't get me wrong, before the season started I had plenty of doubt about whether we could beat the Falcons this year. They looked to be a much improved squad and we couldn't even beat them last year. Add to that all the recent injuries before the game and during the game yesterday and you could make the case that it was a long shot.

But after watching the game for the second time I am even more convinced that WE SHOULD HAVE WON THAT GAME!!!

There was no one play that lost us the game any more than there was any won play that put us in a position to win it. But at crucial moments in the game the Bucs just fell short. But it was so close. So damn close that I'm sure those players could damn near taste it. And that makes the loss just that much harder to digest.

What makes it worse is the talking point that all sports pundits have now to dismiss everything these young Bucs have accomplished this year. That they haven't beaten a team with a winning record. Never mind that other, to most people better teams, have lost to some of those same teams that the Bucs beat out (Patriots losing big time to the Browns for example). People haven't wanted to believe in the Bucs all year and now this loss helps their case. It doesn't matter that a team which many are calling the best in the NFC could only beat the Bucs by 6 at home and 4 on the road. Nope, the Bucs are supposedly frauds in a lot of people's minds after yesterday.

BULLSHIT!!!

You're talking about a team where only one offensive lineman has started all 12 games. A team that is down to its 3rd free safety (or technically fourth). A team that is the youngest in all of the NFL and they STILL have 7 wins including 4 on the road.

Yeah they might not make the playoffs but lets be real for a moment. They have ALREADY exceeded most people's expectations, "soft" schedule or not, and then some. And they still have a chance at a winning record with their remaining schedule consisting of the Redskins, Lions, and Seahawks to go along with the defending world champion Saints.

So if you want to call the Bucs frauds its best if you not do it around me. Because I still remember all the naysayers BEFORE the season started. I remember all the people who didn't think it was possible for the Bucs to win six games all year. This team has and continues to out perform expectations, sometimes even in a loss. And I for one am not about to allow the same people who dogged them before the season act like they were predicting a Super Bowl now.

As for the game yesterday the defensive line played well if not spectacular but that was partly by the Falcons' design. Instead of running at the defensive line as they had in the previous game, this time they ran a lot more at the edges. They were pinning in the defensive end and undertackle and getting a pulling guard out on the linebacker. They put pressure on the secondary to be perfect in their run fits and unfortunately that wasn't all the case. But there wasn't much the defensive line could do about it except try to get up the field on those blocks which they did a decent job of all day. And not for nothing the defense did hold Michael Turner to less than 100 yards for once.

Now I know I have beaten this dead horse all year but it literally made my head hurt to see the Bucs use the 3-3-5 so much yesterday. We may not have any pro bowlers up front but we do have some guys who can pass rush if given a chance. Instead they were put in situations where they three guys had to try to beat five along with a chip block or we blitzed which never seems to get much pressure either. Don't get me wrong, a few times guys still were able to beat two offensive lineman and get some pressure, but why make it so damn hard? I just will never understand why Coach Morris is so wedded to a defense that doesn't produce favorable results the majority of the time. Especially when in my eyes its clear that a four man rush has been much more productive this year.

I'll tell you this much, no matter what anybody says I am convinced that we would have been better off rushing four to at least have a shot of getting some pressure on Matt Ryan on 3rd and 20 instead just rushing three. And while that one play didn't lose the game for us, that conversion was definitely a back breaker.

Individual breakdowns:

Tim Crowder: I didn't have Crowder down for a single stat. Some of that I'm sure is due to the Falcons' blocking scheme because its not like he played poorly. But some of it is also because of how much 3-3-5 the Bucs ran which he isn't in on. I will say this, some people believe that the touchdown run by Turner was Crowder's fault. It wasn't. He had to try to spill the play by getting underneath the tight end coming across the formation and he did that. But the hole Turner had to run through was just too large and so he couldn't get far enough inside the block to make the tackle. Roy Miller was actually the problem on that play which I will get to later.

Gerald McCoy: I had McCoy down for a tackle, 3 pressures, a hit on the quarterback and a forced holding penalty off another good pass rush. It was a decent game for him production wise but again he didn't have near enough opportunities to rush from a 3 technique in my opinion. He also had the stupid personal foul penalty after the Falcons were already in a hole because of their own personal foul against Roddy White. The replay didn't show clearly why he hit the offensive lineman in the back but it was way too late and way too obvious for the refs not to throw a flag.

Now I said my peace about bullying the bullies on Friday but what he did simply didn't fit into that category as best I could tell. I don't know what the guy did to provoke McCoy but when its that late and away from the actual play he has to let it ride until the next down.

One question I had was why he decided to all of a sudden start doing spin moves. I don't think that was a good move for the kind of offensive lineman he faced anyway but more to the point I don't know if that's a good move for him anyway. It could be, at some point. But why try it out against a big game like this one? Kind of a head scratcher if you ask me.

Roy Miller: I had Miller with a tackle and an assist and a forced holding penalty on a running play. I thought he played ok for most of the day but the Falcons' blocking scheme along with the Bucs game plan of having him line up in a G technique a lot on the guard rather than the center didn't lend itself to him having a big day of production. On the touchdown play to Turner he simply allowed himself to be caved in too far by the guard. He ended up all the way over by the opposite defensive tackle which created far too great a lane for Turner to run through. Now that play was an anomaly for him yesterday as he wasn't getting pushed around most of the game. Still he has to learn how to anchor in and fight pressure better, especially that close to the goalline.

Stylez G. White: I had Stylez with a tackle, an assist, 3 pressures and 3 hits on the quarterback. If there is one guy who probably could have made more of a difference with more 4 man rushes it was probably White who was really getting after it yesterday. I'm sure the left tackle for the Falcons is grateful that he didn't get those opportunities though.

Michael Bennett: By my count Bennett had 2 tackles. He had an opportunity for a tackle for a loss but he couldn't bring Turner down. Bennett continues to be frustrating to watch because he never seems to put it all together. He had a really nice spin but he fell down. He has improved on playing the run but now it seems like his pass rush has fallen off. He keeps trying to be too finesse for my taste instead of just running around or through his opponents. I don't think he has a clue how good he could be. But at some point you have to show more than just potential and that moment is fast approaching.

Al Woods: I had Woods down for 1 tackle. I thought he played well, if sparingly.

Alex Magee: I didn't have Magee down for any stats.

That's all for today. I haven't been in the comments section lately but I'll try to do better this week.

Unsolicited Advice

2010-12-03T16:57:00.001-05:00

Just finished watching the first Bucs vs Falcons game from earlier this year and the Falcons vs Packers game from last week and I had some thoughts specifically for the defensive linemen. Not that any of them will ever read this but if they did here's what I would say to them.

- I backs was almost always a run. Weak offset I backfield was usually pass. I'd take that into account presnap. Meaning if its I backs I'm looking run first and especially looking at the offensive line to see if there are other give aways as to where they are trying to go with the ball. If its a weak offset I backfield then I'm looking to see if the offensive line is light in their stance and planning my pass rush move. Nothing wrong with making educated guesses.

- Chip the chipper. In the first game Jason Snelling chipped our defensive ends several times and knocked them down on the way out for a pass. I would suggest that when a defensive end sees him lined up offset to his side on a passing down to go right at him and knock him on his ass. Or at the least chuck the hell out of him. For one it may give you a chance to knock him into the offensive tackle so that you can get a sack. For two Snelling is a big part of the passing game, not only as a receiver but also as a guy who attracts the underneath coverage and opens things up at the intermediate level for Tony Gonzales. Delaying him from getting out into his route will help the pass coverage a lot.

- Roy Miller started with his improved play for the last few weeks with a good showing against Atlanta the first go around. He will need a better performance this time to help get the win. One thing about the Falcons is that they allow their center to single block the nose tackle a lot more than normal. What he tries to do is get the nosetackle to push him upfield rather than expanding, especially when there is a zone running play called. My advice would be for Roy to tighten down his alignment a little bit so that he heavier on the center. And then when the center tries to reach him rather than getting up field he should try to rip off and go laterally to either make the tackle or make the ball bounce back behind him. And Al Woods who backs Miller up should be doing the same thing.

- I think Gerald McCoy can have another dominant game this week. They key in my opinion will be for him to also get heavier on his guard and go with mostly power rushes against the pass. One of the things Atlanta is really good at in the run game is doing a slip block where the guard gets a piece of the undertackle then goes up to the linebacker while the offensive tackle gets inside of the undertackle. If McCoy gets heavier on the guard he can make it harder for him to get up to the linebacker and also harder for the offensive tackle to get inside of him. With Michael Turner the Falcons don't run a lot of wide stuff anyway so getting reached isn't really a big worry this week.

On pass rush I know McCoy has some great finesse moves but the Matt Ryan is a guy who generally tries to get the ball out of his hands quickly. That means you want to try to take the quickest route possible to get to him and that's right through the guards. Now I wouldn't mind him doing some bull rushes and then ripping inside but I don't think this is the week to just make finesse inside moves. Cullen Jenkins made a really good one last week and got good pressure but the thing to notice is that he didn't reach to make the move. Instead he kept his hands tight and insteaad of going for the guard's shoulder he went for his inside hand and got it. McCoy will be able to do that one day but right now he is still reaching for the guard's shoulder which means he is still getting punched in the chest. For the most part I would stick to outside power rushes quite honestly and I think he will dominate the Falcons' offensive line.

- When its a definite passing situation and the Bucs have the occasion to keep four defensive linemen in and let them rush I would go with EX games all day with the left end and left defensive tackle. I wouldn't run any games on the right side because for whatever reason the center tends to slide that way a lot regardless of formation. The EX game allows the end to get away from the chip block while going in and punishing the guard. The key will be the set up by the defensive tackle. They need to either show a bullrush to get the guard to sit down or make a realistic inside move to get the guard to follow them down and allow the end time enough to get inside the offensive tackle. Once they feel the end hitting the guard they can loop around to contain Ryan who while a decent athlete isn't exactly a speed demon.

- Stylez White should make power rushes and inside moves all day long to start the game and then in the second half once the offensive tackle is tired of getting hit under the chin, give him some stutter and go moves to get around the corner. One thing about the Falcons offensive line is that because they run so much zone none of them are especially big. Stylez should tear the left tackle up in the second half, if given the opportunity.

- This is a game where Tim Crowder and Michael Bennett could be huge. In addition to chucking Snelling they are both good bullrushers around the edge. If they can just concentrate on being definitive with that move they will get a lot of pressure. They also should have some opportunities to run natural games behind McCoy if he is getting up field a lot. Kyle Moore actually almost got a sack that way in the first game but Ryan just barely gained a yard before he could bring him down.

- The Falcons like to run that Saints play a lot where they have the tight end run out to the flat to get the end upfield and then send the fullback to kick him out. Atlanta also runs a lot of split belly/split zone type stuff too where the fullback or a backside tight end comes across to cut off the defensive end. It will be major for the ends this week to get inside all of those cut off blocks. If they can do that they will make a ton of tackles and or make the running back have to try to bounce outside to all the help.

- This last suggestion maybe should have been first. One thing I notice from watching several games of Atlanta this year is that their right tackle and right guard are assholes. They cheap shot guys and late hit. They will try to give a guy the business on the ground after the play is over. One time in the first game Roy had shed the center and was about to make the play when the center shot at his knee and started rolling.

My suggestion? Its time to bully the bullies.

I'm not talking about getting kicked out of a game. I'm not even necessarily talking about getting a personal foul. But its time to show the Falcons that there aren't any punks in a Bucs uniform. See a guy trying to clean up a pile? Clean his ass up. See a guy giving your teammate the business on the ground? Snatch his ass up and get in his face.

I know some folks will say that's just what they want you to do but in my experience that's bullshit. Bullies are generally bullies not because they are smart but because nobody has ever stood up to them. Those assholes play like that because they think it makes them look tough. Well you punch a bully in the mouth and they tend to close up shop. Oh and if there's a chance to run that EX game the defensive end should come in and earhole the guard and try to knock his block off.

This is a division game against two teams that don't really like each other anyway. Its time for somebody or somebodies on the defensive line to show that they have some dog in them. I'm not saying start the fight, I'm just saying END IT!

That's all I have for today. Can't wait to see the Bucs shock the world on Sunday!

Your Week Twelve Leader

2010-12-02T09:42:00.000-05:00

Finally the crown has come back home! With 77 points I crushed the competition last week and am now 3rd and back in contention for the #1 spot. With 5 weeks left its anybody's ball game and I'm going for mine.

Don't forget to get your picks in tonight for the Thursday night game and as always, good luck!

Making Moves

2010-12-01T10:40:00.000-05:00

So the Sabby Piscitelli era is over in Tampa Bay. I can't say I'm all that surprised. Remember I didn't think he would or should make the final roster coming out of training camp. He didn't help himself by complaining about being beaten out by Sean Jones and his play Sunday certainly didn't merit any additional playing time. I don't know if there was more to why the Bucs released him but I do know that we are a better defense without him on the field.

It appears by looking on the depth chart on the Bucs website that Corey Lynch will indeed be the starter on Sunday. It also appears that he will be backed up by a guy we signed off the Browns practice squad yesterday, Larry Asante. I liked Asante in the draft this spring and was disappointed that the Bucs didn't draft him in the later rounds. But we all have to hope Lynch is healthy the whole game because I can't see Asante being ready to play meaningful snaps after only one week in the system.

Another move the Bucs made was signing Vince Anderson off the practice squad to the active roster. Anderson was a guy who caught my eye in the preseason with his physical nature at the safety position. I didn't write much about him because it was apparent numbers wise that he had little chance of making the team. But I am excited to see what he can do when he gets on the field. Granted any time he gets, if any at all, will be on special teams, I still have this feeling that he is going to blow somebody up if given the opportunity.

As for the other moves of bringing up Dezmon Briscoe and Brandon Carter, I think the Bucs decided to reward two guys who have been on the practice squad all year. I don't we particularly need another wide receiver since here lately Preston Parker hasn't even been active but Briscoe has some upside to him. As for Carter I think he may end up being a valuable backup at guard with Davin Joseph going to IR. I hope that they don't end up needing him though or the Bucs are really going to be in a pickle.

Injuries never happen at a good time but Cody Grimm and Joseph going down right before a showdown against the Bucs division rival, the Falcons, really sucks. But I wouldn't count them out just yet. Lynch isn't the hitter that Grimm was in my opinion but I think he has better ball skills. While the Bucs may give up something on defense when Atlanta is running the ball, I think they might gain something when they try to pass it. And I think the offensive line will be ok with Zuttah in the starting line up. This is still a winnable game for the Bucs if everyone just focuses on doing THEIR job.

In a season where the Bucs have shocked a lot of people already I think the biggest shock may be on Sunday...

One Stop Shopping

2010-11-30T01:01:00.000-05:00

Ok so I'm a little under the weather today so obviously no Bull Rush post. So I have made an executive decision to just write everything I'm going to write about the Bucs vs Ravens game in one post almost in a stream of consciousness style and then put the individual D Line break down at the end. I expect it will be longish and I expect some folks may not like it. And I expect I don't care all that much at this point but I'll still do my best.

I think its best if I go by offense/defense and then the breakdowns so guess what, that's what I'm going to do.

Offense

-After the game I had an interesting back and forth with one of the Bucs fans who follow me and has been a loyal reader of my blog since last year. His contention was that Greg Olsen's offensive game plan was lacking and that it played a major part in the loss.

I didn't agree with him and in fact I thought it was one of Olsen's better game plans of the season. Understand that I'm not really an Olsen fan and I have called him out previously on this very same blog, so me giving him any props isn't what you would call normal. But watching the game live I thought he committed to running the ball and he called down hill runs which our O Line is much better at blocking. I also thought he dialed up some good play action passes that they just didn't end up converting. It was my belief right after the game that it was the execution that was lacking, not the game plan.

Turns out others evidently also were questioning Olsen's playcalling judging by local sports talk radio and questions lobbed at Coach Morris by the papers. Obviously this was something worth looking into more closely.

So I watch the game again and...

I haven't changed my mind AT ALL. In fact if anything I'm even more convinced now that the game plan was sound. But I also realize that if people watched the game on TV the announcers kept harping on the game plan and offering up the opinion that the Bucs should have gone to a no huddle or a "sugar huddle" (what ever the eff that means) to change the tempo of the game.

Well first let me address the no huddle deal. It's true the Bucs could have gone to a no huddle offense and I can respect people who have that opinion. But here are the facts about that. Fact number one is that the Falcons who were most effective at it DID IT AT HOME. Obviously its going to be easier to run a no huddle offense when you in a dome and your fans aren't screaming at the top of their lungs to disrupt your communication. Fact number two is that the Bucs started going no huddle with 7:43 left in the game. They had an opportunity for a touchdown with 6:19 remaining when Michael Spurlock dropped the touchdown. If they score with that much time left would anybody be saying they should have started the no huddle sooner? Fact number three is that the drive preceding the one that started with 7:43 left in the game started with 14:15 left in the game. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Bucs didn't think it would be wise to go no huddle for the whole fourth quarter. And fact number four is that the Ravens are a team that is built around defense. If you think that running a no huddle is some kind of magical cure to beating them or that they can't still dial up blitzes against a no huddle you are out of your mind. Going no huddle earlier may have helped but it also could have gotten Josh Freeman killed, especially if the offensive linemen had bad communication.

Now that we got that out of the way let me also talk about Freeman's performance. I know Coach Morris and Freeman himself said he was "off". But I don't know if fans or even some media knows what they meant by that. I would guess that some would take it to mean his accuracy was "off" and in a few circumstances it in fact was. But after watching the game three times what was really off about Freeman was his reads.

Understand that Freeman was getting pressured most of the day so he wasn't always able to go through all of his progressions downfield. But there were times when I felt like presnap he should have had a good idea of who would be open but either didn't hit them or scrambled at a time when the rush didn't really call for it. Of course its easy for me to say that from my couch and I know its different when you are in that pocket and a bunch of 300 pound guys are trying to rip your head off, but I can only go by what I see on the tape.

And this goes back to the argument about the game plan. People see Freeman take a shot down the field on 3rd and 2 and they figure "why in the hell is the Olsen calling that play?!". Not realizing that there were other routes being run, and many times other guys who were open for a first down but Freeman just chose to go for the deep ball.

Now I like Freeman a lot. I think the maturity he has shown this year has been amazing. I also believe he is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league already. But I want to go through some plays during the game, not to throw him under the bus at all, but to illustrate to people who may not know what other options there were available to him.

-10:10 in the first quarter, 3rd and 3. Freeman feels some pressure so he rolls right and throws deep to Mike Williams but it goes incomplete. Nothing wrong with taking a shot early in the game but he over threw Williams who was indeed open. At the same time Michael Spurlock is running a shallow crossing route from his left and he is open for a first down. Don't know if he would catch it but he is open. Whether it was the roll or the read Freeman chose not to throw it to him though.

-6:44, first quarter, 1st and 10. Freeman takes another shot downfield to Arrelious Benn but again over throws the receiver. At the same time Ryan Purvis was wide open in the flat as the Ravens did not adjust when he motioned out.

-2:58, first quarter, 1st and 10. Its a play action pass but damn near every offensive lineman gets beat and once again Freeman has to roll to his right. He ends up throwing the ball away which I have NO problem with. But at the same time John Gilmore slipped out into a route and he was open for a nice little dump off.

-8:56, second quarter, 1st and 10. The left corner for the Ravens was giving the wide receivers a lot of cushion all day. On this play he was at least 7 or 8 yards off. Benn runs about a 7 yard stop route and is wide open. But instead Freeman throws a swing pass to Cadillac Williams which nets about 2 yards. Now this is a play where I believe good quarterbacks see that cushion and automatically hit the WR and let them work. Its definitely what the Ravens did to the Bucs when they played off coverage. But again maybe that wasn't the read.

-6:18, second quarter, 2nd and 7. This was an opportunity for a touchdown. Williams and Benn lined up on the same side with Benn in the slot. Benn ran a skinny post and Freeman tried to hit him in the seam but he couldn't come down with it. However Benn attracted the underneath coverage and the safety while Williams was running his own skinny post. Williams ended up inside the corner and WIDE open. I honestly don't know how he doesn't score there if the ball is thrown to him.

-2:15, second quarter, 2nd and 13. The Ravens blitz and Mo Stovall runs a hot route at about five yards and he's wide open because the corner has once again given a lot of cushion. Freeman however throws to the other side to Williams who is bracketed by underneath and over the top coverage. Thankfully he saw it and made sure it wasn't an interception by throwing it low and outside. But Stovall was good for at least 8-10 yards.

-10:51, third quarter, 3rd and 2. This was the one time all game when I thought Freeman ran when he didn't actually have to. The Ravens ran a pass rush game against the right side of the Bucs' offensive line but it appeared they had it picked up. But for whatever reason Freeman decided to roll to his right again and he tried to hit Caddy in the flat but couldn't. Now it may have been that the play was designed to go to Caddy to begin with because they had both WRs on the right side run crossing routes and then he snuck through the line to go to the right flats. Maybe it was their way of getting him open in space. I don't know.

What I do know is that Ray Lewis ended up picking up Caddy which I'm sure made Freeman nervous about throwing to him and at the same time Sammie Stroughter was open for a first down running the shallow crosser the other way.

-7:04, third quarter, 2nd and 6. Once again the left corner is in off coverage. This time its Williams that runs about a 5-6 yard stop and is wide open. But Freeman decides to try Stroughter in the slot on a skinny post. In fairness Stroughter was open but the pass was a bit off. Still Williams probably gets a first down and then some with his ability to run after the catch.

-2:30, third quarter, 3rd and 2. Bucs line up in a trips bunch formation and it appears that Stroughter is open at the sticks after they all scatter. But Freeman once again feels the pressure and rolls right and almost throws an interception trying to flip it to Caddy.

-12:16, fourth quarter, 3rd and 2. Freeman takes another shot downfield to Spurlock. And Spurlock is once again open on a go route but the ball is just a bit over thrown. At the same time Stroughter gets inside the safety who is lined up on him in the slot man to man and he is absolutely open for the first down.

Now this is the ultimate in Monday Morning Quarterbacking and I understand that. I don't mean to say that Freeman was wrong in all of these situations or even in any of them. The point is that while he may have taken shots down the field that doesn't mean Olsen wasn't calling plays where guys were open for the first down. You never want to take away a quarterback's aggressiveness as long as he isn't throwing into coverage. But the fact remains that just because a bomb was thrown it doesn't mean that was the only route being run.

I personally thought we ran the ball better than expected against the Ravens. We didn't get a ton of yards but LeGarrette Blount and Caddy made their presence felt several times. One thing that killed some drives was penalties though. For whatever reason Kellen Winslow jumped several times and when he wasn't getting penalties he was getting abused by the Ravens defense when he tried to block in the running game. He had a couple of nice catches including a touchdown but overall I thought he had a pretty bad game.

For the offensive line to be as patchwork as it is I thought they performed at a decent level. I thought Donald Penn was outstanding most of the day both run and pass blocking. I thought James Lee held his own at right tackle as did Jeremy Zuttah who was pressed into service at right guard. Ted Larsen did get over powered a bit by Haloti Ngata but hell who doesn't? The offensive line wasn't great but I thought they played winning football for the most part.

Defense

I don't really know what to say about the defense. On the one hand they held the Ravens to 17 points and they had an outstanding interception by Aqib Talib and they also came home with 4 sacks including 3 by the defensive line.

On the other hand they blitzed something like 25 times and many times those blitzes were ineffective. There was one situation where Stylez G. White went to drop and ran right into Ronde Barber who was trying to blitz. And of course there was the blitz and the end where somehow Tim Crowder ended up one on one in space with Ray Rice with the game on the line and the defense needing a stop which ended up with Rice getting a first down. Not only did the Bucs go back to using the 3-3-5 extensively, they even went to a 2-4-5 with only two defensive lineman in the game several times. Now I can't say it wasn't somewhat effective but it just drives me crazy seeing Gerald McCoy getting two sacks rushing from an undertackle position but then getting limited reps there because of all these other formations they are sticking him in. But it is what it is at this point.

On another note Barrett Ruud is a guy whom I have defended from what I feel like are baseless knocks against him. But at the end of the game, again when the defense needed a stop, he inexplicably was not in his gap on a one back trap and the result was Rice cutting back where he should have been for a first down. He had a decent game otherwise but you can't be out of position like that when the game is on the line.

I have watched the play where the Ravens tight end Todd Heap catches the 65 yard touchdown and in my mind there is only one explanation. Everyone in the secondary appears to be playing cover 2. Everyone that is but Sabby Piscitelli. He rolled up in the box and then kind of stood flat footed at the snap while Heap ran right by him. I don't know how he ended up that out of position but with both corners rolled up and with Sean Jones on the opposite hash at cover 2 depth its hard to see how the call was anything but cover 2.

No matter what it was an embarrassing play on a day when the defense didn't play bad at all otherwise.

The pass interference on Myron Lewis was a horseshit call. But at the same time I think Coach Morris losing his cool about it might have had a negative effect. We have all heard by now about the verbal altercation between Talib and a ref after the game over the call. I can't help but wonder if Talib felt he was taking his cues from his head coach. Now I love Coach Morris' enthusiasm and see nothing wrong with it, but there are times when adversity hits and in my opinion the head coach has to stay calm so the rest of the team will follow suit. Just my two cents.

Again, it WAS a horseshit call though.

On a positive note the Bucs held the Ravens to less than 100 yards rushing. So there's that.

Now to the individual defensive line breakdowns.

Tim Crowder: I thought Crowder played well with a sack and 3 other tackles. He had to drop so many times he probably felt like a db by the time the game was over. One thing I did notice is that when the Bucs were going to blitz with their four defensive line rush package in with Crowder, White, McCoy and Michael Bennett in they put Crowder at end instead of defensive tackle. That's a tip off that other teams may end up being able to pick up on. Not a good thing.

Gerald McCoy: McCoy had the first multiple sack game of his young career and both rushes were outstanding. On the first sack he beat a double team by the offensive tackle and guard for the sack. On the second he bullrushed and then came off the block inside for the sack. I honestly don't think they could have blocked him one on one all day but again unfortunately he didn't get all that many opportunities to rush from a 3 technique. Still there is no denying that the young man is coming on strong and I think folks who were calling him a bust early on will end up with quite a bit of egg on their faces. Oh he also contributed another tackle by my count and held up well against several double teams.

Roy Miller: Gotta say that Roy is back on track now. He isn't getting pushed around near as much as he was earlier in the season and by my count the guy had 4 tackles and 3 assists on the day. That's damned impressive for a nosetackle/part time 3 technique. He even had a good rush through a double team. The only negative on him for the day was the offsides penalty but I'll take that as a trade off for all that production.

Stylez G. White: Stylez had 2 tackles 2 pressures and 2 hits on the quarterback by my count. I thought he played well but he probably could have made a couple of inside moves to get more pressure on Joe Flacco. Another reason why it was frustrating to watch all the blitzing and 3-3-5s and 2-4-5s was that the starting offensive tackle Michael Oher got hurt and I thought White could have really taken advantage of his backup if he had some more one on one pass rush opportunities. I'll let it go one day I suppose lol.

Mike Bennett: Bennett had a really good physical tackle coming off a tight ends block a couple of good rushes and a hit on the quarterback. One thing I wish I could say to Bennett is to lay off the finesse stuff. He is a guy who I believe should be throwing fastballs just about every play. I'd love if he would just stick to one of three moves. A speed rip around the corner, a bull rush to a rip, or a quick inside move. The last couple of games he has started doing all these stutter and go moves which look good but aren't really all that successful. He should be putting tremendous stress on every right tackle he faces because most of the time they aren't all that athletic. I guess I just see so much of what that kid could be that its hard watching him not doing it every Sunday. But I have a feeling that his time is coming soon.

Al Woods: I had Woods down for 2 tackles. I thought he played extremely well in spot duty and held up well at the point. Its funny because the Ravens were supposed to out physical the Bucs but I personally didn't see it at all.

Alex Magee: I had Magee with an assisted tackle on a really good hustle play. He didn't have a whole lot of production but it appeared that he did his job while he was in there.

Well that's all for now. I'm still a little sick so I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing the rest of the week so hopefully this will tide you over. If not...oh well lol.

See you in the comments section!

Your Week Eleven Leader

2010-11-25T01:09:00.000-05:00

I don't know how he did it but 1Bigg_ER busted out a 119 to not only win the week but also move into first place.

Unbelievable.

At least I got my respectable 98 and moved back into 4th place. Looks like its anybody's game with 6 weeks to go. Don't forget to get your picks in early for all the Thankgiving Day games. And as always, good luck!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

2010-11-23T13:04:00.001-05:00

The Good

- The Defense: Two turnovers, six sacks, hold the 10th leading rusher to less than 25 yards and a shut out on the road. That's what you call an ass whupping!

- LeGarrette Blount: 26 rushes for 82 yards and two more highlight reel runs. If he can just fix that fumbling problem he is going to be a monster.

- Cadillac Williams: He didn't start and only got 7 carries but he gained 51 yards and scored a touchdown. People who think Caddy is washed up are sadly mistaken.

- Donald Penn: He kept Josh Freeman clean for most of the day and he caught a touchdown. Nuff said!

The Bad

- Fake punt: Don't mind the idea but the execution was horrible. I don't think that play had a chance in Hell of working.

The Ugly

- Fox's closeups: I'll keep complaining about this until it changes. I don't want to see a closeup of the quarterback or whichever player the announcers feel like talking about before the snap. I DO want to see the whole got damn play from the wide angle well before the snap. I can't understand who Fox is trying to appeal to with that bullshit.

Extras

- About that run defense: Not sure what it was about their offense that gave it away but it appeared the Bucs had a really good handle on when they would be running or passing. And because of that you saw a LOT more 8 man fronts with one of the safeties either walked down in the box presnap or coming down from a cover 2 look at the snap. Cody Grim obviously had a big day with by my count 6 tackles and 2 assists but everyone seemed to be a lot better with their gap discipline from the front four to the back line. That's why there weren't many places for Frank Gore to find to run. Its also possible that the Bucs just didn't fear the 49ers downfield passing game and so they felt more comfortable with a rolled up safety on most early downs.

The only problem of course is that every team won't be as easy to read and so it may be hard to duplicate that success when they aren't able to play as much 8 man front. But hey, I'll take it especially in a win.

- Mike Williams' arrest: I made a decision not to blog about the arrest or the Bucs' decision to play Williams until after more information came out. I know personally that the area he was pulled over in is an area where you can get pulled over for DWB. I have been pulled over at least 3 times but thankfully never charged with anything. And it turns out that all of the most recent information is pointing to Williams not being over the legal limit for alcohol and not having been on any other illicit drugs. So it appears he was only guilty of speeding late at night, hardly worth a full blog post.

- James Lee/Jeremy Trueblood: When Trueblood went down I said that he might end up getting Wally Pipped. Well he was healthy and dressed for the game on Sunday but Lee started and played every snap. Now the Bucs' twitter feed says that they will decide who starts based on who practices better during the week. From my experience there aren't enough reps to go around at practice during a game week for one guy to beat another guy out unless one of them falls completely on their face. So who does a tie go to? Worth watching...

- Ted Larsen: Did Larsen get hurt during the game? I missed it if he did but I noticed that Jerremy Zuttah played the end of the first half and all of the second half. What's up with that?

- Don't forget to check out my Bull Rush post to find out how the Bucs got all of those sacks.