Speaker 1: Welcome in to Buccaneers Inside a live presented by Miller
Speaker 1: like Casey Phillips and Scott Smith here and as always,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be taking your questions, So if you're not
Speaker 1: already watching on the Facebook page, make sure you head
Speaker 1: over there, leave your comments underneath the video, and that's
Speaker 1: where we'll be able to find those questions to answer
Speaker 1: as we start letting people put those in yes, please,
Speaker 1: you don't have Yeah, yeah, that's that's fair. Uh so
Speaker 1: for for your mind. When we were after the game,
Speaker 1: coach announced Ryan Fitzpatrick would continue to be the quarterback
Speaker 1: this next week. So, um, what do you feel like
Speaker 1: that says about the direction of this offense and the
Speaker 1: team and what the coaches and everybody really see in
Speaker 1: Ryan Fitzpatrick and what that could mean. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't think this team or any team ever wants
Speaker 1: to get into involved involved in a situation where you're
Speaker 1: switching back and forth between quarterbacks. I know that Coach
Speaker 1: Cutter wasn't really all that thrilled about having to make
Speaker 1: a quarterback change that wasn't caused by a suspension in
Speaker 1: the middle of season. He said so in fact, but
Speaker 1: it was made easier by the fact that the team
Speaker 1: has so much faith in their number two quarterback, because,
Speaker 1: as he pointed out, a lot of teams are even
Speaker 1: more reluctant to pull their their number one starter, their
Speaker 1: number one on the season began because they don't really
Speaker 1: trust their second guy, or they may be actively believe
Speaker 1: he can't get it done and they don't have a
Speaker 1: great option. We had the guy who came into the
Speaker 1: weekend with the best passer rating in the NFL, So
Speaker 1: I gotta believe that the leash was going to be long. Um.
Speaker 1: I understand there's there's a lot of thought that needs
Speaker 1: to be put into when and if you go back
Speaker 1: to James Winston and what his status is as a
Speaker 1: potential franchise quarterback and throw on where it goes from here.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to get involved in that going
Speaker 1: back and forth because at that point, I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you have any solution at all. You
Speaker 1: want to have one solution, and it can't help either
Speaker 1: guy to keep going back and in and the optics
Speaker 1: of it aren't very good. So I I thought it
Speaker 1: would have to take a pretty big meltdown, which we
Speaker 1: don't expect obviously, from Ryan Fitzpatrick to make any sort
Speaker 1: of sudden switch, So it was no surprise to me
Speaker 1: that he made that announcement right away. And really, honestly,
Speaker 1: Ryan Fitzpatrick was not the problem in that game. Yes,
Speaker 1: he had one bad overthrow that led to an interception
Speaker 1: and that helped put the Bucks in a bad position,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, he played about as well
Speaker 1: as he's played for a good portion of the season,
Speaker 1: and he did lead us back into that game after
Speaker 1: it looked all all but lost, right and overall, in
Speaker 1: your mind, the defense and a coach talked about the
Speaker 1: tackling the big issue. So, I mean, the defense has
Speaker 1: struggled this year, but I didn't feel like tackling had
Speaker 1: seemed to be as glario an issue until that game.
Speaker 1: And I mean there, of course there were a few
Speaker 1: mistackles along the way, but it felt like this game
Speaker 1: in particular, So overall, how much do you feel like
Speaker 1: that is the issue that's been all season and which
Speaker 1: is more glaring this time or was it really this game?
Speaker 1: And it seems like that the bigger problems on defense
Speaker 1: heading into this game, the games have gone very badly
Speaker 1: in that regard were more like mistakes mental mistakes, miscommunication,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and young guys trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out. You know, I think this big tackling issue
Speaker 1: that reared its head in Carolina was hopefully a flukey thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's been a massive problem for the Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: You know, some of it in coaches generally say this,
Speaker 1: some of it. You do have to give some credit
Speaker 1: to the other side. Some mistackles are created by great
Speaker 1: plays and that's why those guys get drafted like that.
Speaker 1: And Carolina has completely remade their offense in the last
Speaker 1: couple of drafts with guys like obviously Christian McCaffrey, the
Speaker 1: big one, and Curtis Samuel, who didn't play a ton
Speaker 1: last year, but now he's getting involved in DJ more
Speaker 1: this year. And now they've got a lot of fast
Speaker 1: guys that they get the ball moving laterally and in
Speaker 1: a lot of really creative ways. And and once you
Speaker 1: get one or two of those creative plays working, then
Speaker 1: you start play calling off of those plays. So that's
Speaker 1: why we see an end a round and then we
Speaker 1: see your reverse. And just so I can get on
Speaker 1: a soapbox here for a moment that Curtis Samuel's touchdown
Speaker 1: was not a double reverse. Even the guys who keep
Speaker 1: the stats at the game called made a point of
Speaker 1: saying the play was a double reverse. An end around
Speaker 1: is when you hand it to a guy coming from
Speaker 1: one side, like usually receiver, and he takes it and
Speaker 1: goes around the other end a reverse, which is what
Speaker 1: happened in Chris Samuel plays when you do that, but
Speaker 1: then he flips into a guy coming back in the
Speaker 1: other direction. For it to be a double reverse, it
Speaker 1: would have been one more handoff and drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: People call in runs reversus and I call versus double reverses.
Speaker 1: But anyway, off my soapbox now not really relevant to
Speaker 1: the discussion. I do think the tackling was hopefully a
Speaker 1: flukey problem that we're not going to see become something
Speaker 1: that plagues us the rest of you. So looking at
Speaker 1: the other issues, I mean, still not creating turnovers, which
Speaker 1: that's also a flukey thing as well that we've talked
Speaker 1: about that that's not as easy as it sounds, and someway,
Speaker 1: some of it can be luck about where a ball
Speaker 1: is tipped and things like that. But I know the
Speaker 1: defense has been emphasizing the saying that they need to
Speaker 1: work on it more. Is that something that you feel
Speaker 1: like is possible for them to I mean, Gerald spoke
Speaker 1: about that issue that he feels like there's a chance
Speaker 1: they could go on that run the way that they
Speaker 1: did a couple of years ago. What do you think
Speaker 1: it will take for this defense to start creating some
Speaker 1: of those turnovers. You know, as far as fumbles go,
Speaker 1: there is an art to it forcing fumbels that Lavonte David,
Speaker 1: for example, is very very good at. And I do
Speaker 1: actually honestly see our guys, every single one of our
Speaker 1: defenders trying to create fumbles when they're making tackles. I
Speaker 1: think they're trying. I don't know if they're doing anything
Speaker 1: wrong in that regard, you know, interceptions, As you say,
Speaker 1: sometimes we just don't get very lucky with tip balls
Speaker 1: or just overthrows. To give you an example, when Fits
Speaker 1: overthrew Evans on that early play, it went right to
Speaker 1: one of their safeties. Later in the game, there was
Speaker 1: a bad overthrow down the middle by Cam Newton, but
Speaker 1: our safety didn't happen to be standing right where the
Speaker 1: ball was overthrown too, And it wasn't a mistake. He
Speaker 1: just wasn't right there. You know, so some of that
Speaker 1: is luck, but when you get to essentially five straight
Speaker 1: games without a turnover, um, there has to be something
Speaker 1: more to it than just bad luck. And I gotta believe,
Speaker 1: you know, coach Duffner every week, because he's asked about
Speaker 1: it every week, says, we are not coming down with
Speaker 1: the ball. We are creating some opportunities to get it,
Speaker 1: but we're not coming down with the ball. I think
Speaker 1: we need to create more opportunities. I'm not sure we're
Speaker 1: creating that many certainly didn't see a lot in the
Speaker 1: Carolina game, but they have to make have to take
Speaker 1: advantage of those opportunities when they get him in. According
Speaker 1: to both the coach and the players, it looks better
Speaker 1: than that on the practice field, guys are doing a
Speaker 1: good job of taking advantage of those opportunities and making
Speaker 1: some turnovers and practice interceptions specifically, and uh, they just
Speaker 1: don't understand why it's not translating to the field. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like this Redskins game could be the game
Speaker 1: that helps turn around that they just have so many injuries,
Speaker 1: particularly on the offensive line, and that is this the
Speaker 1: game where the defensive line therefore can get a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure which then makes Alex Smith have to make
Speaker 1: some rush decisions, which can help on the turnover front. Theoretically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they have maybe up to four their five
Speaker 1: offensive linemen out. They're signing guys off the street. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're you know, they sign a guy he's talented
Speaker 1: enough to be in I can't think his name, but
Speaker 1: the one they signed yesterday, he's talent enough to have
Speaker 1: been a starter in the league a lot, including I
Speaker 1: think last year for Baltimore or somebody. So we're not
Speaker 1: talking about completely untalented players. But to have to try
Speaker 1: to put up to four new ones in and make
Speaker 1: it work seems nearly impossible. So on paper, yes, it
Speaker 1: looks like an awesome opportunity for us to get pressure,
Speaker 1: which could lead to more turnovers. But we've said things
Speaker 1: like that before. On paper, this looks like a great
Speaker 1: opportunity to stop this rookie quarterback. On paper, this and that,
Speaker 1: so there's a reason to be optimistic about that, but
Speaker 1: it really has to be proven on the field. Um,
Speaker 1: we had a couple different Winston questions that I feel
Speaker 1: like we can kind of package all together. So Aaron
Speaker 1: wants to know if you think jamis will get another
Speaker 1: chance before the end of the season. And then we
Speaker 1: also had a question asking if he is not the
Speaker 1: answer long term, how do you what you know? We're
Speaker 1: from there. So the idea of what all factors in
Speaker 1: now to whether it's his contract and how long he's
Speaker 1: with us and things that have of whether or not
Speaker 1: he gets another chance, is it based solely on how
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick plays? What are some of the factors that could
Speaker 1: play in here? And there's that's the million dollar question,
Speaker 1: right or a lot more than a million dollars um
Speaker 1: he Just in case anybody doesn't know that's asking these questions,
Speaker 1: probably most of them do know. The Buccaneers did exercise
Speaker 1: his fifth year option that you can do with a
Speaker 1: first round draft pick. They had to make that decision
Speaker 1: before this year, and they did so. He he's under
Speaker 1: contract for next year at a certain number, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty high number compared to his first four years,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily what a great quarterback can get on
Speaker 1: the open market. And that's kind of a compromise and
Speaker 1: how they worked those contracts for first round picks. Uh,
Speaker 1: the despite the fact we pick up the option, a
Speaker 1: team does not actually have to keep that player in
Speaker 1: the fifty, you still can release that player assuming that
Speaker 1: he's not injured. So there's it is guaranteed for injury.
Speaker 1: Um we have said apparently are our leaders have said
Speaker 1: that what's going to happen with the rest of his
Speaker 1: contract is not going to factor into whether he plays
Speaker 1: again this season. I know coach Cutter has said he
Speaker 1: believes James Winston will get another chance and can succeed
Speaker 1: as an NFL quarterback and be a really good one,
Speaker 1: But there's no timetable on that statement. So really that
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest issues that's going to play
Speaker 1: out over the next couple of months of the season
Speaker 1: and then right afterwards, because if you go in another direction, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's there's a lot of different variables there. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got essentially no quarterbacks in our contract heading into
Speaker 1: next year if you were to go in another direction,
Speaker 1: so you'd be looking for new answers I suppose, or
Speaker 1: resigning somebody. But there's so much that goes into that
Speaker 1: that we're far away from knowing how that's going to play, right,
Speaker 1: And I did see that. We just had someone asking
Speaker 1: if Dirk had named a starting quarterback, and yes, he
Speaker 1: did name Ryan Fitzpatrick the starter for this Sunday. But
Speaker 1: that's as far out ahead as he has, that's as
Speaker 1: far as we're going to see him go. Right. I
Speaker 1: do like that he's immediately saying so on Monday or
Speaker 1: in this case, after the game on Sunday, right, you know,
Speaker 1: making everybody wonder. Um. Aaron had asked, why is the
Speaker 1: offense turning the ball over so much? Is it a
Speaker 1: scheme issue or just a execution? No, I can't. Definitely
Speaker 1: don't think it's a scheme issue, because you know, we
Speaker 1: have moved the ball really, really well. I think the
Speaker 1: scheme and the play calling is working when they have
Speaker 1: created turnovers or you know, committed turnovers. It's been in
Speaker 1: the last two weeks it's been bad throws, simply bad throws, overthrows.
Speaker 1: Over the course of this whole time, it's been some
Speaker 1: of those flukey plays that you would expect both teams
Speaker 1: to get and we're not getting him. You know, like
Speaker 1: a ball hits off a helmet, goes straight in the
Speaker 1: air and is intercepted. Stuff like that. But in the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks it's been bad throws and in
Speaker 1: a couple ocasions, bad decisions. I don't think that was
Speaker 1: the case with right Fitzpatrick on Sunday, his turnover was
Speaker 1: his first turnover was an overthrow, and then he threw
Speaker 1: pretty well almost the game and then the last one.
Speaker 1: You know, that's when you're down to touch on with
Speaker 1: what two minutes to go, and you got to score quickly,
Speaker 1: so you take risk, you throw risk your passes and
Speaker 1: you normally would and that one didn't work out, the
Speaker 1: go one down the field to fit. But I don't
Speaker 1: think blames him for that one. Right Um. We had
Speaker 1: David asking about our blitzeing, and that has been a
Speaker 1: topic that I think, especially when Duffner was first named
Speaker 1: the defensive coordinator. He talked about how he wanted to
Speaker 1: be you know, his his defense. He wanted to be aggressive,
Speaker 1: and there was a big debate about okay, does that
Speaker 1: mean right? And and how much blitzing. So I want
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on how much you have seen
Speaker 1: us blitz maybe even before after Deffner and overall the
Speaker 1: idea of how much has blitzeing been working. I didn't
Speaker 1: really look at the numbers before we came down here
Speaker 1: on that topic. I would have I known we're going
Speaker 1: to get that question. I know that before under Mike Smith,
Speaker 1: we were blitzing a little less than league average, not
Speaker 1: a lot less than link average, but a little less.
Speaker 1: But we were also not blitzing successfully at all. Um
Speaker 1: opposing quarterbacks were doing awesome when we blitzed. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the the issue of blitz or not blitz is too
Speaker 1: part how much you do it and can you actually
Speaker 1: succeed at it, Because if you're not doing all the blitz,
Speaker 1: you're just hurting yourself even more by doing so. And
Speaker 1: I know it's frustrating when you can't get to the
Speaker 1: quarterback with your four down lineman. But if you're just
Speaker 1: making matters worse by blitzing than doing it more often,
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily the answer. Uh. You know, our our sacks
Speaker 1: on on Sunday, at least one of them involved a
Speaker 1: blitz or Lavante David has told me before that sometimes
Speaker 1: when he's in the backfield, it's not necessarily as a blitz.
Speaker 1: It's a reaction to what they do with their running back.
Speaker 1: But it looks like a blitz us because it's another plant,
Speaker 1: I think we can it acts like a blitz. So
Speaker 1: Levante was involved with that sack. With Germ McCoy. So
Speaker 1: obviously that was some sort of blitz and I don't
Speaker 1: know if they call Nassip Sack was Sack was on
Speaker 1: a blitz. But overall we didn't get a ton of
Speaker 1: pressure on Kim in that game. But they also have
Speaker 1: a very They also had a very get the ball
Speaker 1: of his hand quick type offense and they're running the
Speaker 1: ball so well. But it wasn't a game conducive to
Speaker 1: getting a lot of pressure on the quarterback. Right um,
Speaker 1: Chris wanted to know how much longer until we can
Speaker 1: expect kindle Beck with back and game ready. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find out either this week or next week period that's
Speaker 1: there's going to be an answer if he is going
Speaker 1: to play or not. It's he's gonna have to be
Speaker 1: activated either this week or next week. So again, when
Speaker 1: he was there began I think after week seven a
Speaker 1: five week window and at some point in that five
Speaker 1: weeks you could start him at practice and then it's
Speaker 1: a three week window from there. So we waited the
Speaker 1: first two weeks. We waited as long as we possibly
Speaker 1: could to get the full three weeks of him practicing,
Speaker 1: and when he came back to practice as is the
Speaker 1: case with all guys in this situation. There's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that at the end of those three weeks he's going
Speaker 1: to start playing again. If it hasn't doesn't go well enough,
Speaker 1: if it's not deemed that he's ready to play and
Speaker 1: it was a serious injury, then he will simply stay
Speaker 1: on the reserve list for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: So we don't know the answer yet. Um last week
Speaker 1: he was sort of eased into it. We'll see this week.
Speaker 1: If he's playing more than that would be a good sign.
Speaker 1: Giving him a bigger piece of the practice pie, that
Speaker 1: would be a good sign. And I would certainly probably
Speaker 1: feel the same way. I'm guessing that that question, it
Speaker 1: feels is that would really be helpful for this defense.
Speaker 1: The loss of Kwan Alexander. We knew it was gonna
Speaker 1: be tough. I think we're seeing on the field how
Speaker 1: tough it is, how much it has affected us. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying kendle Beck with especially after it's been
Speaker 1: so long since he's played, would be able to duplicate
Speaker 1: what Quand did. But he is a guy that you
Speaker 1: think he played it last year. We liked when he did.
Speaker 1: It would be a nice addition to that puzzle. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for us on this edition of
Speaker 1: Buccaneers Insider Live presented by Miller Lite. Thanks to all
Speaker 1: of you for watching and joining the conversation. We'll be
Speaker 1: back here next Tuesday, so make sure you're thinking about
Speaker 1: all those questions the rest of this week for on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you then