Speaker 1: Welcome in two books. Insider presented by Verizon Casey Phillips
Speaker 1: here a senior writer and editor Scott Smith. We had
Speaker 1: a big show for you today. We got a tough
Speaker 1: game to look back on. We got some interesting Pro
Speaker 1: Bowl news, we got a heck of a game to
Speaker 1: look forward to. Lots going on here. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the Pro Bowl news, which we had some great Pro
Speaker 1: Bowl news, and then we had some news that maybe
Speaker 1: made you a little upset, which is fair and made
Speaker 1: all of us a little upset.
Speaker 2: Call me out there, you know. Let's start with the
Speaker 2: good Pro.
Speaker 3: Bowl name, and very deservedly, Mike Evans was voted into
Speaker 3: the Pro Bowl. It's the fifth time he's made it,
Speaker 3: obviously deserving. He leads the league in touchdown catches, has
Speaker 3: over twelve hundred yards. You know, all season we've been
Speaker 3: doing notes about him passing the all time greats in
Speaker 3: terms of touchdown catches, and he's establishing himself well. He
Speaker 3: already has as one of the greatest players in team history,
Speaker 3: but in terms of a number of times in the
Speaker 3: Pro Bowl, this is number five for him. That is
Speaker 3: second in team history among offensive players, only to the
Speaker 3: great Mike Alstadt. Those are probably the two most yeah, harolded, harolded,
Speaker 3: good word of uh you look at that Derek Brooks
Speaker 3: eleven but most crazy. Most of those are defensive players.
Speaker 3: But still Mike is tied for sixth most Pro Bowls
Speaker 3: and team history.
Speaker 2: Probably not done.
Speaker 3: And the way he played this year, you got to
Speaker 3: think there's a couple of more Pro Bowl.
Speaker 2: Seasons in his take. So that's the good news.
Speaker 1: Soap box time hit hit us.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was a little emotional.
Speaker 1: Last night, so we covered you up here with his
Speaker 1: alternate graphics.
Speaker 3: We do have four alternates, and I'm happy these guys
Speaker 3: are alternates. I'm Twine Winfield and uh Tristan wars are
Speaker 3: both first alternates. They've been to the Pro Bowl before.
Speaker 3: Baker Mayfield is a third alternate, which is a great story,
Speaker 3: and Vidave is a fifth alternate.
Speaker 2: So that's good.
Speaker 3: But I cannot understand how Antoine Winfield Junior is not
Speaker 3: one considered one of the having one of the three
Speaker 3: best seasons by safety in the NFC not the NFL
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 2: Can I just throw some numbers out you please? By
Speaker 2: all means?
Speaker 1: Throw them?
Speaker 2: Well here, first of all, here was your okay, Like
Speaker 2: I said, I.
Speaker 1: Was in your fields last night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in my fields. As you said, it
Speaker 3: does not make any sense to me. The Levante David
Speaker 3: season I'm referring to was his second year, when he
Speaker 3: had something like seven sacks and five interceptions and was
Speaker 3: a first team Associated Press All Pro, which is a
Speaker 3: far more exclusive honor, only like one guy at every position,
Speaker 3: so two linebackers. The Pro Bowl lets in a lot
Speaker 3: more players. Levante was a first team All Pro but
Speaker 3: did not make the Pro Bowl, which made no sense.
Speaker 3: Hopefully Antoine gets the same thing this year, because that's
Speaker 3: voted on by various members of the medium. I'm hoping
Speaker 3: he gets first team AP All Pro, and so that
Speaker 3: will take away from what I considered the biggest snub
Speaker 3: for the Bucks in a long time. And listen, Casey,
Speaker 3: we have counterparts that do the same jobs on other
Speaker 3: team and they're probably all standing at their little podiums
Speaker 3: right now saying this guy on our team got snubbed.
Speaker 3: This guy, I understand. And if you put somebody in,
Speaker 3: I mean somebody else is out, I get it.
Speaker 2: It's still not the same. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: We're right, right, We're more right than those other teams.
Speaker 3: Anton Winfield has one game to go, one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventeen tackles, five sacks as a safety, five forced fumbles,
Speaker 3: four funnel recoveries, three interceptions, a team leading twelve passes defensed,
Speaker 3: two turtle doves, and nobody, literally nobody in the league has.
Speaker 2: That stat line.
Speaker 1: He's not at any position, at any position.
Speaker 3: It's I cannot explain how Anti Winfield was not voted
Speaker 3: in to the Pro Bowl and the initial vote. He'll
Speaker 3: probably make it in the long run as an alternate,
Speaker 3: but right now I'm not feeling very good about it.
Speaker 1: That's fair. I think we would all agree with you,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately I would love to let you now have
Speaker 1: an emotional break after that. But now we have to
Speaker 1: talk about this. Last week's game, which I know was challenging,
Speaker 1: did not go how the team thought it would wanted
Speaker 1: it to tough one to recover from a little bit
Speaker 1: going into this very important game this next week. So
Speaker 1: what stands out to you now looking back about the Saints.
Speaker 3: Game, Well, everybody in the locker room, coaches and players,
Speaker 3: they seemed very irritated and frustrated and not sure why.
Speaker 3: And this is their words. They came out so flat
Speaker 3: in such an important game and they felt like they
Speaker 3: had a good week of preparation.
Speaker 2: They came out flat.
Speaker 3: The Saints, who had so much to play for and
Speaker 3: have been this team's main rival for so many years now,
Speaker 3: they obviously came out strong if you think about the
Speaker 3: Buckaners were on that four game winning streak excuse me,
Speaker 3: that culminated in the Jaguars blowout of the Jaguars, they
Speaker 3: scored on six of their first seven possessions in that
Speaker 3: game and the only one they didn't score was a
Speaker 3: one play kneel down at the end of the first half.
Speaker 3: Then the next week, after all this positive momentum, the
Speaker 3: Bucks didn't score until their tenth possession against the Saints.
Speaker 3: And obviously, turnovers were a big part of the story.
Speaker 3: The Bucks had never committed more than two in any
Speaker 3: game the season that they committed four the only two
Speaker 3: times they made it into Saints territory in the first
Speaker 3: three quarters that drives ended in turnovers. And then in
Speaker 3: the fourth quarter against the defense that was playing the
Speaker 3: style of defense that's supposed to drain the clock and
Speaker 3: not give up big plays, Baker throws for two hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty yards, two long touchdown passes, that's not supposed
Speaker 3: to happen against that style defense they were playing, and
Speaker 3: it just gives you a little indication of what this
Speaker 3: offense is capable of and what it had been showing
Speaker 3: in the previous week. So what we're hoping, of course,
Speaker 3: is that this is just one very bad day and
Speaker 3: the previous four games are more of an indication of
Speaker 3: where this team is for sure.
Speaker 1: And of course we know this next upcoming game, the
Speaker 1: major thing everybody's watching for is just the outcome in
Speaker 1: terms of the implications for playoffs, but there are also
Speaker 1: some other major milestones and things to keep track of
Speaker 1: while you're watching the game as well, So tell people
Speaker 1: what those are.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So obviously it's not as individual milestones aren't nearly as
Speaker 3: important as getting the win. But when you think about it,
Speaker 3: you're talking some of your team's best players. They have
Speaker 3: good games, you're more likely to win. Yeah, so we
Speaker 3: can still roof for these things. Now, you see, guys here,
Speaker 3: Chris Godwin needs twenty seven yards to get his fourth
Speaker 3: thousand yard receiving seasons, which would be second most in
Speaker 3: team history to Mike of course, Rashad White needs eighty
Speaker 3: five yards for his first thousand yard rushing season and
Speaker 3: the first five Bucks and Doug martin twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 3: Baker Mayfield is really close to a couple of nice
Speaker 3: round numbers four thousand passing yards and thirty touchdown passes.
Speaker 3: He's already got a career high in both of those categories.
Speaker 3: And then Mike, who scored a million touchdowns this year,
Speaker 3: one more would tie his own record for both touchdown
Speaker 3: catches and overall touchdowns in a season for the Buccaneers.
Speaker 3: But if you put this stuff together, one really interesting
Speaker 3: note is that if Chris and Rashad both hit those milestones,
Speaker 3: it'll mark the first time in Buccaneers history that the
Speaker 3: team has had two thousand yard receivers and a thousand
Speaker 3: yard rusher in the same season. Wow, which would say
Speaker 3: a lot about this offense, which I'm not sure people
Speaker 3: expected a lot out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really great point. And then
Speaker 1: I know we showed some of those numbers that Baker
Speaker 1: Mayfield put together a really great season statistically in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and we've seen him gut out plays.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of leadership emotion, There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of things to showcase Baker is having a really
Speaker 1: great season. But of course this last game, unfortunately, it
Speaker 1: was a bit of a turnover situation for the offense
Speaker 1: as a whole. Baker through a couple interceptions, and that
Speaker 1: had not been the case. He had really been protecting
Speaker 1: the ball for quite a while. So what have you
Speaker 1: noticed about some of the statistics when it comes to
Speaker 1: the ratio that came in with the plus ten differential,
Speaker 1: best in the league. So what kind of happened this
Speaker 1: last week and just overall, how has this team been protected?
Speaker 3: Well, it was the first time that the Bucks had
Speaker 3: committed more than two turnovers in any game this year,
Speaker 3: which is a great note by the way, that it
Speaker 3: hadn't happened before that. First time Baker threw two interceptions
Speaker 3: in one game. One of them was on a tip ball,
Speaker 3: but I guess that's still on him. First time the
Speaker 3: Bucks lost two fumbles in a game and they were
Speaker 3: zer over four? Are they excuse me? They were negative
Speaker 3: four in turnover ratio worst of the year. Obviously, didn't
Speaker 3: get any takeaways, and especially against the Saints, it seems
Speaker 3: like in recent years that's the story, and so that's
Speaker 3: going to be a big part of the story in
Speaker 3: Week eighteen in a do or die game, can the
Speaker 3: Buccaneers win the turnover battle? Because when they do, as
Speaker 3: you see here, they usually win, and when they don't,
Speaker 3: it doesn't go well.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, that's really interesting. So now let's look ahead
Speaker 1: to this Panthers matchup. Tell me what you think are
Speaker 1: some of the keys to this game? Knowing that we
Speaker 1: may not have gotten as good of an indicator in
Speaker 1: what the matchup could look like with the first one
Speaker 1: being just a torrential downpour that greatly affected both offenses
Speaker 1: and a lot about the game. So what do you
Speaker 1: feel like in a little bit more normal weather conditions
Speaker 1: this matchup could look like?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think that game is informing the
Speaker 3: Buccaneers this week as they're considering the Panthers because they
Speaker 3: only won by three. And I know you're right it
Speaker 3: was a torential reign and that affected things, but it
Speaker 3: was the same for both teams, and it was a
Speaker 3: close game right to the end until non pro bowler
Speaker 3: into one winfielder intercepted a pass right at the end.
Speaker 1: Is that how you're going to refer to him the
Speaker 1: rest of the season? No, just right now, just right now,
Speaker 1: while you're still angry.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the Panthers obviously they made the big move
Speaker 3: at quarterback this year and they train it up and
Speaker 3: to the first pick and took Bryce Young, the Alabama star,
Speaker 3: and he's had the sort of ups and downs you'd
Speaker 3: expect from a rookie quarterback.
Speaker 2: They don't all just drop in and be awesome, like CJ. Stroud.
Speaker 3: He had a really good game two weeks ago and
Speaker 3: they almost beat the Packers back and forth through for
Speaker 3: like three hundred yards and a couple of touchdowns.
Speaker 2: No picks.
Speaker 3: But overall he's had some struggles. He's been sacked fifty
Speaker 3: nine times, which is a lot, and he's actually ranked last. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's actually ranked last amongst a qualified passers and passer rating,
Speaker 3: And like you said, poor guy. He's not a big guy,
Speaker 3: so taking a lot of hits, you worry, right, But
Speaker 3: he's gutted it through. I think he's a very very
Speaker 3: talented player. The Buccaneers are hoping they can contain him
Speaker 3: in the pocket. They in the last game he got
Speaker 3: out a little bit and made some plays. So that's
Speaker 3: a big deal, you know, Yeah, I think that's what
Speaker 3: that means.
Speaker 1: Yes, a pressuring him is going to be the big part.
Speaker 1: What about their defense and what stands out to you.
Speaker 3: They've kind of had a quietly good season on defense.
Speaker 3: They ranked third in yards allowed, third and passing yards allowed.
Speaker 3: Derek Brown is a really big force in the middle.
Speaker 3: Frankie Luvu's a nice linebacker, makes a ton of plays.
Speaker 2: It's curious if j. C Orno will play.
Speaker 3: He was active but did not play last week with
Speaker 3: a toe injury, but he's a really good corner when
Speaker 3: he does play. The weird thing about their defense though, is,
Speaker 3: like I said, they're third in yards allowed, third fewest,
Speaker 3: but they're thirtieth in points allowed, which is kind of
Speaker 3: weird combination. I'm not sure exactly sure how that happened,
Speaker 3: maybe red zone issues or turnovers, but obviously the Bucks
Speaker 3: care more about points than the yards. So if they
Speaker 3: can keep you know, they can continue that trend for
Speaker 3: the Panthers, that'll be a good thing.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that's gonna do it for us on
Speaker 1: this edition of Buccaneers Insider Against Day. Tuned to the
Speaker 1: Buccaneers website and social media all week for the preview
Speaker 1: of this matchup against the Panthers, and we'll see you
Speaker 1: next time.