With a loss to the Rams the Buccaneers fall to 0-2 on the season with both games having been played at home. Things are not looking good for the Bucs. This game, while close, was not pretty for the Buccaneers. Going up against a 3rd string QB who has never played in the NFL, Austin Davis (#9), the Buccaneers made him look like Payton Manning.

In our preview for last week this was the summary:

• Gerald McCoy must beat Davin Joseph.
• Robert Quinn must be slowed down. No tackle in the league is good enough to stop him so we need to give our tackles help.
• Tavon Austin must be covered well. Do not put linebackers or safeties in coverage on him.
• Turnovers and sacks. We need to get some. Preferably more than the other team.

We also mentioned that our defense is susceptible to tricky plays like play action, misdirection plays, etc. I am going to cover the summary first to see how the Bucs did.

The match-up between McCoy and Joseph ended up being a non-issue after McCoy left the game in the 1st quarter after only 7 plays on defense. McCoy ended up breaking his hand while trying to tackle a runner who did not have the ball on a play action play (more on that later). But for the 3 plays that McCoy and Joseph did go against each other, I would have to give Joseph the better grade. On the first play of the game for the Rams offense, Joseph pushed McCoy completely out of the action by about 10 yards. McCoy did get a little bit of pressure once on Davis but it was while he was falling down from a shove by Joseph and Davis simply stepped up and out of the way. In the third matchup play between the two it was a double team on Mccoy and Joseph ended up putting McCoy on the ground and held him there.

The Bucs did manage to keep a leash on Robert Quinn (#94). He ended the game with no sacks, 2 tackles and an assist. Those are horrible numbers for him but outstanding numbers for our offensive line.

Tavon Austin (#10) was held in check with the passing game but burned us a couple of times in the running game with some end arounds. He had 2 rushes for 21 yards against us. He was rarely used in the passing game for the Rams.

In the turnover battle we ended up going even with the Rams. They got an interception and we got a fumble recovery. So that was a wash. We did beat them in the sack department with getting 2 against them and only giving up 1 ourselves. Overall on the year we are still -3 in turnover ratios and -1 in the sack department. These are things that must change in order for our team to have any success this year.

Defense

Now for the tricky plays. Yes, I think the league has figured out that we fall for them. The Rams ran quite a few plays that were designed to trick our defense and most of them worked. In the first drive of the 3rd quarter the Rams ran the same exact play two times in a row. It was a play action bootleg pass which garnered them 20 yards total with 5 yards the first play and 15 yards the second. They then lined up in the exact same formation a third time but did handed it off instead of doing the play action. The play action bootleg was a staple of their offense and it worked more often than not against the Bucs.

Our pass rush was, once again, quite anemic. While we did get two sacks during the game and some good pressure, more than we did last week, we still allowed Davis to sit back there and throw the ball with an average time to throw of 2.76 seconds on 22 completed passes on 29 pass attempts. Our secondary had pretty good coverage but still allowed a 76% completion rate for 235 yards.  The biggest play of the game for the Rams came at 1:55 in the 4th when they were down by 1 point on their own 48. Davis threw a pass up for Austin Pettis (#18) who was being blanketed by Leonard Johnson (#29). Davis got clobbered by Da’Quan Bowers (#91) but managed to get the ball off and it was caught by Pettis for a 27 yard gain. It was one of those plays that should not have happened but the Rams played it incredibly well and got very lucky. That play also set them in field goal range for the go ahead score.

There was plenty of rotation with the defensive line. Larry English (#57) had 16 snaps in this game and Jacquies Smith had 6. Clinton McDonald (#98) had 55 snaps and was double teamed 38% of the time. William Gholston (#92) had 42 snaps and was double teamed twice. Da’Quan Bowers (#91) played 36 snaps with 6 double teams. Scott Solomon (#60) had 31 snaps and 3 double teams. Akeem Spence (#97) played 43 snaps and was double teamed 19 times.

We only ran 4 stunts during this game which is the lowest amount of stunts we have had in years. All of the stunts were run in the second half. We also ran 10 blitzes with all but one of them in the second half.

Offense

The offensive line did a good job with keeping the pass rush at bay and did very well with opening holes for the run game. Bobby Rainey (#43) ended the game with 144 yards on 22 rushing attempts for a spectacular 6.5 yards per carry average. About half of the run game can be attributed to Rainey for being able to break tackles and juke out defenders but the other half goes to the offensive line for opening up holes and doing good blocking.

One thing that helped defeat the Rams pass rush was Josh McCown (#12) getting rid of the ball very fast. In 22 pass attempts he had an average time to throw of 2.33 which is almost a half a second faster than last week.

Rainey, while he did have a good running game, did not fare as well in the blocking department. He whiffed on two blocks in pass protection and one was on a play in the redzone where McCown threw an interception under duress. With the poor blocking performance of Doug Martin (#22) in last weeks game and the poor blocking of Rainey this week, I think it would be wise for the running backs coach to spend a bit more time on that aspect of the game.

McCown did not have that horrible of a game. He is still making some very bad decisions but his accuracy and legs are pretty good. He made a really bad decision in the redzone again for another interception. But one of his most interesting bad decisions came with 7:34 left in the 2nd. The Rams blitzed a cornerback and McCown had three recievers wide open. He, for some strange reason, goes to throw the ball and then tucks it and starts to fall down before anyone even touches him. It is one of those plays that can only be chalked up to fear. There was no reason for him to not throw the ball and there was no reason for him to tuck it and fall down. Sure, he was about to get pressured by the blitz but he had plenty of time to make the throw. It was a head scratcher that is for sure.

McCown has 3 open receivers

McCown tucks the ball and drops without being touched

Special Teams 

ugh. Our special teams allowed a blocked field goal and a blocked punt. Both of them due to poor blocking. One was when Major Wright (#31) got juked out on a block and the other one was when the field goal attempt was blocked. On that play, Luke Stocker (#88) had two guys go around him. I do not know what he was trying to do there but it looked like he was imitating an airplane, with his arms spread out. I can almost hear him making airplane noises as the two defenders ran right past him. Our special teams gets an F for their effort against the Rams.

Coaching

Offensive Coordinator Tedford for the Buccaneers was not calling plays again this week due to medical reasons so the quarterbacks coach Arroyo had the offensive coordinator duties once again. Coach Lovie Smith still was Love Smith and gave us bad clock managment and conservative play calling once again. An example was the Bucs getting the ball with :33 seconds left in the half and three timeouts but elected to run out the clock instead of trying to put some points on the board. That type of conservative calling is not going to fly with fans if you consistently lose.

There is a saying in the boxing world that you never want to leave the fight in the hands of the judges. I think the Buccaneers should learn that lesson. With the loss to the Saints in 2012 at home on a bad call by the refs on the last play of the game that cost us the game, with the Jets game in 2013 where the refs called a crappy foul on David (#54) which handed the Jets that victory, we got another game Sunday against the Rams where the refs decided the outcome. With 16 seconds left on the clock, Mike Evans (#13) made a spectacular catch to put the Bucs in field goal range to win the game. The Bucs had no time outs left and Evans got hurt on the play. By the time the officials blew the whistle for an injury time out there was :08 left on the clock. According to the rules, ten seconds was run off of the clock and the game was ruled over. The Bucs never got a chance to try the field goal to win the game.

Now, I am not saying that it was a bad call by the refs to run off the clock. It is a necessary rule to keep teams from faking injuries to stop the clock. However, I do disagree with the non-call for a hit to the helmet on a defenseless receiver. Evans was clocked in the back of the head by the defender when he caught the ball. The defender actually looked like he launched himself head first into Evans which is another rule violation. Unfortunately, there is no good camera angle available that I can find to show this conclusively. But, just like in the game against the Saints in 2012, they ended the game with a controversial call and never replayed the call. I think we should learn to not leave the game in the hands of the officials. We need to start scoring some points so that the officials making bad calls or missing calls does not damage our chances as much.

All in all, this was a fun game to watch, which, when it comes down to it, is what is important. I would prefer to see the Bucs win every week but I also like to see a good game too. This game was not a lights out barn burner but it was entertaining. The fans are getting restless, and rightfully so. We were promised some big things from this team and we are not getting those promises fulfilled. Entertaining games are great but lets add some wins in the win column to go with that side order of entertainment.