When you’re on the field for 80 snaps as a defense, you know you’re not getting stops. At the heart of it for the Bucs in their 41-31 loss to the Chiefs was missed tackles and getting bullied at the line of scrimmage. The other glaring issue was the fact that they just couldn’t make the big play on third down to end drives.
The Chiefs were 12-of-17 on third down against the Bucs’ defense. And many of those failed conversions were too little, too late at the end of the game. The Bucs also got the ball back on one fourth down out of sheer luck when running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire dropped a wide open pass with no defenders within five yards of him.
“Unbelievable,” defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches said. “Last time I’d been part of something like that was college at Southern Mississippi. I’ve never been a part of that on defense and I never want to be a part of that again, so I got to take a lot and put it on my shoulders, because I didn’t do anything to help my team to win or overcome what was going on so, you gotta look at you first before you point anywhere else.”
There were two plays in particular that reared their ugly head. On one, Carlton Davis III blitzed and had Patrick Mahomes dead to rights for a sack. But even though Davis had him wrapped up, he couldn’t take him to the ground and Mahomes somehow completed the pass for a first down.
On the other, with the Chiefs at the goal line, Mahomes narrowly escaped the clutches of Pat O’Connor as he immediately got into the backfield. Mahomes then rolled out to his right and pulled a spin move to juke out Devin White. He dumped off a pass to Edwards-Helaire for a touchdown.
Both plays should have been sacks. They turn into big plays for the opponent.
“We just didn’t finish the plays you know,” outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka said. “We had a lot of plays that [would have been] down over on a lot of third downs – we just didn’t get the play finished. We need to be able to finish and be in the right spot at the right time. We just have to communicate and be better as a team in general.”
Bucs Couldn’t Stop The Run, Either
And of course, defending the run was mind numbingly bad. For years under Todd Bowles the Bucs have been at the top of the league in stopping the run. In fact, it’s been there identity. But not anymore. Tampa Bay allowed 189 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. They didn’t come close to getting a stop even when they knew it was a situation where they were going to run it.
Shocking to say the least.
“To be honest with you, I’m still sitting here trying to figure out what just happened,” Nunez-Roches said. “That’s what we are, that’s not what we do. Seeing one-hundred-eighty-something yards in rushing is just…mind-boggling. We don’t do that, we know better than that. We’ll definitely never do that again this whole season, if not ever.
“When it comes down to it, it’s fundamentals. It wasn’t just missed fits, it’s just ‘do your job’. You gotta be able to count on the man next to you and just…we had enough playmakers but we weren’t making those plays so, just disappointing all around.
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