chase the bucks An embarrassing 39-37 loss. With the Houston Texans on the road, head coach Todd Bowles didn’t mince words about his ballclub, especially the defense. Todd Bowles was asked at the beginning of his postgame press conference to describe the Texans’ game-winning six-play, 75-yard touchdown drive.
“I couldn’t play the basics or technique well, and I neglected my daily practice. If I can’t do that, I can’t play in this game.”
Bucks’ loss was ‘catastrophic’ due to defensive failures
When asked to explain how bad that loss was (considering how the match ended right after it started with three straight losses).
“This is a devastating loss, that’s for sure,” Todd Bowles said. “You have to eat it. We all feel the same way, especially me. I’ve been coaching for a long time. I’ve never been too involved in an up-and-down event like this. No, but the results fell on the other side. When some things happened. And we had to eat it, and we should be pissed all week. We They’ve got that in their possession. They’ve scored more than enough points on offense. Defensively, fundamentals and technique, breakdowns at the end of a ballgame or at the beginning of the third quarter are unacceptable.”
Asked about quarterback Baker Mayfield’s performance, Bowles said, “He gave us a chance to win. He gave us a chance to win. They (offensive staff) did a good job. They gave us a chance to win. Defensively, we have to play better. It was bad overall.”
Asked if he regretted not applying more pressure on Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud after he sat in zone coverage, Bowles said, “If I had done what I was supposed to do, I could have played in the zone.” “I guess so.”
Todd Bowles will continue play-calling duties.
Bowles was later asked if he would consider relinquishing play-calling duties, to which he replied, “No, that’s not on the table at this point.”
Something needs to change for a defense that has been plagued by a number of issues, including a lack of consistent pass rush and difficulty generating pressure despite being one of the mainstays. The league’s top electric unit, Coverage was lost every week and the play caller was lost to the coach for the second week in a row. Bowles has been slow to make changes.
Last year in particular, he was slow to replace Luke Goedeke at left guard despite playing badly through the first seven weeks of the season. It would take Goedeke’s injury to completely solidify his loss of the starting spot to Nick Leverett. Bowles was also reluctant to replace Ryan Neal at strong safety this year, despite playing poorly all season.
Bowles finally chose to replace Neal this week on a late passing down, until Neal allowed a 75-yard touchdown to take the lead in the second half. And only then did Bowles finally decide to keep Neal on the bench.
Something has to change. You’ll probably need to change multiple things. Early in the game, the Bucs defense found success by playing corner kicks closer to the line of scrimmage and challenging Texans receivers early on. What changed was the second half. The Bucs went back to soft zone coverage. The defense allowed 10 points in the first half and 29 points in the second half. You do the math.
