The Bucks certainly have a lot of issues to solve on the defensive side of the ball. Tampa Bay allowed Falcons QB Kirk Cousins 509 yards and the Bucs defense also allowed 36 points. The short week may have hurt their preparation, but still. A mind-numbing performance.
Tampa Bay will have 10 days to evaluate what went wrong while finding a solution to the pass coverage before its next game against the Saints on Sunday at 1 p.m. One of the culprits for the Bucs’ woes was inside linebacker KJ Britt. Before Servosia Dennis went on injured reserve, Britt and Dennis lined up specifically at the inside linebacker position, but Britt in particular struggled in pass coverage and Dennis thrived in pass coverage. It’s for a reason.
Bucks defensive struggles
On Thursday night, Britt played 81 snaps but had no room to hide as the results were ugly. According to Pro Football Focus, Britt earned a grade of 46.5 in pass coverage in Thursday night’s game. This was his third-lowest coverage grade of the season, which speaks to his struggles, but what’s scary is that it was his highest snap count.
Bucks ILB KJ Britt – Photo Credit: Jeffrey Jones/PR
Britt has been a great vocal leader for the Bucs this season and has excelled at stopping the run while traveling from north to south. But the NFL is still a league in transition, and the Bucks can’t afford consistent responsibility.
As always, Bowles defended with a lot of Britt and how they defended passing plays. He blamed Tampa Bay’s problems on inefficient tackling, but it’s also Tampa Bay’s own problem.
“It wasn’t hard because it was normal for us to run, but at the same time we wanted to have more speed on the field at certain times,” Bowles said. . “K.J. is a very good zone player, but sometimes you want to have some guys with speed on the field and you need to be better at communicating, especially with the safeties.When we lost Jordan [Whitehead]lost some of the communication aspect and then just missed some drops and missed some tackles. ”
The Bucs have to figure out what to do at linebacker. SirVocea Dennis isn’t going to fix that either because he’s not there either.
“We can’t rely on him for the time being,” Bowles said. “His shoulder was a little weird this summer. We kind of knew it was going to be a touch-and-go type of thing there, so we’ll see how he comes back and play that every week. intend to.”
Are the Bucs considering a new ILB?
As Scott Reynolds of the Pewter Report pointed out, the Bucs could move to a dime package look with more defensive backs and linebackers on the field. But for the sake of argument, let’s just say that they’re sticking with a two-linebacker system, will they platoon Britt again or replace him entirely?
The Bucs don’t have many options at inside linebacker. Their other options are junior JJ Russell, who will play a role on special teams, and rookie Antonio Grier Jr., an undrafted free agent who was signed from the practice squad to the active roster last week.
Bucks LB JJ Russell Photo Credit: USA Today
Russell has previously started in situations where other players are out. Is Todd Bowles considering this?
“Let’s see,” Bowles said. “So we have confidence in K.J.” [Britt] But at the same time, he needs to make more tackles. I thought that’s where we were pushed to the back of the eight ball because the zone was going down and the tackling wasn’t very good. ”
Another thing that might help is the Bucs. maintain consistent pressure quarterback. They have 10 sacks in the last two games, so if they can clean up coverage they will get more stops.
“First of all, we got pressure from up front,” Bowles said. “They have a lot to do with coverage. Sometimes they have to cover better and go back there, and sometimes they have to go back there and cover better. But we made some progress last night. I thought we should have had a few more, but the ball was coming out and we were missing chances all over the field.
