Wow, That Was Ugly

The Colts' equipment manager should send a nice thank you card to the Buccaneer defensive line. Thanks to them, he won't have to spend any time cleaning Peyton Manning's jersey this week. Manning is hard to sack, so I don't totally blame them for not getting one. But he was barely touched. Gaines Adams came close a couple times, but Manning really had all the time in the world to throw. Chris Hovan had a decent day in the run game, but this was a huge step backward for the defensive line.

I'm not holding the fourth quarter against any of the defenders. There's just no way they could maintain their energy after having been out on the field for so long. The Colts had the ball for 38:15.

Did it seem like the linebackers had some trouble tackling yesterday? It did to me. I counted a few outright missed tackles and a couple overpursuits.

Monte Kiffin normally employs a base Cover 2 scheme. Yesterday he changed it up and switched to a Cover 0. The Bucs were so afraid of being beat deep that huge chunks of real estate were available in the middle of the field. Completion after completion, I couldn't believe how open these guys were. Combine all that open space with poor tackling and you get what we had yesterday.

Brian Kelly played, but Phillip Buchanon started. Has Buchanon passed Kelly in the depth chart now or is this just because Kelly is still partially-injured? Kelly has been in the system longer and probably would have played Anthony Gonzalez a little differently than, you know, just letting him run around the fucking field.

If Tanard Jackson hadn't played, the game would have been a total waste of time. God damn that was an awesome hit. Did you catch that Jackson stepped on Dallas Clark's head as he walked away? It was unintentional, but kind of funny. Like running over an armadillo.

That was a nice interception, too. They really could have made a game out of it in that second quarter.

Jeff Garcia continues to be the one guy who you can always count on. He made just about all the plays he could. A couple bad passes here and there, but you always get a feeling like he can make a play happen if everyone else just does their job.

Ok, so maybe now it's time to look at some trade offers and get a little more aggressive with finding a running back. Michael Pittman is going to be out for a few weeks and I'm not seeing the Earnest Graham/Kenneth Darby tandem running free on anyone. But even when Pittman was in there... five rushes for -1 yards. Ten total yards by the running backs. Wow.

Some of that has to do with the fact that the Bucs got down early and didn't have the ball enough to mount a decent running attack. Some. Some also had to do with the run blocking and the inability to make a play.

Kind of unusual to see Joey Galloway drop passes like that. The team really could have used that one on third down.

The offensive line was miserable in run blocking but actually didn't do so bad in the passing game. Donald Penn couldn't handle Dwight Freeney by himself, but when he had tight end or running back help, he did all right. Everyone except Jeremy Trueblood had an off game, especially Davin Joseph. He got beaten big a couple times. Garcia was lucky to only be sacked once because of him.

Let's not just lay this on the Bucs and say that they had a terrible game. The Colts are running some kind of weird offensive machine that makes other teams incompetent. It really is something to watch. Maybe Tom Moore is a genius, maybe Peyton Manning is the best quarterback ever, or maybe they just work harder than everyone else. I don't know. I do know that everyone said this game was a measuring stick for the Buccaneers. If that's true, they have a long way to go before they can be ranked with the top teams in the league.