On a sunny day in Nashville, the Buccaneers lost another tough one, a game that was very winnable and should have have been a win for the Bucs.
It’s time we call it for what it is. This team is not very good. They don’t know how to win close games, they can’t close out games when they have the lead, and Jameis Winston continues to give the ball away like Santa Claus handing out gifts at Christmas time.
The Bucs coming off the bye week turned in another ho-hum performance as they lost to the Titans 27-23 despite a great game by Mike Evans who became the all time leading receiver in Buccaneer history.
The play of the game was the early whistle on the fake field goal attempt by Tennessee late in the game. The Titans had a fourth and two and attempted a fake field goal at the Tampa 28 yard line.
Titans holder Brett Kern on the 46 yard field goal attempt tried to scramble for the first down and was hit hard by linebacker Devin White knocking the ball out. Andrew Adams picked the ball up and ran it in for a touchdown. Or so the Bucs thought.
Line judge Mark Stewart whistled Kern down by contact, ruling the play dead. It was clearly a fumble and another quick whistle call by an official that determined cost the Bucs a chance at winning a football game.
The Bucs did not play well enough on both sides of the ball to win this game and you could make a point it should have never came down to an officials call to determine the outcome of the game.
But this is the Buccaneers we are talking about.
The 27-23 loss overshadowed another great game by receiver Mike Evans. Evans had 11 catches for 198 yards and two touchdowns and became the all time Leading receiver in Bucs history with 433.
With the two touchdown catches, Evans is now in second place for touchdowns in Bucs history with 47. Mike Alstott holds down the number one spot with 71 touchdowns.
Has there been a more disappointing Buccaneer in 2019 than Breshad Perriman? Perriman did not catch one pass thrown his way during the game, and botched a play in the red zone in the second quarter as he ran into running back Dare Ogunbowale on a misdirection handoff to effectively kill the play.
The ball went to Perriman on an attempted two point conversion, but Perriman could not keep his feet in bounds and the Bucs did not convert. Perriman was also targeted four times late in the fourth quarter and could not get a catch on any of the balls thrown his way,
Why the Bucs went to Perriman with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Cameron Brate all available at the point in the game will remain one of life’s great mysteries. Evans was targeted just once in the fourth quarter.
It will be a surprise if Perriman makeS it trough the week without getting cut. For the four million dollars he fleeced the Bucs for this off-season, he has three catches for 16 yards.
The Bucs need to move on from Perriman immediately.
Jameis Winston had two balls picked off giving him 12 interceptions on the season, none of which were his fault in the loss to the Titans according to coach Bruce Arians” Jameis did not throw one damn interception that was his fault. His receivers let him down today. Guys stopped on routes that were supposed to be going down the middle.”
Again, the coach supporting Winston, despite his 10 turnovers the last two games.
On a positive note Jason Pierre Paul picked up right where he left off last season as he had a sack of Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill in his first play of the season.
Shaq Barrett picked up his 10th sack of the season, and Carl Nassib added another sack for the defense.
This is unchartered water for coach Arians as this is the first time in his career that his teams have lost three games in a row during the regular season. This is also the first time that one of Arians teams have been 2-5 after seven games.
You can sense that Arians is beginning to get frustrated with the mental mistakes that the team is making and the lack of attention to detail. Arians said in his weekly press conference that he can’t understand why the guys aren’t getting it. Why the same mistakes keep getting made over and over.
Welcome to Tampa coach.
Dirk Koetter said a similar thing last season when he said that if he knew how to fix the issues that were problems on his team he would have already fixed them.
Arians remains confidant that he can get this season turned and get the Bucs back to playing winning football.
With a game next week in Seattle against the Seahawks looming, the Buccaneers could be looking at a 2-6 record at the halfway point of the season.
The fat lady is warming up and preparations for the 2020 season will begin sooner rather than later.
