Too Much Stuffing

Posted Nov 28, 2006 by Scott Kramer

Updated Nov 28, 2006 at 10:03 AM

You’ve already read enough on the Thanksgiving Day game from everyone else, so I’ll try to keep this short.

Once again, the defensive line failed to get any kind of pressure on the opposing quarterback.  Without that pressure, the whole concept of the Cover 2 falls apart.  The Bucs found this out yet again as Tony Romo picked apart the Tampa defense.  Romo is the kind of quarterback that Simeon Rice used to salivate over.  Dewayne White, heir apparent to the starting defensive end position, did his best Simeon Rice circa 2006 impression by notching one QB hurry and one tackle.  On the opposite side, Greg Spires did not make the stat sheet.  Chris Hovan played the most consistently on the line, but must have felt guilty for showing up the rest of the front four, so he incurred a personal foul at the worst possible time.

Barrett Ruud continued his development while standing in for Shelton Quarles and was really the only bright spot on the defense.  Still, allowing Marion Barber, a running back, to score two receiving touchdowns is all on the linebackers… Ruud among them.  Not that Quarles would have been able to stop him, either.

And then we have the secondary.  Oh dear God, the secondary.  Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn are good enough when the coverage is there.  When they’re wide open, forget about it.  Absolutely no one showed up in the defensive backfield on Thursday, not even the normally dependable Ronde Barber.  Specifically, I will call out Will Allen for staying in when he was so obviously hurt that even Joe Buck noticed, Jermaine Phillips for sliding face first into the backfield on a blitz that should have thrown Julius Jones for a loss (instead he gained 14 yards) and Torrie Cox for being outmatched for the entire game.

Ok, so that’s how you let Dallas score 38 points.  How did the offense manage to peak in the first quarter and only score 3 for the rest of the game?  The defense is partially to blame for that as well, allowing Dallas to stay on the field for over 37 minutes and run 67 offensive plays (compared with 45 Bucs plays.)  But the offensive players certainly did their part, specifically the line and the quarterback.

The offensive line did all right in the running game but came up short again in pass protection.  Jeremy Trueblood will be a very good offensive tackle one day, but right now he’s letting high-motor defensive ends/linebackers (like DeMarcus Ware, for example) run all over him.  In some games this year, the offensive line has imploded and given up ground that they didn’t have to.  In this case, though, there were no big, glaring mistakes.  They were just outplayed by a better team.

When Bruce Gradkowski wasn’t getting hurried, he was underthrowing receivers or overlooking them altogether.  After he underthrew Galloway once and overthrew him a second time, Gradkowski seemed to give up on him and dump off his passes to whomever was handy or just tuck the ball and start running.  I’m chalking all this up to rookie sixth round pick mistakes right now and will take another big swig of the Gradkowski-brand Kool-Aid, hoping that some progress will be evident by the end of the season.

Everyone else on offense did pretty well with what they were given.  Cadillac Williams is starting to show signs of life again.  All 78 of his yards were well-earned and he’s showing a lot of determination.  Joey Galloway came up big a couple times, but with only ten receptions total for the Bucs, there just wasn’t much to go around.  Again, only 45 plays total.

I honestly didn’t think Tony Romo would have the kind of effect he has had on the Cowboys.  They are a completely different team with him at quarterback, and if Owens wasn’t on the roster I might have rooted for them during the playoffs.  Bucs fans should take notice that an undrafted free agent from Eastern Illinois is 4-1 as a starter with two of those wins coming against actual contenders (Carolina and Indianapolis.)  All of the anti-Gradkowski nonsense like “this is why he was a sixth round pick” should be stifled until he has had some more time in the system and some veteran leadership to lean on.  This is Romo’s third year in Bill Parcells’ system and Romo has had guys like Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe to learn from during that time.  It seems to be working out for him and there’s no reason why the same couldn’t happen for Gradkowski.