Early this season, while the Buccaneers’ offense was still trying to figure out what it was, Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Todd Bowles and his staff put together one of the best game plans I’ve ever seen. Against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in Week 6, the Bucs shook off an early 10-0 deficit to torment Rodgers as Rodgers has never been tormented before. Rodgers, who came into the game with 13 touchdowns, no interceptions, and just three sacks, completed 16 of 35 passes for 160 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, five sacks, and a quarterback rating of 35.4 — the third-worst of his career. After two early scoring drives, that defense settled in, and the Packers were given nothing the rest of the game.
Bowles dialed up a master class in every facet of defensive scheme. First, the Bucs ran all kinds of pre-snap front movement, altering and confusing Green Bay’s protection rules.
Cornerback Jamel Dean’s 33-yard pick-six with 12:50 left in the first half was brought about in part because of pressure games. Notice that as Rodgers heads to the center, just one defender — left end Jason Pierre-Paul — has his hand down. Right before the snap, Ndamukong Suh puts his hand down at nose tackle. So, is this a two-man front with everyone else in coverage? There are five defenders at or near the line of scrimmage pre-snap. Who’s coming, and who’s backing out? We have no idea. Neither does Rodgers.
In the end, Pierre-Paul, Suh, and right end Shaquil Barrett rushed. The right-side blitz look was a ruse, as safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and linebacker Lavonte David dropped into coverage, and cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting blitzed from the other side. So, it was a four-man pressure, but in a very different way than Rodgers may have expected.
Creative blitzes were also a staple. This sack of Rodgers with 3:41 left in the first half comes out of a really interesting front and blitz package. It’s a bear front concept with linebackers Devin White and Lavonte David as the edge defenders, and Shaquil Barrett, who’s normally an edge-rusher, working in the middle linebacker spot.
At the snap, both White and David take off for the quarterback. Left tackle David Bakhtiari and left guard Elgton Jenkins double right defensive end Ndamukong Suh, running back Jamaal Williams whiffs on the cross-block of David, and David gets to Rodgers just before Barrett can. After the play, Rodgers can be seen yelling at everyone unfortunate enough to be in his general vicinity.
The Bucs didn’t just get to Rodgers with blitzes and stunts — at times, they presented impossible combinations of four-man pressure and back-seven overage that both frustrated Rodgers in his reads, and forced him to make out-of-structure movements that put him in harm’s way. Jamel Dean’s pick-six was one. This Ndamukong Suh sack near the end of the first half was another. Tampa Bay is playing two-deep, and they’re also dropping both David and White into hook/curl responsibilities at the seam and at the numbers.
This has Rodgers moving to his right with uncertain reads, and all Suh has to do is roll off the protection, and go pick up the prize.
I’ve been writing about Bowles’ defenses since 2013 when he was now-Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians’ defensive coordinator in Arizona, and at their best, the characteristics are consistent: Multiple defensive fronts to confuse protection rules, linebackers flowing to the ball from different gaps and with different responsibilities, and coverage specifically tied to pressure.
On the other hand…
When the Buccaneers stick with static fronts and spot-drop coverages, they simply don’t have the horses to make that work on a consistent basis. And they do this too often. That’s not a knock on Tampa Bay’s defensive players — it could be argued that in today’s NFL, any defense relying on static fronts and spot-drop coverages is going to get waxed at some point. Nonetheless, it’s the Bucs’ defense we’re talking about here, so here are a few examples of what happens when Bowles dials it back.
In Week 4 against the Chargers, Bowles’ defense allowed two huge passing touchdowns to Justin Herbert, who was in his third game as an NFL starting quarterback. There was this 53-yard bomb to receiver Tyron Johnson, who beat two-deep coverage downfield as Herbert calmly navigated a four-man rush, with end Jason Pierre-Paul dropping into coverage. The ball is slightly underthrown to match Johnson in stride, but Johnson is still able to beat safeties Antoine Winfield Jr. and Jordan Whitehead by several steps.
And there was this 72-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Guyton, in which the Buccaneers sent a seven-man blitz, leaving cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting one-on-one downfield. Winfield and Carlton Davis are covering Keenan Allen underneath, and there’s no real protection against the deep shot, because Herbert handles the blitz so well. As we’ve learned through Herbert’s rookie season, two ways to ensure a very bad result is to blitz him, and to play man coverage against him. This was one of the first clarion calls in that regard.
If you have elite island cornerbacks, you can do this stuff, though you probably shouldn’t. Tampa Bay’s cornerbacks are good players who work well in a system, and these examples of the system don’t end in ways that Bowles would find favorable.
Against the Chiefs in a 27-24 Week 12 loss, the Bucs were shredded by Patrick Mahomes to the tune of 462 passing yards and three touchdowns in what was the nadir for the defense this season. Tyreek Hill caught all three of those touchdown passes, and on each, he was able to beat the daylights out of single coverage — no deep safety help! — and Mahomes found those matchups quite appetizing. Cornerback Carlton Davis, who was covering on all three, is a good player, but what do you THINK is going to happen on plays like this?
“We’ve got to cover tighter and we’ve got to get home faster,” Arians said after the Chiefs game. “We can’t let a guy in man coverage have 3.7, [or] 3.8 seconds to throw a ball – it’s got to come out in three or less. We can cover for 10 to 12 yards, but we can’t give them that much time. Again, Patrick [Mahomes] is an unbelievable guy… we don’t see him every week, but I think tighter coverage… when we’re playing man, we have to get home.”
Well, that’s part of the problem. The larger part of the problem is that this defense doesn’t always do what it does best, and when it doesn’t, the results are quite predictable.
Not that the Washington Football Team and Alex Smith present the same kind of vertical threat — quite the opposite — but if there’s to be a chance for this team to become the first in NFL history to host the Super Bowl in its home stadium, Bowles and his crew had better clean things up and return to the Aaron Rodgers plan.
After all, they may see Rodgers again in the postseason — and it’d be in Green Bay in January this time.