Todd Bowles – Page 29 – Syndication Server

Buccaneers land on ESPN’s list of most improved defenses

See why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers found a spot on ESPN’s list of most improved defenses of 2019.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense entered the 2019 season looking to right the ship after ranking near the bottom of the league last season.

With new defensive coordinator Todd Bowles aboard, Tampa Bay has transformed themselves this season, turning out one of the NFL’s best rush defenses. The secondary has been a totally different story, but overall, Bowles has this team headed in the right direction — speed bumps aside.

Today, ESPN listed the Buccaneers’ defense as the league’s fourth most-improved this season.

Here’s part of what they had to say:

(DVOA: defense-adjusted value over average.)

“Intriguingly, this is almost all driven by a huge change in run defense DVOA. The Bucs have, by far, the best run defense DVOA in the NFL at -35.0%. Last season, they were at 3.0%, which was the second worst in the NFL… [Todd] Bowles has run an aggressive pass defense, blitzing at a 47.7% rate on dropbacks that has almost doubled the rate Tampa ran last season. Of course, that has barely touched the Bucs’ bottom-line pass defense DVOA, but their coverage players haven’t been very good, and Vernon Hargreaves was actually released. Vita Vea deserves a lot of praise for his role in buffing this run defense.”

Tampa Bay has all the pieces in place, it’s just a matter of putting it together on the field. Bowles has done a good job of making this unit respectable again, at least in the run game.

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Sam Darnold credits Jets locker room for bouncing back after 1-7 start

Jets quarterback Sam Darnold gives credit to the players in the locker room for responding from a 1-7 start.

Jets quarterback Sam Darnold praised the locker room for how the team has been able to bounce back from a 1-7 start to the season.

The Jets could’ve easily mailed it in for the season after the first eight games, but Adam Gase has done a good job keeping the team together and playing hard. While Darnold is giving Gase credit for that, he believes the players in the locker room are the ones continuing to put in the work and trying to win every week.

“We got such good guys in the locker room,” Darnold told reporters. “The coaches do a great job of making sure that we all stay together and they do a great job to continue to work hard and gameplan, but everyone in that locker room is set on winning.”

Under former head coach Todd Bowles, effort was sometimes a problem. It didn’t necessarily happen over a long stretch of games, but here and there you’d see the Jets clearly not care about a game. It’s good to see that this hasn’t yet been a problem under Gase, despite all the issues that he’s had with players so far in his first season.

As for the players, there’s definitely a belief among them that they can win football games consistently. But with the amount of bad luck the Jets have had with injuries, it has made it more difficult to win games.

Now that the Jets are getting some players healthy again, you’re starting to see glimpses of this team playing well. Obviously, the last two games have been against the bottom feeders of the league, but you still have to go out and execute.

If the Jets can continue to build on these wins, there should be some more confidence heading into next season.

5 reasons why Jets won’t fire Adam Gase after 2019

Jets Wire breaks down four reasons New York has for keeping Adam Gase in 2020.

Adam Gase is going to get another chance to get things right at One Jets Drive in 2020.

Christopher Johnson reaffirmed his faith in Gase on Wednesday, stating that there would be no head coaching change at season’s end. Gase will return.

Between Sam Darnold’s regression and numerous embarrassing losses in winnable games, Jets fans have been calling for Gase’s head for a while now. It seems like there is an endless list of reasons why New York should part ways with its embattled first-year head coach. However, there are still a few reasons why Gase returning in 2020 makes sense.

Let’s take a look at what those reasons could be.

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