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Todd Bowles reacts.
There is no way Joe can sugarcoat the play of Bucs linebacker SirVocea Dennis.
In fact, Joe was so shook by Dennis’ subpar play, Joe will quote what screamin’ Stephen A. Smith once said about Baker Mayfield after a Stinking Panthers loss when Mayfield was Carolina’s starter.
SirVocea Dennis, “You. Looked. Awful. Just. Awful. Your career is in jeopardy because that’s how sorry you looked.”
Now Bucs coach Todd Bowles isn’t ready to toss Dennis off the pirate ship. But it was clear when Bowles spoke at the podium at the combine last week that Bowles isn’t waiting around to see if Dennis can handle being a starter in the NFL.
> “He can be a starter if he cleans up his open field play,” Bowles said. “You know, he played well against the run. He gave up some things in the pass game that we didn’t like.
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> “It was his first full year starting. So we look for him to get better, but he’ll definitely have competition.”
The only competition Joe would give Dennis is competition against a first-round pick or a high-priced free agent like Quay Walker, Tremaine Edumnds or Alex Anzalone.
Unless Dennis has major improvement, he does not belong on an NFL field as a starter and certainly not for a team that thinks of itself as a playoff team.
Bowles saying Dennis was good against the run last year was high-level coachspeak. Dennis had such a horrible game against Philadelphia against the run, Joe thought the Bucs brought back Sabby the Goat and gave him a spin at linebacker.