Bucs coach Todd Bowles.
The Bucs entered the fourth quarter with a 16-3 lead.
The Bucs left late in overtime hanging their heads over a 26-19 defeat.
How did this happen? Well, KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles thinks he knows how it happened. Missed tackles. That’s what happened, he said.
> “We missed some tackles, number one,” Bowles said. “I thought we missed a couple of tackles, and we got off the ball late one time, for sure.
>
> “I’ll look at the tape, but I know we missed some
> checkdown tackles that should have been \[stopped\] where they were.”
The Bucs simply are not a good tackling team. Haven’t been for a while.
Last week Joe asked Bowles if a team can still improve tackling in the regular season even with tight restrictions on having padded practices.
Well, if Bowles didn’t give Joe a song-and-dance (Joe believes Bowles was sincere in his explanation) then it might be time for Bowles to kick up the level of practicing tackling beginning today with his team.
Unfortunately, Joe believes any type of practice of consequence is too late. The die has been cast. Joe cannot wrap his head around the possibility of a 1-5 team making a run for the playoffs.