Solid evening.
Last week Chris Braswell was close to invisible despite playing most of the first worthless preseason game against Tennessee. That changed Saturday in Pittsburgh.
Playing one of the toughest, most physical teams in the NFL, the Steelers, Braswell shined. He had a sack (yay!), should have had two if not for a hold, had a pair of tackles, including a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit.
Now that’s more like a second-round draft pick!
Joe spoke with Braswell after the game and he swore he didn’t change his gameplan or mindset at all.
> “I have the same mindset going into every game,” Braswell said. “And that is to cause havoc.”
The Steelers certainly had to account for him.
Braswell’s sack came in the second quarter, putting Skylar Thompson on the ground on third down to force a punt.
Forcing a punt! Can you imagine?
Braswell said his success came as a result of teamwork.
> “It was a great gameplan,” Braswell said. “I just wanted to get better from last week. I wanted to build on that. I want to get better every single day.
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> “I definitely felt good, going out there and executing against a physical team like that. But hey, we’re Tampa Bay. We’re a physical team, too. We take pride in that.”
The Bucs were ready for Pittsburgh’s tough football. They came to play against the Steelers in the joint practice on Thursday. Braswell said his play in the joint practice carried over into the game.
> “It helped a lot,” Braswell said of Thursday. “As a defense, we were physical in that practice. I felt like we won that practice as a whole. As a team. Especially our defense.
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> “We definitely out-physicaled them. We tried to come back \[Saturday\] and be physical.”
And Braswell was. ‘
Now the goal is to make sure that production from Braswell in Pittsburgh wasn’t just a fluke.