Turnstile Todd speaks

There is enough coal in that list to make me homesick for strip mining.

 

a reply with a BUNCH of sentences! With valid points and stuff!!!

CCN, I appreciate you putting the level of thought and consideration into your response that you did. You make a few strong arguments and I’ll try to volley those in a minute. If it’s the Pewter board that you are referring to as being a propaganda-spreading cult that just sounds a little paranoid and disproportionately heavy. I’m going to let any of that “propaganda” shot that was personally aimed at me slide for now and give it about the same weight as the single sentence fragment king who made the lame “tampa lover” insult. In reference to the Pewter board, their posters don’t seem to have nearly the power that TBR does in the bottom of our lineup. However, there do seem to be the usual compliment of knowledgeable and reasonable enough guys to provide enough clarity there and occasionally yank the homers back into the realm of reality. If you are suggesting that their posters in general and the buc sources that they draw from are more biased than ours then I don’t know how you are going to effectively prove that. In all of this recreational early prognostication that many fans do you have to assume that each teams fans and media sources are wearing the same slightly rose tinted shades for the sake of comparisons. Also - to be fair sometimes you have to play a little devils advocate and that’s how I am currently trying to go at it. Some people here seem too insecure and fragile to accept possible areas of strength in a rival, just like there are plenty of one-sentence wonders over at the bucs board.


1st - Your point of concern at RB for them is well taken. They are going to baby Garner a little and keep him as fresh as they can for games in hopes of stretching out his span of effectiveness this year. I would normally downplay a guy like that too but Gruden knows Garner like the back of his hand and should be able to get the max effect. He is apparently back to "healthy" status" with no major current concerns over injury reoccurrence. He’s still great at catching the ball and making something happen and as a RB he still averaged 4.6 per carry last year so I don’t see him as being appreciably less effect for them as Davis will be for us this year. They just don’t have a Foster type guy . . . actually they don’t have the Davis type guy. Pittman MIGHT be a huge help to them if he was ever able to get his head screwed on. I disagree that he is “not a starting-caliber back”. On the field he has enough talent to be a solid North/South chain mover. It’s off the field that he’s not starter-caliber. He will be suspended for the first 3 games but he has apparently vowed to “make up for it” once he’s back and is reported to have been working harder than he has in the past. Personally I don’t see him being able to stay straightened out for long enough to take advantage of another golden opportunity but it is possible. The guy has the appropriate amount of talent but I of course will be rooting for him to tank again . . . even if he was a Panther I couldn’t pull for this jerk. You are right, all they have beyond those two is Jamal White (nope) and Brandon Bennett (who?). If they had a Michael Bennett instead of this Brandon kid they would obviously be in better shape. Their running game does ride entirely on Garner staying healthy and Pittman getting his shit together off field. Yes, those are considerable enough IFs to doubt their longevity at RB.
At FB apparently Alstott is not going full out yet but could. They just want to be cautious with him until regular season. That’s another “will he stay healthy” situation and they do need his offensive productivity. In the best of all possible worlds for them they will be able to make a 3 way split between Garner Pittman and Alstott and if that does happen then they will be dangerous enough IMO.


2nd – Yeah, they are currently reaching a bit at the WR position and I completely agree that McCardell is the key to their receiving corps and the Smitty-like spark for their entire offense. The most recent opinion over there is that the biatch will come slinking back into the fold somewhere around that final week before the opener. The bucs will reward him in the way of not withholding all that penalty cash for him not reporting in and eventually all will be hunky-dory . . . maybe so, or maybe he has already caused a stink that won’t just waft away as soon as he started catching TDs again. Who knows? As it stands right now, it rides on the rook Clayton’s shoulders. BUT those are already looking like pretty broad shoulders. I have already talked enough about their WR situation previously so I’ll drop it for now.


3rd – Their secondary - I would like to see a more thorough take on your (or anyone’s) take on the “they’ve lost so much more than they’ve gained” theory that only seems popular in here. What am I missing here? Convince me! I want to believe that we will be that much more effective passing on them as we were last year.)

 

i think their secondary depends on their health. kelley is real good, but he's coming off a major injury, and Ronde had to fight through a lot of things last year.

I don't think it was the secondary we struggled as much against as it was the pass rush of the front 4. Our guys were able to get open, as evidenced by our second game and the final drive.

 

jake was nerve-racked as hell also. i remember that first game, he was not the jake that developed at the end of the 2nd one and pretty much lasted through the season.

 

haven't been to the pewter report board very much at all lately. my info comes from the "official" board for what it's worth.

pittman lacks quailty field vision. he's not a bad running back, but i'd put him along the lines of hambrick...very similar liabilities in my view. he has some receiving skill, so in that regard he has some value. as a runner though, he's slightly above worthless. for all intents and purposes he was the feature back last season and was largely ineffective. i think ideally, they would like to use garner selectively, again 20 touches or so, running and receiving. but at this point, i don't see how they can do that. someone on that o is going to have to pick it up, yards, carries, touches, points, whatever, and i don't think they have that player on the field right now. as long as mccardell continues to hold out, that team is not going to be firing on all cylinders. last word i heard was that he demanded a trade or release.

on d, the loss of 2 of the big 3 cannot be discounted. it was hoped that russell would be a fill-in for sapp. that plan didn't work. in retrospect, while it was good to get rid of keyshawn and pick up another receiver for him, the plan backfired when they didn't even offer sapp a deal and let him walk, hoping that russell would fill the spot. so, logically, if they had to go dig up russell, because they needed to replace sapp, then there must not have been confidence in darby, mcfarland, wyms, spires or whoever to take his position. why the change of heart now then?
lynch on the other hand seems more complicated depending on who you ask. some say it was injury concerns, some say he didn't want to take a pay cut, he didn't want to be demoted. others talk about this dungy conspiracy that claims gruden is systematically clearing house of the old dungy crew so he can win with a team of his own making. they say brooks will be next to go so gold can move to his natural position. we'll see. but if you go with the premise that lynch couldn't go anymore, why is it that the broncos and jets were interested in him from the start? no matter what, they lost a ton of on-field leadership in those two players, both of whom still had something in the tank and from all accounts, wanted to stay.

as for the propaganda aspect, some examples: when stuessie was signed, many posters proclaimed him a beast. russell will lead the league in sacks. garner will get 1000/1000 this year. griese was a good signing.
they do have depth on the team, i just question the quality of depth, and whether the players they have can step into the roles that were vacated. hopefully, they can't.

 

"We're talking about the bucs THIS season aren't we? I am fully aware that many of their moves were based purely on the present and not necessarily future success. Since we are playing them at least two times THIS year let's focus on the here and now. "


We also play Atlanta and New Orleans twice...then there are all those single games we play.

To be honest, I am more worried about road games at KC, Denver, and Seattle than I will ever be about TB. Hell, I am more worried about New Orleans than I am TB.