Don’t be fooled. Bucs defense has a lot of improving to do

The scoreboard painted a pretty picture of the Bucs defense. Only 17 points allowed to the Cardinals. Two turnovers forced. Two sacks. A pair of fourth-down stops to turn the ball over on downs.

It was a more eye-pleasing display than the unit that had been gashed for big plays against the Patriots, Bills and Rams.

But as much as the Bucs’ 20-17 win looked better Sunday, the defense is still a mess hiding behind a clean box score.

Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett passed for 301 yards and two touchdowns. Arizona also ran the football effectively, averaging more than 5 yards an attempt.

That’s how you have a 17-3 lead late in the third quarter but have to escape with your lives in the final seconds.

“I thought we improved in the run game early on,” head coach Todd Bowles said. “I think we stopped it. We knew they threw the ball a lot, so we knew the passing yards were going to be up. They threw it less against us than the two previous weeks. They threw it 60-plus (times the previous two weeks). They threw it 40 (times) against us, which was still a lot.”

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Brissett was responsible for the first blunder. After completing his first six passes to drive the Cardinals, he threw into coverage over the middle and the pass was tipped by cornerback Jamel Dean and intercepted by Antoine Winfield Jr. at the Tampa Bay 14-yard line late in the first quarter.

The other turnover came on the second play of the third quarter when defensive lineman Logan Hall punched the football away from Cardinals running back Bam Knight and safety Tykee Smith pounced on the fumble at the Tampa Bay 40-yard line. Other than that, the Cardinals more or less moved the football at will.

“I think we’ve got to get better with the tackling aspect of it, especially in the second half,” Bowles said. “I thought we tackled well in the first half. In the second half, we let some plays out. It wasn’t necessarily deep balls, but the 5-yard passes — especially the one on third and 3 or 4 where three guys missed him behind the line of scrimmage — we’ve got to tackle and wrap up better.”

Missed tackles have been something Bowles has lamented for several weeks now. There is only limited contact in practice and teams aren’t taking their own players to the ground; tackling dummies and padded donuts are sometimes used to work on technique.

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“It’s definitely something we can work on,” Bowles said.

While Brissett was only sacked twice, the Bucs did get consistent pressure on him. In fact, Brissett was the most pressured quarterback in the NFL for Week 13 at 53.2%, according to NextGen Stats.

“As a pass rush group, I thought we got back there quite a bit,” Bowles said. “I thought we missed quite a bit of them, but we did get back there and put pressure on him, Haason (Reddick) included. I thought he did well for his first game back, but we’ve got to get him on the ground. We missed about five of them where we could have had him on the ground.”

Bucs linebacker Lavonte David said the Bucs should’ve closed the game out earlier and not let Arizona hang around. The Cardinals got the ball back at their own 9-yard line with 1:49 remaining needing a field goal to send the game to overtime.

“We’ve got to win. We’ve got to have it, man,” David recalled telling his defense. “Somebody has to be able to step up and make a play. I’m not sure if you knew, but everybody on that sideline was pissed off. We shouldn’t have been in that situation. Especially me, I hate being in those situations, but that’s when big-time players step up. SirVocea (Dennis) made a huge play.”

Bowles didn’t apologize for the win, but David said he also was critical of the defense after the game.

“It’s not going to be pretty. He said that it’s not going to be pretty,” David recalled. ”We just have to do a better job of finishing the football game. We were up big on these guys, and we let them back into the game, and that’s something that we have to take on personally.”

Up next

vs. Saints, 1 Sunday, Raymond James Stadium TV/radio: CBS; 97.9-FM Line/OU: Bucs by 8 1/2; 42 1/2

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