In this episode, Taylor reacts to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL Week 17 win over the Carolina Panthers. When he talks about the Buccs, he talks about the spike in production from Mike Evans, the play of the offensive line with the return of Tristan Wirfs and the teams prospects going into their playoff birth that was clinched with the win. When he switches to the Panthers, he focuses on what they should do with Sam Darnold going forward and what they can do going forward to get themselves in position to win.
In this episode, Taylor reacts to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL Week 17 win over the Carolina Panthers. When he talks about the Buccs, he talks about the spike in production from Mike Evans, the play of the offensive line with the return of Tristan Wirfs and the teams prospects going into their playoff birth that was clinched with the win. When he switches to the Panthers, he focuses on what they should do with Sam Darnold going forward and what they can do going forward to get themselves in position to win.
Taylor: What's up, everybody? It's the round table sports podcast. My name is Taylor McLean. We've got game number two coming at you right now with the Tampa Bay Bay Buccaneers win over the Carolina Panthers. A hard fought game that had an exciting ending and certainly told us a lot about the two potential teams that could have come out of the NFC South. And of course, we're going to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the playoffs. So I thought it was important to take a look at them and see what they've got going into the playoffs. Before we get to the football, let's give a shout out to this podcast sponsor, Evergreen Power Solutions. They're a concierge power company here for our Texas listeners only. They'll go in there, shop around, and get you the best rate for your current power bill. Eliminate a bunch of the ticky tacky fees that a lot of these electricity companies are charging you. Then when it comes time to renegotiate the contract, if you're anything like me, you forget about that stuff. They'll go in renegotiate for you and either keep it the same or get it lower for you so you're not having to participate in any upward movement in the power prices. Give them a call at 8886-6586, use prompt number two and let them know that the Roundtable Sports Podcast sent you. Now let's get onto the football. And as I said, I wanted to see Tampa Bay and what they had going coming into the playoffs. I give the Carolina Panthers a lot of credit. Felt like they could have won this game at any given time. Had they had JC horn in this game, they might have also won it. They were really just one cornerback away from getting a win in this game, it turns out. I thought it was really big for Tampa Bay that they got Tristan Worths back in this game and he was able to come out there and play all the snaps for the team. He didn't have a particularly good day with the run blocking, really. Overall. The Tampa Bay offensive line kind of struggled to make consistent holes for the running backs to run through. I really like Leonard Fornet and Rashad White a whole lot. Not that I think that either one of them are top five backs, but they're both backs that play in the NFL skill wise. So to have them not be able to get loose running the ball and to really have the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to rely on their short passing game isn't optimal going into the playoffs. But still, to get worfs back, to have the book ins to protect Tom Brady a little bit better is a huge deal for them. That's always been a big part of the equation of Tom Brady in Tampa Bay is being able to keep him upright, and it had been to also have a running game attached to him as well. To play off of, but that really hasn't been available game to game for them at this point. But at least with worfs back in there, they don't have to be as reliant on that. They can kind of drop back and have Tom be able to work the short passing game a little bit easier. And make no mistake, it didn't just paper over everything for the Tampa Bay line and their passing game. But I have to think there would have been more pressures than just the 16 they got. And there probably would have been more sacks on top of that should they have been able to rush free wheel from either end. Now, with worst in there, you don't have to worry as much about the edges and you can kind of shift your extra coverage towards the middle, although today you had to shift that coverage towards Brian Burns, who is a beast on the other side. And despite Donovan Smith being a good left tackle, he's still going to need some help when he gets an end like that on his side. And when you have worfs back in there, you don't have to shift coverage to that side when it comes to your pass block and you can move it around more, give the middle or give Donovan help. It just means everything for an offense that really has to pass block, because Tom, despite having a little bit of pocket mobility, is not able to move out of the way the same way he used to be able to. And his power does grow as we get closer and closer to the Super Bowl because he becomes more and more willing to take hits to try and get the results he's looking for. That's been one of the issues for Tampa Bay for this season, is he hasn't been quite as willing to do that. And as the season's gone on, he's had to kind of get over that as things become tighter. And of course, without that extra time today, the Bucks really wouldn't have been able to get anything done because really they just couldn't sustain drives and they couldn't push the Carolina Panthers around like they needed to in the run game to be able to play everything off of that. So it did turn out to be the short passing game that they had to rely on. And then Mike Evans burning the various cornerbacks for the Carolina Panthers, two of them going to CJ. Henderson, who was a top ten pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars, who quickly gave up on him. And it just goes to show you how devastating the top ten cornerback bust can be. And make no mistake, he is a bust. He might be one of the better options they had to put on the field on this day, but between him and Keith Taylor, they did not have a good time with Mike Evans. And had they had JC. Horn, who they were kind of holding out hope, might be able to play should they not have been eliminated, that this might have been a different game because those Mike Evans plays were that big. The touchdowns really got the Buccaneers going, and it felt like had Carolina not put those guys out on that island with Mike Evans, that they might have won this game and kept themselves in contention. At this point. I don't mean to slop all the blame on those two guys on this day, but because there were other performances that weren't quite up to snuff either. But at the same time, Tampa Bay doesn't get those games, and I think we're having a lot more exciting weekend when it comes to the NFC South. As I mentioned, one of the reasons that I wanted to watch this game was to see about Tampa Bay's viability going into the playoffs because Tom Brady should absolutely make every team nervous when they step out on the field with them, especially in a playoff scenario, because he can still be on and lead a team to victory. I have no doubt about it. Even still, I don't know that this performance made me feel terribly excited about their chances either. As I mentioned, Tom's willing to take more hits as the playoff goes on as the situation cranks itself up, but I just wonder if they're going to be able to consistently move the ball down the field and consistently get the type of protection they're going to need to execute what they executed today. And it's not just that they haven't had the time to work Mike Evans down the field, it's just for varying reasons, they haven't been able to hook up. Whether it was the complete miss by Mike, whether it's been penalties, negating things, it's been out of sorts for Tom and Mike up into this point. So to see them get things going and get the win when they had to have it certainly has to make Tampa Bay fans feel a lot better about their chances going forward and should strike a little bit more fear in the hearts of their opponents. But I just don't know how consistently Tampa Bay is going to be able to do that when they're not picking on cornerbacks that have been beat by other guys like a drum this season. CJ. Henderson has all the ability in the world, but just for whatever reason, seems to be out of position pretty frequently. And even though he didn't give up the first touchdown, he did open things up pretty well on the other two and allowed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to clinch this game. And to be clear, I still like the weapons outside of Mike Evans, too. Chris Godwin is still the slot monster that Tom Brady needs despite giving up his own fumble today. It was a pretty solid punch by the defender to get that done. I don't typically fault guys when a perfect peanut Punch is executed, as the broadcast mentioned. Got to give it up to Peanut Tillman for pioneering that technique. Not that people hadn't punched before, but he really was that good at it and really made it prevalent in the game. I'm a big fan of when teams push their players to go for the ball, not just in those type of scenarios where they're running with the ball after a catch. Also, you notice that more teams are teaching their guys to go for the ball within the pocket as well, so that they're not going towards the head or piling on and driving the quarterback down. If you go for the arm, you're still able to bring them down, typically in a less hurtful fashion, but it's also a less penalized fashion. Plus you get the chance to strip the ball and get the fumble. Should have always probably been the case, but it just seems more and more like that's the way to go and that the smarter defenders are taking that route. But back on the point, when you're able to put Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Gage Rashad wider fornett Julio and Kate Otton on the field, that is a lot to COVID It's not the same amount that they used to have with Gronk and then Antonio Brown when he was on board, but it's still pretty solid. It's just I don't know that it's going to end up being solid enough. If the Buccaneers aren't also able to pair that with the running game like they have in the past and are able to protect Tom Brady like they have in the past, their defense is still pretty good as well. Getting Vita Vea back, having a team Hicks up the middle definitely makes them strong. Levante there's a whole lot of players on that defense. I also don't feel like their pass rush is quite as strong as it had been off the edges either. Clearly, not having Shack Barrett takes a lot of cream off the coffee, and it's great to have rush that comes up the middle. No doubt that's one of the best things you can have in the NFL. But when you don't have as many guys to clean that up, when the quarterback is able to break the pocket, that is a problem. And that's something that I feel like has held this team back a little bit there as well. And just like when you have a quarterback that's incomplete, having a defense that's incomplete can really put a team at a big disadvantage when the other team is capable of taking advantage of that. We saw that on the Buccaneer side of the ball when the Carolina Panthers didn't have a cornerback that could really keep up with Mike Evans. And with Tampa Bay not getting as much rush off the edges, that can. Be a problem because that was a problem on the other side because it allowed Sam Darnold to not have to make as many pressured decisions and allowed him to remain more comfortable than you would like. If you can get Sam off of his mark, then he's not all that hard to figure out. But without that extra rush, they still got 18 pressures out of the 46, some odd dropbacks, and Sam Darnold definitely had made plenty of mistakes, no doubt, but they also allowed him to stand back there too much and to be able to rocket throws to open guys. And when the offense is kind of running the way it should, sam is capable of delivering those balls. So while I think it's great for Tampa Bay, they got in, and I'm still not feeling great about playing Tom Brady in the playoffs if I'm the Dallas Cowboys. I also don't think that it's a completely linear statement that Tampa Bay got a lot better today and look a lot better going into the playoffs just because Mike Evans burned the heck out of his guy a couple of times. There's still a lot of problems here, and it's going to take a herculean effort by Tom Brady, and he's really going to have to turn it on to a level that he hadn't previously he did today. He made those big throws. He stood in there and made big passes and the like, but I don't know that that's something you can do so selectively and all of a sudden power your way to the Super Bowl. Maybe you can out coach the Cowboys. That can happen on a given day, but that hasn't been the strong point of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season either. I haven't felt like they've had particularly strong offensive game plans, and I don't feel like their decision making at all times is top notch when it comes to the head coaching stuff either. The defense is fine, schematically for sure, but I don't know. Just overall, the whole situation leaves me wanting. Maybe Tom Brady can pull it out. He's earned that respect, and him and Aaron Rogers sneaking into the playoffs, they've earned that respect. So bet against them at your peril. But both teams have their flaws, and certain teams are going to be able to take those things away from them. It's not going to be CJ. Henderson on Mike Evans. For these playoff teams, you're going to have to have something else in your bag of tricks here, and you haven't been able to do the running game like you usually have to keep teams off balance, and that's filtered into everything else. And having to maintain drives with short passes is tough. It's one of the harder things to do is drive the football down the field without chunk plays. That's why when you see these even plays that don't score, they just get the offense down there rapidly there. You're so much more likely to score when that stuff is going on. That's why, in addition to those big plays, it was so important to get Mike Evans going to open up everything underneath better than they possibly could before. And now teams going forward are going to have to respect Mike Evans and the deep ball just a little bit more because of his history and because of what he did today, and that just hadn't been the case as much before in the rest of the season. And I think that's what's kind of led to some of the malaise that this offense has been feeling. I also think as much as I like Kate Otton, that it's partially that they miss Gronk a lot for this offense, too, because he allows them to do all the different things. Because with this offense that you would want to do with him in there, kate oughton just isn't quite as good a run blocker, which is no fault of his own, because you're talking about comparing him to one of the best run blocking tight ends of all time. So when you don't have that extra alignment in there that's also able to catch the ball, kind of throws the equation for Tampa Bay out of whack. He gives you that edge that you had in the running game and takes it away. Kate is just fine catching the ball. He's not as explosive as you might like, but he's still a big body out there who's going to learn more as his years go on. But I don't think it can be understated how much having Gronk missing has taken some of the cream off the coffee, as well as I don't think that Russell Gage and Julio have brought as much as Antonio Brown. And even though they don't necessarily have to be, they haven't met my expectations either. Because part of what made them great last year was you can put all those guys out in the route, and even not having Julio or Russell Gage, even the third guy with Gronk out there and with the healthier offensive line, it just all clicked and went together better. And I don't mean to keep harping on that, but that's what it's going to take to get Tampa Bay over the top on this game, and we'll see if they're able to put it together in the coming weeks and in the coming playoff game. On the Carolina Panthers side, certainly a disappointing loss. The fact that you had fired your coach midseason and had gotten yourself back to a point where in a weaker division, record wise, that you were still in this is something to be impressed about. I know there's a lot of people that felt like the Panthers should be better than what they were doing, obviously ownership included. So to see them come out there and not just get like the one game bump that most team gets by firing a head coach that they didn't like, they've actually maintained that and gotten better as time went on. Playing through Baker Mayfield, who they did not have a good idea of how to use and was a terrible fit for what they liked to do. Also playing through PJ Walker, who is a fine backup but is only good in spurts, and then finally transitioning to Sam Darnold and actually making him look somewhat playable out there. Impressive stuff. I have to think that while Wilkes and the staff might not be the sexiest thing to do when you're talking about the coaching staff, I got to think that they've earned at least a little credit and are at least going to get a look for what the team is going to do in the off season. They're definitely going to have some decisions to make when it comes to how they're going to shape the roster, probably none bigger than Sam Darnold and what they're going to do there. They had him on a fifth year option for $18 million that they could not get out of at all in this season and they didn't extend him and he's going to be a free agent going into this off season. So they're going to have a decision there on are they going to roll with him going forward or are they going to try and get someone else in there? I don't think that there's going to be a lot of tremendous options for the Carolina Panthers or really for any team when it comes to getting a veteran quarterback. Jimmy G is one thing. Sam's going to be out there, maybe Tom Brady. Tom Brady might be the exception when it comes to that, but Sam has definitely played his way into some sort of consideration for something. I'd much rather have him than like Mitch Trubisky back there. At least I feel like Sam could give me a chance to go something beyond the play so well. I don't think that Sam has been screaming out to me, NFL starter by any means. I think that somebody will be desperate enough to give him some sort of chance. I just think there's going to be like eight to twelve teams and the quarterback musical chairs are going to move and there's going to be some team left out that says, hey, why not try and get something out of Sam here? Because I like the physical tools on Sam Darnold, to be clear. I think he has plenty of arm strength. I don't think that it's the top two tiers of arm strength, but I think it's third and that's plus arm strength that can touch most parts of the field. I also don't mind the way that he runs. I think that he's got good mobility and that given open field in front of him, he could get those yards and maybe a little bit more. The problem is on Sam Darnold, it's not at all the physical skills. It's always been the mental side of the game for him as the smallest part of the bad parts of his quarterback equation is he doesn't run enough. I'd love to see him involved in a couple of designed runs just to keep the defense honest. And then I'd love for him to have a better feel for when to step up in the pocket and take those yards that are given to him with the green grass in front of him. But that's neither here nor there when it actually comes to what keeps Sam from being an effective NFL quarterback. And it's come down to for me, it's a two part thing. Number one, the decision making it is lacking at times, for sure. He always seems to have one really bad decision, one space that he tries to fit it into. That is not something you should throw as an NFL quarterback. Part of that is believing in your arm. I'm okay with that to a certain extent, but when you don't have elite touch when it comes to your deep passes or just really your passes overall, he's not as bad in the short and intermediate term, but his touch in the deep is still not developing. He was able to hit DJ more on a deep pass. DJ had to come back to that thing like a son of a gun. He had his guide beat deep. And the thing is, for Sam, for some guys, I'd be okay. He doesn't have the arm strength to get it there. Sam absolutely has the arm strength to get it there and just can't seem to quite dial the knob to the right point. The interception that he threw deep was the same thing. He just under threw it by five yards, and DJ mortis wasn't quite man enough to go get that one. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure that any NFL receiver was quite man enough to get that ball because it would have taken some sort of superhero effort to get to that ball. And that happens invariably in a game that Sam Darnold is the quarterback. He always seems to make that catastrophic decision. And part of it is that he wants it and he's trying to force it a little bit. It looks like you used to see that with your Josh Allen, where they're trying to make something happen so bad that they end up making that decision. And you see some of that. You see that Sam doesn't know exactly what he's going to do and his improvisation in those moments is lacking. And that's something that you have to have in the NFL. If you can't do something when the play breaks down or doesn't go exactly to plan, then you're not going to be able to survive in the NFL. Because the amount of times that the play doesn't go exactly to plan are too great and fall way too often in the time of the game. That's critical. It's like as the game goes on, as the game gets tighter, the windows for these throws and for these plays get tighter, and Sam just doesn't have the accuracy or the know how on controlling his arm to be able to make those plays consistently. And it's that consistency that allows you to get the timing with the wide receiver to get the chemistry down to figure out exactly where you're going to put those balls. And Sam just doesn't have that part of it. It's just not a part of his game. You have to manage him too closely to allow him to take advantage of those things. It's almost like jamis, but on a smaller scale, where Sam has a little bit more know how and is a little less daring than James Winston, but invariably, he has to make that play. And as the game goes along and as the game calls for it, because once again, in tight games, the game shrinks down to how good are you at throwing contested passes. And Sam struggles in that way. His ball is not consistently right where the receiver is expecting it. They're having to adjust. They're not able to run with the ball as much. And it just overall affects the offense to the point where it's just not worthwhile for him to be your guy. And I don't think that there's enough leash for most of these teams to be able to give him the time he would need to get over that. And he's been given a ton of time to this point. And unfortunately, a lot of that time was with the jets, where he wasn't going to be able to get that done regardless of what his talent level would. Have been because it's just not because it just wasn't really possible with them, the amount of dip, ducking and dodging he was having to do to make the situation work. And I hate that I'm having to pile on to him to really get my point home on this one, because he has raised the level of the Carolina Panthers from where they were. No doubt he's played admirably. I've seen it enough to know that it's not developing to the point where I would want to roll into the season with him as my guy. I would rather take a shot at a re rack at quarterback, regardless of where I drafted them. I'm not trying to roll out Sam Ellinger over Sam Darnold for sure, but I'd rather tank at this point than have to try and reroll Sam Darnold. As I said, the quarterback musical chairs may call for that. It may be the only thing that they have available. But I also think this team is too talented to go that route. I'd much rather see them sell off Brian Burns and sell off everybody else, especially if you could have gotten two first round picks for Brian Burns. But to Carolina's credit, they're also talking about going for it and trying to be competitive, and that's also admirable in its own right in Carolina. I don't mean to make your whole section about Sam Darnold and what they should do. You had a show of the season at quarterback, and you should be commended for sticking with them. And the team really should be commended for playing as hard as it did down the stretch. And that speaks well to Steve for stepping in there and doing what he did. You've got offensive lineman to build around. Ikawanu is good. Corbett has its moments. DJ. Moore is a stud, and Deontay Foreman showed you something this year. You've got talent on defense. There's stuff to build around, but you've just got a ways to go. And for a season where you fired your coach, I think it went about as well as it could have. Well, that's what I've got for this game. You've gotten this point and haven't done, so download the podcast, let me know you're here and listening like and subscribe if you're on YouTube. I know this one was a little all over the place, but I had a very limited window that I had to get in here and get this done. So I appreciate you sticking with me. Also, my downstairs neighbor started playing piano during the middle of it, so I got her to stop. But if I sound a little crazy during the middle, please forgive me. Look for videos. Definitely going to be a Mike Evans video after he torched me in fantasy football. Also, give me a little credit that I wasn't so bitter that I couldn't do this game because Mike Evans got 47 points or whatever it was. He was such a beast in this game. So look forward to that. Look forward to more games. Definitely going to do Vikings, packers coming up. That's on the agenda. Probably going to look at the game for tonight. I recorded this right before 05:00 on Monday, so we haven't seen Cincinnati and the Bills. Appreciate your time today. Have a great rest of your day.