That’s really all you can say. After fighting back to get to 3-3 against Cleveland Youth Mike Evans Jersey , the Bucs have fallen right on their faces in losses to Cincinnati and Carolina. Losses this team couldn’t afford. Plain and simple, they’ve started slowly in each of the last two games and that’s led to Tampa Bay’s demise. With the state of the defense, Tampa Bay’s offense has to get off to better starts.Instead, they’ve been limited to 9 and 14 points in the first half while scoring zero points in the first quarter in the defeats to the Bengals and Panthers. It’s an area that the coaching staff should hone in on going forward. Winners1. Adam HumphriesAdam Humphries had his best game of the season against Carolina and scored his first two touchdowns of 2018. The former Clemson star caught eight passes on his eight targets for 82 yards and two scores. He also rushed once for seven yards. It’s the second straight game where Humphries has found himself heavily involved in the passing attack. He has recorded 76+ yards in three of the last four games. Humphries has been a nice check down target for both Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick. 2. Carl NassibThe former Hard Knocks personality has been a nice addition to a struggling Buccaneers defense. After starting against Cleveland and Cincinnati, Nassib was back in his reserve role with Vinny Curry healthy.That didn’t stop him from making an impact. Nassib made a tackle on third down on the Panthers first possession to force a three and out. Later, he had a sack on Cam Newton that helped Tampa Bay force its second straight three and out to begin the second half.Nassib has recorded his only three sacks of the 2018 season in the last three games. 3. O.J. HowardOJ Howard had the second multi-touchdown game of his career on Sunday against the Panthers. The only other time he did it was back during his rookie year in a loss to Buffalo.Howard caught four passes for 53 yards and two scores against Carolina. Surprisingly, it was his lowest output thus far in 2018 as the tight end is beginning to develop into a consistent threat for the Bucs.He’s on pace for 56 catches, 944 yards, and 10 touchdowns. That’d be around the numbers of some of the top tight ends in the league. Losers1. Mark DuffnerTampa Bay’s defense played great against Cleveland in its first game with Duffner at the helm. They allowed no points in the first half and the Browns only scored due to a safety. The game would wind up going in the Bucs favor White Ryan Smith Jersey , 26-23.Since then, wow, they’ve reverted back to their Mike Smith form. Tampa Bay’s defense allowed 27 points in the first half to Cincinnati and a whopping 35 to Carolina. Fun fact, in five losses this season, the Buccaneers have allowed at least 24 points in the opening half. In the three wins? They’ve allowed 24 points in the first half just once.Something has got to change, because right now, Tampa Bay is on pace to fire its second defensive coordinator of the season. 2. Dirk KoetterThe Buccaneers are currently in last place in the NFC South and sit at No. 12 in the conference. This season hasn’t gone anything like Dirk Koetter or his staff planned for. At the halfway point, Tampa Bay has already piled up five losses. Despite a high-octane offense, the defense is just too porous to have success. It feels like it’s been a year since the Bucs were 2-0 under the leadership of Ryan Fitzpatrick. Since then Youth Justin Evans Jersey , things have turned into a disaster. A week after Koetter benched Jameis Winston for throwing four interceptions as the offense scored just nine points in the first half, his team wasn’t any better against Carolina. Tampa Bay started out down 35-7 before scoring another touchdown with 15 seconds left in the half.With the way things have gone, it doesn’t feel like Koetter will be here after the season unless the Buccaneers have a miraculous turnaround. One can dream, right? 3. Mike EvansAs bad as Tampa Bay’s offense was, it couldn’t get its best receiver involved to try and stem the tide. Mike Evans caught just one of his 10 targets for 16 yards against Carolina. for the 6-foot-5 receiver, it was one of the worst games of his career. It was just the third time in his 60 games that Evans has had one or less catch. It was only the fourth time that he’s ever had 16 or fewer yards in a game. While hopefully it was an anomaly, it’s concerning to see Evans have this type of performance against a defense that got picked on by other elite receivers.Head Coach Dirk Koetter day after game reactions Tampa Bay is coming off a 30-27 loss on Monday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team simply couldn’t overcome the four turnovers in the first half. For a couple minutes in the fourth quarter, it looked like “Fitzmagic” was about to break the internet, but the comeback fell just short.With Jameis Winston returning from suspension today http://www.authenticstampabaybuccaneers.com/cheap-beau-allen-jersey , the big question surrounding the Buccaneers, is “who will be their starting quarterback come Sunday at Chicago?” As expected, Head Coach Dirk Koetter didn’t give any clues during his day after press conference regarding the team’s quarterback situation. “It’s great to see Jameis back in the building and he was here early and working hard. He assured me that he was ready to go, which I don’t doubt that for a minute,” Koetter said. “We know what we are going to do, both guys know what we are going to do. I hope everyone can appreciate that it doesn’t do us any good to tell our opponents what we are going to do.”It’s a tough call for the staff to make. Fitzpatrick, is the only quarterback in history to throw for 400 yards in three straight games, but Jameis Winston gives this team the best chance to win football games. I would lean towards starting Fitz right now because of how well he is playing, but Winston can not ride the bench for the next month. He needs to be the week six starter http://www.authenticstampabaybuccaneers.com/cheap-jason-pierre-paul-jersey , at the latest. One positive for the Buccaneers last night was the performance of rookie cornerback Carlton Davis III. Davis, was matched up against arguably the best receiver in the NFL for much of the night in Antonio Brown. Koetter came away impressed with Davis and sees the progression from week one.“First off, I though Carlton Davis was outstanding in the game. I think for the guys he was having to cover, he showed no fear, the game wasn’t too big for him,” Koetter said. “He played a lot of press coverage and got right up in their face.”With the season-ending injury to Chris Conte, the Buccaneers will likely have three rookie players starting every week in the secondary, so there will absolutely be growing pains with this secondary. On the other side of the spectrum, one negative game note was that Tampa Bay was simply not productive on the kick return game. The Steelers were forcing Tampa Bay to run it back and they failed every time. It feels like it’s been a franchise long problem for this team Youth Gerald McCoy Jersey , and they haven’t been able to figure out how to get that consistent return man. The Buccaneers currently rank last in the league in kick returns. Koetter acknowledged the problem today. “We were very poor in that last night. Our biggest issue last night was that our returner and blockers weren’t on the same page,” Koetter said. “We were blocking one way and returning it the other and that’s just not going to work. That was disappointing and obviously Pittsburgh challenged us to bring the ball out.”You can understand a miscommunication on a kickoff here or there, but for it to happen every time last night, and seemingly every game, is a bit concerning and something that needs to be corrected moving forward. Teams will continue to do what the Steelers did to them last night until Tampa proves it can counter back.It will be a short week for Tampa Bay in terms of recovery time, but the team will travel to Soldier Field to take on the Chicago Bears on Sunday at 1pm. Time will tell on who is the starting quarterback, as well as if the issues from this week will be corrected during practice.
