Prevent Offense

[mrhetzler]

1. The Buccaneers' defense is incredible. They're #1 in the NFL. Remember?

By the way, Seattle's is 16th.

2. Since the Bucs' defense is #1, Gibbs decided not to throw a lot. Throwing has a higher risk of turnover than running.

No one has mentioned this (if you have and I missed it, then I'm sorry).

The key statistic I noticed was not Brunell's 41 yards or even his 7 completions, but rather his 15 pass attempts. Joe Gibbs was sitting on a 14 point lead. I'm pretty sure that Gibbs was thinking that it's better to let our badass defense take the field against an inexperienced QB (Simms) than risk turnovers by forcing throws against the #1 defense in the league.

Which matchup would you prefer ?

A. Washington's pass game vs. Tampa's Defense (including Ronde Barber)

OR

B. Washington's Defense vs. Tampa's offense (including Chris Simms)

As a result, the running game was put to work.

Again, I'm pretty sure that Gibbs thought, "Let's run the ball. If it doesn't work, we'll put it on our defense's shoulders. But we will NOT risk turnovers."

As a result, it was put on the defense's shoulders. It worked.

I think we have a new term: PREVENT OFFENSE

122 yards offense with only 1 turnover. And a "W". Yards don't win football games.

I don't expect the same approach in Seattle.

[G-Prime]

Excellent way of looking at it. The 15 pass attempts was either as you say playing it safe and handing the game to our D or, Gibbs lost confidence in Brunell.. One more inclinded to believe the first.

[prophet]

exactly...

not to mention they shut down the roll out to the left side of the field. Thats where most of our 5-15 yard plays come from. You can thank Rice for that.

We could have went to shutgun, and forced some plays... but that is not joe gibbs style.

I find people want flashy victories... thats not the gibbs way. He wants championships over flash.

[Xameil]

I think it's pretty obvious Gibbs didn't try and tax the offense. He definitely let the Defense take over. With the 14 point lead, Gibbs looked like he only used CP when we needed something. Plus, Betts is good running up the middle. With the way the D was playing, didn't need the Offense. It looked as if Gibbs was trying to let Portis rest a bit, and save him for Seattle; kind of what he did with Springs.

[ntotoro]

People have brought this up, mrhetzler, but it seems to get lost in all the Brunell/Ramsey speak. It's worth bringing up and reminding everyone, though, that we played against one helluva Defense last weekend.

[NOVA2Tampa]

We had the game won by the end of the 1st quarter thanks to our defense...Gibbs was NOT going to give the Bucs a chance to get the easy scores by throwing against the #1 D in the NFL!

Gibbs knew exactly what he was doing.

[ntotoro]

Another point about even our D that people forget to mention: Gregg Williams himself said the plan was to give Tampa the middle of the field and let them dink & dunk all day, then pounce when they least expected it. If you look at it, that was exactly what happened for the most part. The plan was to neutralize their big-play guys. They schemed well on our Offense. Our Defensive scheme just panned out better.

[Shaddow]

I pray that all this speculation is true about the offense. Man it would serve those mediots right if we came out and did like we did against Dallas the week after what everyone was saying after the Arizona game. I also tend to think Gibbs was being careful too.

[GSF]

Good post. It should also be noted that not only is Tampa the #1 defense, but they probably had their best game of the year. Their Dline had a hell of a game.

[bobzmuda]

Here's a number I researched that adds to your argument.

After the Redskins went up 17-3 midway through the 2nd quarter, 6 out of their 8 remaining drives were either run-run-run or run-run-pass. Pretty clear that Gibbs wasn't trying to move the ball by being so predictable - he was trying to run out the clock and put the game in the hands of the defense.

[TheHighlander]

We had the game won by the end of the 1st quarter thanks to our defense...Gibbs was NOT going to give the Bucs a chance to get the easy scores by throwing against the #1 D in the NFL!

Gibbs knew exactly what he was doing.

Besides, if you are leading you are thikning of what comes next. You're going to Seattle. Do you really want to risk your offense needlessly? Sure we could have thrown 10 times over the middle to Cooley, and he'd have finished the game with bruises on bruises. How would that set up for Seattle. The same is true for Moss and Portis. Their names were all but absent.

I saw it as a protect the lead, burn the clock, protect the players, leave it to the defense. Besides had Brunell tried to air it out, could we have been looking at another turnover and maybe a score? That would sure have altered the balance and the couse of the game. I wasn't happy with 120 yards Total, but I was happy with the Win. What is it they say, Offense wins games and Defence wins championships?

:logo:

[gortiz]

that is where JG's greatness comes in, he just has a feel for hte game and his team. If didn't think that our D could flat out win it for us, I'm sure the O would have opended up.

Joe gave Tampa the rope, and they hung themselves, Tampa gave us rope and we used it to climb out of Raymond James .... corney but thats how I saw that game boil down.