–Ryan Fitzpatrick has only been sacked twice in 61 pass attempts. According to head coach Dirk Koetter, it’s the result of the battles between Tampa Bay’s offensive and defensive lines in training camp.
“There’s no question at all about that,” Koetter said. “We wanted to have a harder training camp. We tried to make it a harder training camp. But the defensive line set the tempo for that, and then the offensive line had to adjust or get crushed.
“That’s not going to happen. (Offensive line coach) George (Warhop) is not going to let the O-line get crushed, and Buck (defensive line coach Brentson Buckner) is not going to let the D-line get crushed. So that definitely happened and that helped our team in more ways than one.”
–Defensive end Noah Spence, a second-round pick of the Bucs in 2016, was inactive against the Eagles. When he learned Friday that he would not be playing, he requested a meeting with Koetter.
“He’s disappointed. He wants to play, he wants to help,” Koetter said. “He wants to be a part of it. That’s a good thing. … We had a productive meeting (Friday). Shoot, that’s a sign of maturity on his part to come up and look me in the eye and talk it out man-to-man. I appreciate that. We didn’t agree on everything, but we got a plan in place to keep pushing it forward.”
Spence is battling back from a shoulder injury that ended his first two NFL seasons. One of the reasons he did not play is that he doesn’t start on any special teams units.
“Coach was saying I put a lot of pressure on myself and it makes me think too much sometimes,” Spence said. “Just play football.”
–Bucs players say the 2018 team is a close-knit group when compared to previous years. Winning helps, of course.
“We did a good job in training camp. That comes from the players buying in, the players communicating with each other but winning also helps that for sure,” Koetter said. “We tried to get the players talking more in front of the other players. We did things, especially on the defensive side of the ball, coach (Mike) Smith and the defensive staff going clear back in (organized team activities), had different players talk about their life and where they came from and get to know guys. We had a team thing where we did a similar deal in groups of six or eight. We had players talk at different times in training camp.”
BY THE NUMBERS: 144.4 — Passer rating for Ryan Fitzpatrick after two games.
