The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defense has been frustrating. They’ve been ravaged by injuries, which is an unfortunate fact of football, but they also generally haven’t performed well across the year.
Per Team Rankings, Tampa Bay’s defensive unit is 28th in opponent yards per game (368.5), and for some time, they were a bottom-five team in points allowed and touchdowns per game. Those last two stats have narrowed, now coming in at No. 22 and No. 19, respectively, but the defense has still had to perform better in certain situations after the bye week — even if the team has yet to lose since then.
And naturally, that standard is held by everyone in the building, too, including offensive players. So when the Buccaneers needed a big stop against the Las Vegas Raiders and weren’t able to get it, one of the team’s veteran leaders reportedly got vocal.
CBS sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala spoke on a specific incident that occurred on Sunday when she was serving as the sideline reporter for Buccaneers-Raiders. On a crucial 4th & 5 play with about six minutes left in the game, quarterback Desmond Ridder passed the ball to wideout Jakobi Meyers, who was able to evade a tackle from cornerback Jamel Dean and pick up the first to keep the drive alive. The play happened right in front of veteran wideout Mike Evans, and according to Kinkhabwala, he wasn’t happy about the conversion.
“I saw Mike Evans on the Bucs sideline yesterday throw his helmet and scream at his defense to try to get more out of them,” Kinkhabwala said, per JoeBucsFan.
Veteran leaders are expected to step up and encourage their team, and while a tossing of the helmet may be a little aggressive, it’s understandable that Evans would want that. And it may have worked — the score was 21-10 at that point, and the defense was able to hold the Raiders to a field goal to make it 21-13. Las Vegas wouldn’t score any more points after that, and the Bucs won the game 28-13.
Evans getting a little fiery attests to the standard the Bucs have for themselves. And they’ll need to play to it this weekend when they travel to Los Angeles to play the 8-5 Chargers at SoFi Stadium.
