By Carter Brantley Bucs Report Special to Sports Talk Florida
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers traveled to Carolina to take on the Panthers with one goal, win. They did just that securing their third consecutive division title and fourth straight playoff appearance. That can only mean it’s time for Carter Brantley’s “Captain’s Table/Walk the Plank” article. Enjoy.
Walk the Plank:
Baker Mayfield
Overthrows, underthrows, would-be interceptions if not for incompetence on the Panthers side, silly decision making, everything, just terrible. Is this really the guy the Bucs should commit to moving forward? With the division on the line in consecutive games, he was not only subpar, he actively contributed to the Bucs losing both games. He’s been fine the rest of the season, but against 2 really bad opponents (one being the worst in football) he was unable to lead the Bucs to victory (obviously the Bucs’ defense led the team to victory this week).
Dave Canales
End of the first half. Under 20 seconds to go. Bucs in field goal range with 1 timeout. Your lead back just came off the field with an injury. What do you do? If you answered “hand it off to your back up runner,” then you might be Dave Canales or Todd Bowles. If you answered anything else, you have at least some semblance of a clue as to how to run a 2-minute drill in the NFL. Combine that with an overall gameplan that was just disjointed and uninspiring, and you have one of the worst performances by an OC in the NFL this season.
The Panthers
Make no mistake, this is the worst team in football. Bryce Young has nowhere to go, neither in the pocket nor with the football, they have no head coach and no first round pick next season. A team lacking in both direction leadership. The owner is throwing drinks at people in the stands and getting fined $300k for the misdeed (the billionaire equivalent of a steak chalupa at Taco Bell). This was such a funny matchup of 2 dogshit organizations.
Captain’s Table:
Antoine Winfield, Jr.
Broken record here; AWJ is really, really good.
Chase McLaughlin
What a leg. He’s been so, so good this season, and I’m not going to lie, I was a bit concerned about replacing Ryan Succop, who had been incredibly consistent (if not very rangey). McLaughlin has been both accurate and able to hit kicks from really impressive lengths. Love it.
Joe Tryon-Shoyinka
What an effort to get that strip sack at the end of the game. The Buccaneers needed their defense to step up, and boy did they ever. JTS has been at the very least a bit of a letdown as a first rounder, but that was arguably the biggest play of his career.
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