Buccaneers losing to Eagles, but looking good

After one half, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are down 14-6 to the Philadelphia Eagles, but they’re looking pretty good anyway.

The starters are out and the backups are in now, so we can talk about some of what happened there. Jameis Winston had a pretty good outing, going 7 of 9 for 95 yards and a touchdown, with a lost fumble the only negative play on his part. Doug Martin got a lot of work early, and showed he’s ready, though the stats aren’t overly impressive (5 carries for 13 yards, 1 catch for 11).

The Bucs got off to a poor start, though, and they were down 14-0 halfway through the first quarter. Kenny Bell fumbled the first kickoff return, and wasn’t seen after that. The Eagles punched in off the short field, and got the chance to do that again off Jameis Winston’s fumble a little later.

But the Bucs defense actually looked good outside of those short fields. The defensive line in particular has looked very good, with Noah Spence and Robert Ayers standing out as disruptive pass-rushers — the Bucs have four sacks so far this game. The secondary seems better, too, even though they’re still playing vanilla coverages, mostly.

The Bucs may be down 14-6, but that doesn’t mean all that much in the preseason. Aside from some glitches early on, the process looks good so far. Stay with us for all the coverage of the rest of the game, too!