Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Tuppence Talks NFL

Coach of the Week: Matt Lepain

Filed under Tampa Bay Buccaneers by on October 2, 2011 at 7:02 pm {no comments}

Following an eight-year stint as Largo High School’s defensive coordinator, Matt Lepain was given the chance to direct the football program at another Pinellas County school, Palm Harbor University High. For the only public school in Pinellas County to have never played in the postseason, the addition of Lepain could help the Hurricanes end things differently this year.

“I always set a goal,” Lepain said. “When I first got here, I wanted these kids to realize that I want to practice during Thanksgiving week, because that would put us in the second round of the playoffs. I’m not deviating from that goal…If we can make that happen, we’ll be making school history.”

Lepain’s determination and drive, backed by a history of notable accomplishments, made him the perfect candidate for Palm Harbor’s open head coaching position. The former defensive coordinator led Largo High’s defense to nine shutouts over the 2007 and 2008 seasons, two years in which the team made consecutive state semifinal appearances.

This year, Lepain looks to turn around Palm Harbor’s losing trend, which has seen only one winning season in school history. He got the Hurricanes off to a good start with a 3-1 record, including high-scoring road victories against St. Petersburg and Seminole.

On Thursday, Lepain was invited to stop by One Buccaneer Place as the Buccaneers’ High School Coach of the Week for Week Four of the 2011 Season. Coach Lepain, along with assistant coaches Chris Carothers, Mike Maullaney, Brad Sakevich, John Adkins, Ryan Vaught and Eugene Davis, visited the Buccaneers’ training facility for a tour of the team’s headquarters.

“Being able to be a part of the Bucs, it’s a big plus,” Lepain said. “Having them recognize us high school football coaches, that just makes us feel even happier about what we’re doing.”

Along with a signed certificate, Buccaneers hat and personalized football presented by Coach Morris, Lepain received a $ 1,000 donation to go towards Palm Harbor’s football program.

“As far as him deserving this award, I think nobody deserves it more than him,” Davis said. “He’s very diligent at his job. He’s really concerned about the kids and the coaching staff as well.”

Added Lepain: “Letting the kids know that I got this Coach of the Week honor gave them the testament that their hard work is paying off.. People are starting to find out about Palm Harbor. We’re not necessarily thought of as the stepchildren of Pinellas County anymore.”

The Buccaneers will honor 10 high school coaches from Central Florida during this year’s prep football season. A Coach of the Year, who receives an additional $ 1,000 for his football program, will be selected from the 10 weekly winners at the end of the season. The Buccaneers and National Football League’s Coach of the Week program aids in the development of youth football, which has a positive influence on young athletes and the communities in which they live.

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers : News

Black Returns to Practice

Filed under Tampa Bay Buccaneers by on October 1, 2011 at 6:02 pm {no comments}

It was Saturday at One Buccaneer Place, on the first morning of October, but not exactly Saturday. It was also sort of Friday, but not a normal Friday.

With their next game scheduled for Monday night, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were afforded an extra day of preparation for the Indianapolis Colts, and Head Coach Raheem Morris tweaked his usual schedule here and there to spread the right amount of work over five days instead of four. His team followed something akin to a usual Friday practice routine on Saturday morning – the typical review day – but also transferred some of that work to Thursday’s session at Tropicana Field and Friday night’s trip to the University of South Florida.

Sunday, when the rest of the NFL is playing out Week Four, will be a Saturday for the Buccaneers (walk-through day) and Monday…well, Monday will be when the excitement begins.

So the Bucs were still at full speed on Saturday morning for their one-hour practice, and that proved to be a good test for linebacker Quincy Black, who returned to practice, and quarterback Josh Johnson, who tested his lightly sprained ankle and found it in good shape.

Black, who missed last Sunday’s win over Atlanta with his own ankle injury, remains something of a question mark for Monday’s game, but it was definitely a good sign that he was able to get back on the field for the last full-go practice of the week. He had practiced on Thursday but then sat out Friday, and the rest must have done him good, as Morris said he looked better on Saturday than he had earlier in the week. Black was listed as questionable on Saturday’s more detailed injury report, which includes game-status designations for the first time. His fellow starting linebacker, Geno Hayes, is not on the report at all after he was cleared to play in mid-week following the mild concussion he suffered against Atlanta.

Johnson tweaked his ankle on Thursday and was subsequently somewhat limited on Friday night, but he too is feeling better and is considered probable after Saturday’s encouraging practice. That’s a matter of some significance even though Johnson is not the starter and has played only a handful of snaps so far this season. The Bucs are carrying only two quarterbacks on their 53-man roster this year, Johnson and starter Josh Freeman, and if there was significant concern about Johnson’s availability on Monday they might have to make a roster move.

There were four Buccaneers who did not practice on Saturday: tackle James Lee (knee), wide receiver Sammie Stroughter (foot) and tight ends Kellen Winslow (knee) and Zach Pianalto. Lee and Stroughter have missed the last two games and have already been ruled out for the Monday-nighter, and Pianalto is considered doubtful to play. Winslow is questionable and missed a little more time than usual this week, but he has yet to miss a game since joining the Buccaneers in 2009.

If Black and Winslow are eventually cleared to play on Monday – they’ll be evaluated again that evening before the game for a final decision – the only remaining lineup decision for the team will be who to start at free safety in the absence of Cody Grimm. Grimm landed on injured reserve on Wednesday, leaving fourth-year man Corey Lynch and first-year player Larry Asante to battle it out for the open spot. Morris has suggested all week that both Lynch and Asante could see time on defense, and he seemed even more sure of that on Saturday. As to who gets the opening snap, that may not be known until Monday night.

“You’re probably going to see both of them,” said Morris. “Which one’s going to run out of the tunnel [as the starter during introductions], I don’t know…we’ll probably introduce offense.”

As for the days leading up to Monday, Morris thinks the altered schedule has worked well. The Wednesday and Thursday practices were close to the normal routine, but the work later in the week had some new elements that paid off.

“We got a nice little quick Friday, kind of cut it down a little bit, kind of broke the Friday up somewhat,” said Morris. “We had a nice night at USF last night; that was great. That was awesome, actually. I took everybody there under the lights. The team was giving me a bunch of static at first because it was [still] light, but eventually got dark and we had a ball. It was good to be out there at that time and get the bodies acclimated to getting up late, sleeping in. You’ve got to practice some of those things we take for granted. It’s a little bit harder than waking up at six in the morning and coming to work and thinking you’ve got a game. I just wanted to get them acclimated to getting up early.”

Bucs to See Painter’s Work

With Peyton Manning still sidelined by a neck injury and replacement veteran Kerry Collins dealing with a concussion, the Colts have announced that they will turn to third-year man Curtis Painter under center on Monday night. It will be Painter’s first career start – not surprising since he’s spent his brief career as Manning’s backup.

Painter has played in three games, including last week’s Sunday night barnburner with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has thrown 39 passes, completing 13 of them (33.3%) for 143 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. His best moment as a pro so far came last Sunday, when he drove the Colts 80 yards for the game-tying score late in the fourth quarter. Pittsburgh eventually countered with a last-second field goal to win the game, 23-20.

As relatively recent outings against Matt Moore, Mike Stanton and Charlie Batch have emphasized, the Buccaneers no better than to assume an easy night against a backup quarterback. Painter hasn’t produced a large enough body of work yet to say definitively how successful of an NFL passer he will be, but he is certainly well prepared.

“Painter’s a good quarterback,” said Morris. “He’s consistent, he throws the ball well. He can go out there and execute the offense. He’s been there for awhile and he’s getting his opportunity.”

In fact, it’s exactly that relative lack of exposure that tells the Bucs to be cautious and expect the best. Backups-turned-starters routinely seize the opportunity in the NFL, and Tampa Bay doesn’t want to provide Painter with the first step in his own emergence.

“The whole problem with those kinds of guys is you don’t know when that guy’s going to turn into Tom Brady,” said Morris. “Hopefully he doesn’t do it Monday night and we’ll have a chance.”

A Welcome Reunion

The ESPN Monday Night Football crew visited One Buccaneer Place on Saturday, which meant the return of Morris’ immediate predecessor – and former boss – Jon Gruden. Gruden, who coached the Buccaneers from 2002-08, now does color commentary for the MNF crew along with Ron Jaworski, as Mike Tirico handles the play-by-play.

Gruden watched Saturday’s practice from the sideline and later sat down with Morris to discuss the Buccaneers and Monday’s game. Morris was pleased to see his former mentor.

“It’s like I tell all my guys – I couldn’t have worked for a better guy,” said Morris, who began his NFL coaching career as a defensive quality control coach on Gruden’s first Tampa Bay staff in 2002. “He treated me nice, treated me great. He helped me develop my career since I was an assistant DB coach, forget just DB coach. I couldn’t say enough positive things about how I was treated when he was here and how he just handled everything.

“We shot the bull on the field and that was great. He talked about what the defense was like. He was great to be around. It’s always fun to be around Coach Gruden.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers : News

Crowd Pleasers

Filed under Tampa Bay Buccaneers by on October 1, 2011 at 2:02 am {no comments}

The last time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played a Monday Night Football game at Raymond James Stadium, Raheem Morris was upstairs in the booth near the press box with a handful of assistant coaches. He vividly remembers two things from that November 24, 2003 contest against the New York Giants: safety Dwight Smith flattening wide receiver Amani Toomer in the end zone, and the RJS crowd blowing out his eardrums a moment later.

Smith’s hit on Toomer came on a third-down pass from the Bucs’ 12 and forced the Giants to settle for a field goal. The Bucs went on to win, 19-13, on the strength of Charles Lee and Thomas Jones touchdowns and a defense that allowed only 212 yards of offense and forced four turnovers.

Morris, now in his third year as the Buccaneers’ head coach, was a defensive assistant at the time, which is why he was upstairs in the booth. On Monday, when the legendary Monday Night Football production returns to Tampa for the first time since that November evening in 2003, Morris will get to absorb all the fanfare and emotion from field level. He knows it’s an impressive experience from either vantage point.

“You could start with the most recent one, our last win on Monday Night Football versus the Giants,” he said. “Watching Dwight Smith get that big hit on… Amani Toomer in the back of the end zone…it was awesome. To hear the crowd erupt right there in our end zone…it was a beautiful sight, the jets going over the stadium, the cannons going off that night. It’s always big-time for me.”

The Buccaneers have sold out their 65,000-seat home for the game, and judging from the impact that last Sunday’s crowd was able to make with fewer numbers in the stands, it should be the loudest three hours in Tampa in quite some time. That’s good for the Buccaneers, who are trying to recapture the sort of home-field advantage they enjoyed during the first years of Raymond James Stadium. From the Bucs’ debut in their new home in 1998 through the 2002 Super Bowl campaign, the team compiled a .750 winning percentage in home games that was among the best in the league in that span.

Defensive Backs Coach Jimmy Lake said he felt that edge last Sunday when the Buccaneers broke a two-game home losing streak to their bitter rivals, the Atlanta Falcons. Atlanta rallied in the fourth quarter after falling behind 16-3, but the Bucs held on to a 16-13 win at the end and Lake believed the crowd had a lot to do with that.

“I’d like to give a shout out to the crowd last week,” he said. “We had a little thing, we said, ‘Hey guys, let’s try to get that crowd going on third down.’ Our guys looked at the crowd and tried to get them up, and they responded. The 50,000-strong that were there, that gives us an extra little nudge, and it actually helps our D-Line rush. It helps our guys cover. Having that home field advantage is huge on third down.”

Morris appreciated the enhanced volume last Sunday, too, especially after his team had to deal with the same thing the previous Sunday in Minnesota. His first year as a Buccaneers assistant was that 2002 Super Bowl season, and he remembers the electric atmosphere that came to Raymond James Stadium every game day or night. He also thinks that kind of shared experience between fans and players goes a long way towards building the kind of bond he wants his team to re-establish with the community.

“Last week you got a taste of it and it was great, and I can’t wait to get them out there again because they’ve got something to cheer for again,” said Morris. “They’re starting to know our players’ names. We’re starting to grow up a little bit, starting to get a little bit older. We’re becoming attached back to this community, and that’s what we wanted to do from the very beginning. That’s starting to happen.”

The Buccaneers announced early Friday evening that a sellout for Monday night’s game has been achieved and that it will be broadcast locally on ESPN. That, too, is good for those fans who are not among the 65,000 that will be on hand that evening, creating that coveted home field advantage. The Bucs want everybody watching as they attempt to prove they are once again among the NFL’s elite teams.

“It’s huge,” said Morris. “We always talk about it. The best teams show up on Monday Night Football and they show up on Sunday Night Football, and they show up in a big way. If you want to be considered one of those teams and be those guys, there’s a reason those teams play in those games, because [the schedulers] think those are going to be the best teams. They’re trying to make their predictions. You can’t always predict this game, this sport, but you want to be invited back to Monday Night Football. You want to play on Monday Night Football whether you’re on the road or at home. It’s an awesome stage.”

The Traveling Practice Show

The Buccaneers are playing at home this Monday for the second weekend in a row, but in the week leading up to the game they’ve taken their practices on the road.

To track the Bucs’ practices this week, you’d have to connect the dots from One Buccaneer Place in Tampa to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to the Frank Morsani Football Complex north of the Bucs’ home on the USF campus and then eventually back to One Buccaneer Place. Sandwiched between two slightly lighter practices at their own headquarters on Wednesday and Saturday, the Bucs held one workout at the home of the Rays and one at the home of the Bulls.

The early-season Thursday trip to the Trop has become something of a tradition for the Buccaneers the past two seasons, but Friday night’s session at South Florida’s football home was a new experience. Morris bused his team there in order to give them a taste of playing under the lights before Monday’s game.

It’s a bit unusual for a team to alter its practice schedule and location so frequently, as NFL coaches and players are usually creatures of habit. However, Morris said his young team has embraced the variety.

“I think they kind of like it,” he said. “It’s avoiding the mundane or becoming old and getting bored. These guys love to move around. Nobody really complains anymore, it’s a funny deal. They like to move and see what I’m going to say next. The iPads have been helpful because I do change so much. It’s been good for us.”

Great Days in the Bay

While the Buccaneers were holding their Friday practice in the evening at the University of South Florida’s football complex, the cross-town Rays were several states away, beginning their playoff series on the road against the Texas Rangers.

The Rays won the game 9-0, continuing the impressive late-season run that landed them the AL Wild Card berth over the Boston Red Sox. The game ended at almost the exact moment the Buccaneers were boarding their buses to return to team headquarters.

That means, at the very worst, the Rays will be tied 1-1 when they return to Tampa for their two home games in the five-game set. The third game of the series is set for Monday at Tropicana Field, beginning at 5:07 p.m. That same night, the Bucs will take on the Indianapolis Colts in the first Monday Night Football game in Tampa since 2003. Morris admits that he’ll be paying attention to the Rays score in the hours that lead up to kick off.

“I will definitely know what’s going on,” he said. “I’m not one of those guys that sits in a corner or hides in the shower before the game. At that point, preparation is done and I’ll be going over some last-minute things, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on what’s going on there.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers : News

The Big Picture

Filed under Tampa Bay Buccaneers by on September 30, 2011 at 9:02 pm {no comments}

A packed-house crowd at Raymond James Stadium is an impressive thing, seeming to roar in a single voice when the home team scores a touchdown or sacks the quarterback. But that crowd is also composed of 65,000 unique individuals, and the new Tampa Bay Buccaneers FanCam Presented by The Tampa Tribune is here to prove that with razor-sharp clarity.

The Bucs’ new FanCam adds another layer of entertainment to a game at Raymond James Stadium, one that continues into the following week and – for several lucky prize-winners – all the way into December.

Sound intriguing? This is how it works:

Shortly before the opening kickoff at each Buccaneers game, a FanCam photographer will take the field and shoot a special 360-degree picture that encompasses every seat in the stadium, in an ultra-high-definition, five billion-pixel picture. The process takes about five to seven minutes and produces an incredible image that fans can “step inside” and look around, almost as if they were standing on the field at the moment of the shot, with high-powered binoculars to focus in on any part of the stadium.

Every fan who is in his or her seat as the game is about to begin will be in the photo, which will then be posted on Buccaneers.com the following Wednesday morning. That’s when the fun really begins.

By visiting Buccaneers.com, fans who attended the game can access the photo and manipulate their way through the 360-degree field, moving the view left and right and up and down and zooming in right to their very own images. Once the fan finds himself, he can “tag” his image and then use email, Twitter or Facebook to share the shot with all of his friends.

Even better, simply by tagging his own image, the fan is automatically entered into a sweepstakes to win a spot in a special Buccaneers Gameday Getaway to the team’s game in Jacksonville on December 11. The prize includes round-trip, same-day airfare to Jacksonville and two tickets to that day’s game against the Jaguars.

And it all begins this Monday! The Tampa Bay Buccaneers FanCam presented by The Tampa Tribune will take its amazing image before the Monday Night Football Game between the Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts.

You don’t even have to be at Raymond James Stadium to enjoy the new Buccaneers FanCam, or to win a prize. Anyone can access the photo on Buccaneers.com and explore the gigapixel image, finding interesting shots of the stadium or locating friends. While exploring, fans can look for the hidden Tampa Tribune in the stadium, following the cues of a crowd noise that gets louder when you get closer to the hiding spot.

Tag the hidden Tampa Tribune and you will be automatically entered into another sweepstakes for an incredible experience at a Buccaneers home game. This prize features two club-seat tickets and two pregame field passes for an upcoming Tampa Bay home game.

There are endless hours of fun to be had exploring a “virtual” Raymond James Stadium and finding yourself, your friends and other interesting views in the 360-degree, high-def images. Want to prove to your friends that you were there when the Buccaneers made Monday night history? Simply access the FanCam image and zoom in on yourself, at your seat inside Raymond James Stadium.

The fun and prizes are just beginning with the new Tampa Bay Buccaneers FanCam Presented by The Tampa Tribune. Follow updates here on Buccaneers.com, on the team’s official Facebook page and Twitter feed, and get ready to stand out in the crowd!

Tampa Bay Buccaneers : News