For Bucs fans hoping Bucs offensive coordinator Dave Canales may see the light and start using his superior weapons in the pass game more, rather than pounding the ball between the tackles hoping Rachaad White turns into Marshawn Lynch, Canales had a simple yet strong statement for these Bucs fans.
Simply put, Canales said, in a manner of words, folks better learn to love the run game because he ain’t changing.
When asked about his confidence in his running attack, it gave Canales a platform to defend his playcalling, gameplan choices and overall philosophy while cautioning folks not to expect him to put the ball in the air regularly.
“For me, looking at it, it was always that I wanted to build something that we could be proud of,” Canales said. “That’s been the conversation for the whole season, especially with our struggles early on. I wanted to just show the staff, I wanted to show this team, I wanted to show our group: I’m not going to quit on the run game. I’m not going to just fold it up, give up and start throwing the ball around the yard.
“That’s not who I am, that’s not where I come from. I want to continue to improve our pass game and get back on track just in our efficiency and all of that. Walking off the field at the half [last Sunday in Atlanta], ‘Goodie’ [run game coordinator Harold Goodwin] and I are walking together and we’re like, ‘Is he going to just keep doing this?’ And Goodie just told me, ‘Hey, believe in the right calls that are going to help us win the game. Don’t worry about me, don’t worry about all of us.’
“He wasn’t telling me, ‘Hey man, just run the ball,’ he was saying, ‘Trust what they’re giving us.’ That really did give me a lot of confidence to [think] if they’re playing the style of defense that they’re going to play, we’ve got to run them out of the stadium.”
So there you have it. The Bucs may have one of the best sets of triplets in the NFC in the passing game. Canales has no desire to get the most out of them.
Joe thinks Canales is looking at this fundamentally the wrong way. He said going to the pass is giving up. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s using your best players with their superior skillsets to give yourself a chance to score (more) points and win games.
Joe will never forget what Bobby Bowden said about offense: “It’s getting your best players the ball and try to match them up against the weakest players of your opponent.” He won a few games in his days using this philosophy.
Canales seems to think he’s in a measuring stick contest with that line about giving up. It’s nothing of the sort.
On the contrary, wasting your best players’ talents to Joe is more like giving up and quitting. And as George C. Scott, portraying Gen. George Patton said in the iconic opening monologue in the movie “Patton,” “The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
It makes Joe sad to think that Canales believes hitting Rachaad White in open space and allowing Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to clown secondaries is a form of surrender.
Joe has no problem with the Bucs pounding the ball, so long as they have the players to do so. Unfortunately, Joe doesn’t foresee Mike Alstott running out of the Bucs’ tunnel all geared up any time soon.
