Kyle Riddle’s Rundown: The Bucs are going to bring the blitz

Bucs fans haven’t really seen a blitz heavy Bucs defense in a long time. All the way back to the Lovie Smith days the Bucs have always been a zone coverage heavy defense. This season that is going to change.

During the offseason, Todd Bowles was hired as Defensive Coordinator, and one thing about Bowles is that he loves to bring the heat. As DC with the Cardinals Bowles blitzed 46.5 percent of the time most in the league resulting in 17 ints also the most in the league. After Bowles moved on to the Jets from 2015-2018 Bowles defense blitzed 37.4 percent of the time, second-most in the league. The downs that Bowles blitzed on resulted in 125 QB hits and 26 ints third and second-most in the league when blitzing.

Now Bowles is the Bucs Defensive Coordinator, and he has assembled his new defensive squad, which has looked excellent so far this preseason. One thing that you can count on is that this Sunday 49ers QB Jimmy Garapalo is gonna be under an immense amount of pressure, and he can expect to be picking himself up off the turf often. That’s what I’m most excited to see with this new 3-4 base defense.