Tampa Bay defense can’t find its way off the field in loss Eduardo Encina, Tampa Bay Times, published 17 December 2018 The Bucs knew that Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson presented a unique challenge. Gerald McCoy called him Michael Vick reincarnated, a special player who can make plays with his legs and his arm. But after the Bucs’ 20-12 loss to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium, they didn’t think there was anything they saw from Jackson Sunday that was different than the player they studied on film earlier this week. "He’s a lot faster on the field than he is on film,” said Carl Nassib, who saw Jackson slip out of his hands more than once. “I’ll tell you that. Said McCoy: “He didn’t win the Heisman Trophy for no reason. He’s got a lot of talent,man. If you’ve been watching the film like us, you see that we’re not the first team he’s done it to. He’s going to be doing it for a long time.” A Ravens team long built around its defense — which is still one of the league’s best — now has a run-oriented attack that allowed Jackson the ability to improvise with run-pass option plays, more so than any opponent the Bucs have faced this year. But the Bucs believed they were well-prepared. They knew they’d have to play disciplined assignment football, but they’ve lived and learned from that against teams like Carolina earlier this season. You look at the numbers — a 12-tackle, two-sack game with a fumble recovery from outside linebacker Lavonte David, defensive tackle Vita Vea’s career-high nine tackles clogging the middle and even eight tackles, one for a loss, for Riley Bullough in his first extended playing time — and it suggests that the defense provided a lot of pressure to Jackson and the Ravens offense. And while that’s the case, it might be more indicative of how much time the Bucs defense was forced to stay on the field. “Or defense has to be on the field too long,” Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter said. “With our depletion at linebacker, it’s tough to hold up against a team that can run the football.” Starting with their first touchdown drive of the day, the Ravens committed to wearing the Bucs out with long sustained drives, mostly through a ground game that piled up 242 yards. They orchestrated a 16-play, 68-yard touchdown drive that ate up most of the second quarter to the tune of eight minutes, 10 seconds. Twelve plays were running plays. Baltimore also ran up two seven-minute drives late in the second half, the second one running out the clock to end the game, that put the game away. A big reason why the Ravens were able to sustain such long drives was because they were 9-for-16 on third down, a success rate made even more impressive by the fact that they were 7-for-9 on third down in the second and third quarters. On the Ravens’ first touchdown drive — the one that ate 8:10 of clock — they were 3-for-4 on third down, converting two on the ground and another on a 14-yard pass play by Jackson on third-and-10. The one time they didn’t convert on third down, Jackson converted a fourth down on a sneak. “We knew what type of game it was going to be, old-school football,” McCoy said. And we were ready for it, and for the most part we did what we were supposed to. But we’ve just got to, as a whole, do a better job of getting off the field. No matter how many times we’re out there, its our job to get off the field. And we just didn’t do it there at the end.” On a third-and-seven play late in the third quarter, the Bucs had Jackson wrapped up, but neither Nassib nor Vea could get Jackson down, and he ran for an 11-yard gain that led to a first down and eventually a field goal that put the Bucs down 20-12. It wasn’t just the big plays, though, and that showed on the Ravens final drive, when they ran out the game’s final 7:08 by running Gus Edwards through the middle of the field for mostly three-yard gains and converting four first downs to seal the game. “Very frustrating, very frustrating, especially as a defender and they’re running the ball getting four yards a carry,” David said. “It was very frustrating. In that situation, we have to do whatever we can to get off the field, and get the offense the ball back. “