Arians, Barrett on 'Hunting Time' for Buccaneers Pash Rush vs. Vikings
On Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were able to sack quarterback Kirk Cousins six times, while registering 12 QB hits.
That's as many sacks as the Bucs had posted in their previous four games combined.
The Buccaneers' pass rush specifically came to life on Sunday when it needed to most. Four of the Buccaneers' six sacks came in the fourth quarter, or "hunting time," as head coach Bruce Arians put it.
"We knew it was hunting time for the defensive line and I thought we got after them really [well]," Arians said after the game. "Our secondary played [well], we got after Kirk – he didn’t stand in the pocket very often [for] very long and that’s what we can do. If we get rid of the running game and get them in a two-score game that time in the ballgame, we should be getting after them.”
Arians had mentioned during the bye week that Tampa Bay's pass rush had struggled to get home and needed to shorten the opposing quarterback's time to throw. NFL's NextGenStats credits Cousins with 2.86 seconds to throw on Sunday, not a great number, but an improved one from "3.7 [or] 3.8 seconds" as described by Arians in late November.
There were times where the Bucs failed to contain Cousins, which allowed him to set a career-high of 41 rushing yards after a couple of solid gains. However, forcing Cousins to run instead of pass is a tradeoff Tampa Bay and most defenses will happily take, and it paid off for Tampa.
When Cousins was forced to throw down numerous scores getting into and throughout the second half, he got uncomfortable and his production dropped along with his body by the ferocious Buccaneers' defensive front.
"We were most definitely ready to feast and get after the quarterback once we were up by double digits with a certain amount of time left," said outside linebacker Shaq Barrett, who posted two sacks of his own on Sunday. "We knew they had to pass it and we were ready to take advantage of it.”
That the Bucs did. The most important fourth quarter sack was a fourth down strip-sack by fellow outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul on Minnesota's final drive and effort of the game. Another fourth quarter sack, coming from Barrett on the previous drive, was for a loss to eight to create fourth and 28, which forced Minnesota to send its kicker Dan Bailey out despite two previously missed field goals as well as a missed extra point. He proceeded to miss another field goal, this time from 46 yards thanks to Barrett's sack.
In addition, defensive end Ndamukong Suh, defensive end Pat O'Connor, and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. added to the sack count on Sunday, marking the first O'Connor's career and one for Winfield against his father's former team.
Another four of six stat: That's how many of Tampa's total sacks came on conversion downs, three on third and one on fourth.
"I was upset about the tackling in the first quarter, but I really was happy with the pass rush," Arians said. "Pushing those kicks back were huge the whole game.”
"It’s working right now," Barrett added. "We’ve just got to stay hot, keep it hot and keep going.”
