With 11 minutes left in Sunday's Tampa Bay-Washington game at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, the visiting Commanders had one chance to get back in the game. Down 30-14, they had punted from close to midfield, pinning the Buccaneers back at their nine. Washington needed a quick stop to get the ball back, since they needed to score at least twice more.
Bucky Irving, the former Oregon running back selected by the Buccaneers in the fourth round this past spring, pretty much dashed those hopes on the next two plays. First, Irvin went over right guard and got eight yards, putting the Bucs in good position to keep the ball on the ground to drain the clock. That bought Irving another handoff, and this time he broke out in the clear, racing all the way to midfield for a 31-yard gain. The Bucs would end up extending that drive for 91 yards and a game-clinching touchdown.
On the play, quarterback Baker Mayfield went under center, with Irving five yards behind him. Right tackle Luke Goedeke picked up edge rusher Dorance Armstrong and rode him out wide, while tight end Payne Durham stunted behind Goedeke and picked off defensive tackle Daron Payne, driving him to the left. The result was a wide running lane for Irving, who had to choose which way to go behind a block from Chris Godwin on safety Jeremy Chinn. Irving cut right with no hesitation and hit the open field.
"We had a mid-zone call," said Irving. "Our tight end Payne did a great job of kicking out the end and I had to read the wide receiver block. I saw daylight and I just hit it."
That sort of decisive, one-cut running is one of the things the Buccaneers' coaching staff wants from all of its backs, and it's something they saw in Irving during draft evaluations. For Irving, that means believing what his eyes are telling him and processing it in a split second.
"I see at this level you've got no time to pitty-pat your feet," he said. "You've got to hit it when you see it. So I pretty much go by that. You've got to trust what you see. You can get different looks in practice and there are also going to be different looks in games, but you've also got to see how the defense is playing you. I pretty much say when I get the ball I trust what my eyes see and I hit the hole."
In his NFL debut, Irving carried nine times for 62 yards and caught two passes for 14 yards. He's the first Buccaneer back to surpass 75 yards from scrimmage in his NFL debut since Doug Martin in 2012. He was so clutch in the fourth quarter when the Bucs were trying to run out the clock that he started to hear the crowd chanting his name. Other Buccaneer backs, most notably Mike Alstott, have gotten that treatment in the past, but likely not in their very first game.
"It was great. It was a great experience hearing the fans chanting my name, welcoming me into Tampa. It's always a blessing to hear those types of things from the crowd."
It was indeed an enjoyable debut for Irving, but one that left him a little unsatisfied, as he made clear to the friends and family that were texting him congratulations after the game.
"They told me, 'Good job,'" said Irving. "I told them, 'Not good enough.'"
Perhaps the root of his (very mild) dissatisfaction was a play in which he had a one-on-one moment with a Washington defender and didn't get past him. He prides himself on always making the first guy miss. Irving had a pair of runs during the game that lost four yards each, but those were breakdowns in which he was hit almost as soon as he was handed the ball. The play to which Irving is referring is probably a two-yard carry in the second quarter when he headed left towards a small lane between Tristan Wirfs and Ben Bredeson, with safety Quan Martin coming up to sit in that gap. Irving would have had room to run if he had gotten past Martin. The Commanders safety made the play by not being overly aggressive in his approach to the oncoming runner.
"I see in this league, guys like to sit," said Irving. "They don't really come up. I'm going to adjust to it, though. That probably won't happen again."
If he's right about that, Irving will definitely hear the crowd chanting his name again.
View the top photos of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' regular season Week 1 game vs the Washington Commanders.
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