NFC Notes: Dennis Allen, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Buccaneers, Saints

Buccaneers

• Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles spoke on WR Chris Godwin being in the game late before suffering his season-ending injury: “He’s a player. We’re trying to win the ballgame. We were still down 10, we’re trying to get (points) and kick another onside kick. It just happened. With Mike going down, we didn’t have that many receivers left as it was, so we play what we got.” (Greg Auman)
• Bowles continued on Godwin: “We don’t second-guess. We got our guys, we’re playing everybody we got. It’s unfortunate he got hurt and we feel bad about that, but he’s a football player and he wanted to be in the game just like Baker and everybody else.” (Auman)
• Following the game, Bowles discussed the potential of adding another receiver: “We’ll definitely look and see what’s out there.” (Auman)
• Per Rick Stroud, Tampa Bay isn’t planning to put WR Mike Evans on injured reserve if there’s a chance he can return for their November 24th game after the bye week. 
• Buccaneers are in a difficult situation at receiver with Evans missing time and Godwin done for the season. Bowles’ message to their receivers group is they aren’t asking them to be Evans or Godwin: “We’re not going to ask them to be Mike and Chris.”  (Greg Auman)
• Bowles said S Tykee Smith is in the league’s concussion protocol, which makes his availability for Week 8 difficult to forecast given they have a shorter week following Monday’s game, via Rick Stroud. 

Saints

Saints LB Demario Davis said they need to have an “urgency” to fix their problems 33-10 loss to the Broncos, bringing their record to 2-5.

“The difference in success and failure is the person kept going. That’s it,” Davis said, via John Deshazier of the team’s site. “Everybody is going to have highs, everybody is going to have lows, that’s part of being a human being. And that’s what we’ve got – right now in this game we’re having a low. We’ve got to keep going, we’ve got to figure it out and that’s what I know we’re going to put on display for the last 10 weeks. We’re going to find a way. There’s a lot of football that’s still got to be played. There has to be urgency; that’s the reality. There’s has to be urgency to get it fixed, because the football that we’re putting out right now doesn’t have to be what we put on display for the next 10 weeks. We can change that. It’s just going to be about getting in, doing the work, and putting it on display.”

Davis said they need to improve things with their overall fundamentals as a defense. 

“I don’t think you can play good defense in this football league without being a really good run defense,” Davis said. “We’ve got to find a way to get that done on all three levels, whether it’s alignment, assignment, technique, getting back to the fundamentals. I think the encouraging thing is we’ve played good run defense here for a long time. So we know how to do it. We’ve just got to find our way home.”

Saints

Saints HC Dennis Allen said they must have better communication and also provide a higher level of physicality. 

“Our communication has to be better,” Allen said, via the team website. “I think that has to start with me. Our execution – knowing what to do, knowing how to do it – I think that’s an area we need to improve on. The physicality and the violence of the game, I think that’s an area that we can still improve on. Those are just areas that I looked at and identified, things that we have to be better at. Our strike and shed at all levels of our defense has to be better. We’ve done those things at times. We have not done that very well in the last few weeks and we have to get back to doing those things.”

• Allen announced CB Alontae Taylor will start over CB Paulson Adebo. In nickel personnel, Taylor will move to slot and CB Kool-Aid McKinstry will play outside. (Mike Triplett)
• According to Aaron Wilson, the Saints worked out four players this week including QB Ben DiNucci, WR Terrace Marshall, WR Dax Milne, and WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
• Of this group, New Orleans signed Valdes-Scantling to their practice squad.