Buccaneers

Former Bucs CB Ronde Barber believes the team has made too many mental mistakes and isn’t heading in the right direction.

“Look, the mood is not great,” Barber said, via PFT. ”There’s too many mistakes. There’s a lack of urgency, if you will, in my mind when I look at them going onto the field. There’s got to be a little bit of a sense of a defining characteristic of your team through Week 2. I don’t know what that is. It’s mistakes. It’s busts. It’s lack of execution.”

Barber believes the team wasn’t ready for the games that count.

“Week 2 can’t be the fifth preseason game,” Barber said. “At some point you have to start hitting your stride. And it doesn’t feel like they’re in their stride right now on either side of the ball.”

Panthers

Panthers TE Darren Waller has found the end zone twice through his first two weeks in Carolina in his age-34 season and first year with the team. Waller has always felt he would produce given a chance, and he even talked about why the later start with the team has helped get him on the same page as QB Bryce Young.

“I feel like, last year with Miami, getting there kind of late — I got there earlier than I got here — but just kind of dealing with trying to learn things quickly and try get in the mix, I feel like kind of gave me a little bit of a trial run of how to approach things and be as efficient as possible as far as learning and getting on the same page with the quarterback and things like that,” Waller said, via ESPN’s Mike Kaye.

“So, I’m not really that surprised [by the early success in Carolina]. I feel like if I get some opportunities, I’m just going to try to make a play and keep it simple like that.”

While he desires an opportunity to make an impact, Waller was clear he’s never going to fret about getting a certain amount of routes or targets. 

“I’ve never made my career off of: ‘I need a certain amount of targets or opportunities.’ It’s more so like, ‘What’s the impact I’m making with those [targets], and then can I also have an impact when the ball is not coming to me to just keep myself engaged?’ But you never know when opportunities are going to come. So, just to be able to make those plays, I think, is important.”

Panthers HC Dave Canales outlined what Waller brings to their offense, specifically the matchup advantage he creates against linebackers and safeties.

“Just the ability to take advantage of matchups with safeties, with linebackers,” Canales said. “That’s exactly the type of impact that he can have on this offense. Then it opens other things up, and we got all these other beautiful players sitting on the other side of the field as well to be able to distribute it and create a little bit more balance in our pass game.”

Saints

Saints QB Tyler Shough scored the game-winning touchdown in their 24-17 win over the Ravens in Week 2, taking a hard shot and having his facemask yanked on his way into the end zone. Shough reflected on the score, saying he took some hits throughout the game. 

“Yeah, that one hurt a little bit,” Shough said, via Katherine Terrell of ESPN. “Yeah, I got kind of folded a couple times, but I was able to get in there. So we’d like to not make it as close. … I was going to reach for it, but getting your head pulled off, it’s tough.”

Saints HC Kellen Moore praised Shough for his toughness. 

“He’s a really special player, but his willingness to hang in there and play the really hard downs, I think the rest of the team sees that, recognizes that. There’s a lot of respect for what he’s doing right now,” Moore said.

Saints EDGE Chase Young thinks the team is learning how to finish and can “hang with anybody.” 

“We can hang with anybody. Sometimes you have to learn how to win, learn how to finish. And I think we right on time,” Young said. “No more moral victories, man. We want W’s, and if it come down to the wire, then we just got to tough it out. We want to win.”