Offense Must Improve
October 15th, 2016
Offense becoming a hindrance.
A lot of fans have harped on the defense as the root cause of the Bucs’ problems.
That’s not really the case any longer.
The defense played well when it needed to play well against the Dixie Chicks. Then there was the belt-whipping at Arizona and the debacle against the Rams at the Den of Depression.
Since, the defense has improved. It showed life against Denver and balled out in the win over Carolina. Defensive coordinator Mike Smith suggested it would take four games to start turning the corner. He was right.
Now, it is the offense that is dragging down the Bucs. Aside from looking just fine at Atlanta to start the season, the offense seems to have gotten worse.
Consider at the bye various elements of the team are ranked in the lower half of the NFL, and in some cases, among the worst.
In total offense, the Bucs rank 23rd (335 yards per game). Rushing is 24th (88.6 yards a game). In points scored, the Bucs are 22nd (18.8 average per game) and passing ranks 18th (247.2 yards a game).
These figures, specifically the first three, must improve if the Bucs hope to play meaningful games in January.
October 15th, 2016 at 9:37 am
Gotta stay committed to the run game. Everything else will fall into place just fine.
October 15th, 2016 at 9:42 am
Koetters playcalling is proven for years and years in the league. It sucks to say it but Jameis has been pretty bad through the forst quarter of the season. The oline has been giving up way to much on him and he is getting rushed way to much…however on the flip side, Jameis has been missing wide open receivers and overthrowing them when he sees it. Jameis needs to tighten up. Its like he doesnt trust himself and thats why he is throwing high not sure but its been ugly so far
October 15th, 2016 at 9:47 am
Gambling and counting on too many fragile and broken down players at key positions is the offenses problems. You can’t have a balanced offense with one offensive weapon in Evans. Martin will not be back productive anyone who thinks differently needs a history lesson and a drug test. Hump is a nice role player but not a legit threat… RT is a complete joke and the TE’s scare no one. Keeping vjax and resigning Martin with no legit RB for back up were huge costly mistakes. Winston is not the problem the fact he has no weapons is the problem.
October 15th, 2016 at 9:54 am
tmaxcon Says:
“Winston is not the problem the fact he has no weapons is the problem.”
Ya know that’s what the MGM used to say about Glennon.
lol Just stirring the pot.
October 15th, 2016 at 9:56 am
87
Its too early and I’m Hungover… Stop it
Glennon that’s funny… Next you are going to tell me that pathetic bum Murphy is going to make a difference
October 15th, 2016 at 10:06 am
Winston is part of the problem…..not all of it. He must become more accurate.
We have no speed at WR. Hopefully Murphy’s return will help.
We need to move Pamphile to RT when Sweezy is ready.
We need to be more aggressive in the red zone
Do you realize the offense has scored only 1 touchdown in 3 games?
October 15th, 2016 at 10:07 am
Murphy’s the difference maker…
October 15th, 2016 at 10:31 am
Tampabaybucfan
murphy is coming off a ACL by time he gets back in the lineup and adjusted the season will be over. The dude could not make any other roster in the legaue yet buc fans think he can make a difference. Mind blowing. Especially from such an intelligent chap like yourself.
October 15th, 2016 at 10:43 am
@tmax: you have a deal going down with the Joes. Keep it stirred up and the ads keep coming in$$$$$$. You are not as dumb as some of the comments you write. Well, the Chargers beat the Broncos last night. I am a long-time Chargers fan, but they are so inconsistent. They are the classic under-achevers. Mebbe it’s climate change. Gawd knows they are suffering under it big-time.
October 15th, 2016 at 10:50 am
orlbucfan
No I don’t that being said if I ever bump into one of those cheap mofo’s, I will sneak a beer or two on their tab….
I am a realist… I don’t sugar coat crap. I am sorry if your favorite player is always hurt or never makes a play when it matters. don’t shoot the messenger raise your standards and stop accepting losers and mediocrity. I am sorry if you are buc fan that is living in the past and think the 4 good NOT great years under Dungy and his pathetic offenses counts as a dynasty… It is a what have you done lately for me World and League and the Bucs have DO NOTHING for over a decade… Hard to be all rosey…
October 15th, 2016 at 10:51 am
orlbucfan
by the way, I know how much you like the countdown clock it should be set to the number of days before bucs can rid themselves of 93 and his pathetic losing ways.
October 15th, 2016 at 11:19 am
@ Tmaxcon
You should note that I said “hopefully” his return will help….not definitely. I think Koetter, Licht, Murphy, Jameis and most fans would hope so also.
He has had extra time to heal from his injury…..Jameis was successful and liked throwing to him….he does provide some speed which we don’t have.
You may have noticed that I have been calling for several weeks for Shepard to be given some of Vjax’ snaps.
One can hope can’t they?
October 15th, 2016 at 11:26 am
orlbucfan Says:
October 15th, 2016 at 10:43 am
“@tmax: you have a deal going down with the Joes. Keep it stirred up and the ads keep coming in$$$$$$.”
Nope…. we do it for free.
October 15th, 2016 at 11:41 am
Tampabaybucfan
i have noticed and agree with your shep posts.
Yeah, I get the hope but the entire season was built on hope…
McCoy – Hope he can stay healthy
McDonald – Hope he can play his first complete season (NOT)
Martin – Hope he can not revert back to his 50/50 status. He is not durable and does not score
VJAX – all off season we heard how great he looked and how important he was to the season and he might be the worst WR in the league right now with no one behind him.
HUMP – great story great role player not a consistent weapon or threat.
Dotson – pure garbage but he is a good story so he is pro bowl level in certain fan minds here…
Conte – utter garbage
Winston has his issue but his main problem is he and Mike Evans can do it by themselves. It’s time to bring in durable football players even if slightly less talented than martin or mccoy it’s still an upgrade because they will be on the damn field….
I have said all off season way to many gambles on key players at key positions with significant injury histories and look what happened before week 4.
October 15th, 2016 at 12:30 pm
The offense averaged less than 18 points a game during the four game losing streak last season. And they had all of their weapons available, less than 18 PPG against Carolina and three sub-500 teams to end the season. Then they promote the OC to Head Coach, make you wanna holla.
October 15th, 2016 at 12:56 pm
Well there they are Tmaxcon’s Most Hated Seven, I’m gonna guess that those same names are on that list that the Realist says can’t get the LOVIE coached out of them so they must go!
October 15th, 2016 at 1:06 pm
Well, Winston has looked every bit as a rookie should not a second year quarterback. He is not accurate, panics and generally is making bad decisions. Jameis accuracy is a product of mechanics. The mechanics are off when he is under pressure where he panics. He is partly correct when he said he needs to learn to take sacks. It isn’t about taking more sacks, but rather when to take a sack and when to throw the ball away.
Maybe he is putting too much on his own shoulders. The best thing that can help Winston is for the other players to get some heart and fire. This would take pressure off of Jameis. I will say this, the kid wants to win. He wants to win bad. Now we just need to get the other players on the team to get that fire.
Gerald, I am talking about you. You lack confidence and swagger necessary to lead a team. You want to make it to the next level you have to start eliminating excuses for losing. Is it a coincidence that the D played better without McCoy?
LD also needs a little more fire and confidence. He’s got the talent if he can gain his confidence back. That will add his swagger back.
Kwon? He is still growing. He does look a little out of control still at times. He just needs to keep playing and he will learn to play in control.
Conte would be valuable as a backup. I favor Kieth Tandy as the starter. Conte gets out of position too much. I have to look at Bradley McDougal a bit more. Looks like there is still confusion in the secondary
Humphries will get better as year goes. I like the guy as our slot receiver. VDrops needs to step his game up. That will help Evans and Humphries Tight ends need to be more consistent. Brate may be better next year. He doesn’t have the raw talent, but he is smart.
My bet is that Roberto Agony, err… Aguayo will be better next year. Sebastien and Nugent had rough first years. Try giving this kid some support. This can go a long way to taking the pressure off of him.
I don’t mind penalties, but stupid or repetitious penalties are inexcusable. False starts, off sides, unnecessary roughness and illegal procedure penalties are correctable. Much of this is about self discipline, decision making and technique.
There have been some good things that happened this year. The Atlanta game shows what this team is capable of. This team needs to use that game as a model. Look at what they did right. Rogers showed that he can be an asset. We get the Douginator back then hopefully we have a 1-2 punch.
HIII looks to be a great pick. I expect he will get better. Would like to him and the other DBs get their hands on a few more passes.
This is not a year the Bucs will make the playoffs. We are a year or two off. I will say this about the team. This may be more like 1996 all over again. One big difference is that our head coach this year was our OC last year. So we should be ahead offensively. Defensively, we should see this team get better as they get used to Smitty’s defense. Remember in Monte’s first year, the D started out not so good. By the end of the year they were 11th overall.
October 15th, 2016 at 1:42 pm
Again, despite the injuries and less than stellar levels at some positions, missing a wide open man in the middle of the field because your staring down your first ready, or simply over throwing your first read when he is open is ALL on the quarterback.
No excuses for those ….
October 15th, 2016 at 1:53 pm
Man what time was the game this morning that we lost? I mean that had to happen cause the usual negative nannies are back at it today in full force. Welcome back Bighog what’s the count down # down to now?
October 15th, 2016 at 2:09 pm
All on Freeman 2.0 inaccurate throws kill drives, turnovers kill drives and gift your opponents points and bad decisions kill drives. Jameis has regressed so the offense has also
October 15th, 2016 at 3:33 pm
The Panther and the Bucs set Monday Night Football back 20 years. Someone had to win.
October 15th, 2016 at 4:18 pm
Offense could get better. But our Defense needs to get better even more so than our Offense. Geting an effective pass rush means 3 and out or turnovers for us. Just ask the Broncos. its how they won a superbowl last year.
October 15th, 2016 at 4:40 pm
@long season
Soo true! Lol
Playing hot potatoe. You win, no you win…
It was soo funny watching the offensive guru koetter the clown calling plays. He was so scared he called 9 straight run plays. The clown didnt use quizz the whole 2nd half of the denver game and now he is larry zsonka with dreads.
The only passes was jameis audibles to a pass play
He is in over his head. No emotion or fire.
It will be 5 more years until we get a primetime game after this year.
October 15th, 2016 at 5:22 pm
@kobe
what you saw in the first half is Koetter turning Jameis into a game manager to
get him in the flow of the game,preventing the offense from putting the other team in scoring position early. Jameis might be trying do too much, but after three bad losses he has to try to correct his slow starts and his accuracy is worse than last year.
October 15th, 2016 at 5:36 pm
Where are the Buc Fans?
October 15th, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Bob i enjoy your sightfull posts but i dont agree completely
Koetters deep developing routes isnt a great match with our skills of our recievers
***our 3 losses was mostly koetters fault in his gameplan and playcalling
What actually happened after we lost martin was that we lost 2 players. We couldnt run the ball because koetter used sims to run on 1st and 2nd downs to create 3rd and long which makes it too difficult for even the best qbs. But also hurt equally much was when sims was running sims wad not catching the ball enough which is what defenses hurt the most.
Having martin come back will not really benefit or scare the defenses too much because quizz and fatboy is the exact same player. We will miss sims playmaking catching the ball and running after catch
Kotters player evaluation to players skills sucks which is scary.
I see the only chance we make the playoffs is if vjackson gets injuryed and doesnt play this seadon. Yes you read it correctly. We need sheppard to be wr2 fulltime to open the offense and loosen up the field
With sims out our 3rd down efficiency is going to go dowm. Last year sims made explosive plays over and over again for jameis. No other player can reicate those skillset and rac playmaking ability. Jameis is going to be continuously sacked on 3rd down because he doesnt have sims
5-11
October 15th, 2016 at 6:46 pm
Reach87
We’re here, just so much sh$t to cycle through. Just said this the other day
NDog
You would think we were 0-5 right now
We WON damn.
You winners all seem like trolls. Screw that “I’m a life long fan” nonsense and deserve/earned the right to complain. Leave already you candy assess
October 15th, 2016 at 7:05 pm
I’m just hoping the great football minds haven’t got the book on Jameis. He isn’t progressing or has stalled….
October 15th, 2016 at 7:13 pm
Barring injuries to key players, I’m confident the Bucs offense will be rolling very soon.
October 15th, 2016 at 9:15 pm
How did we win a superbowl. HUH? Yes our Offense was Ok. But who really won it for us..HUH? I’m so sick of you..who..cannot see……
A GREAT DEFENSE..WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!
How many GD times you gotta have it poundit thru yer skulls?!!!!!
How many..losing season? How many yrs in the..Bowels of de..feeet!!!/ HUH?!!
October 16th, 2016 at 4:32 am
“Change the culture” is the buzz phrase the last few weeks, and I think the Bucs as well as fans have broken the code with Carolina. That is, take what you have, not what you don’t have, and figure out how to win; there are no excuses to lose due to injuries–everyone has them. Teams with a winning culture play with what they have, where everyone does their job no matter whether they are #1 overall pick and QB, or undrafted free agent signed last week. We saw this in Carolina with a patchwork D line and Quiz Rodgers carrying the load on his shoulders. The play wasn’t all pretty, but they got the W but finding a way with what they have. So keep riding the run game, remind all to take care of the football, and ride into Pelosiville cannons blazing next week..come back with a W.
October 16th, 2016 at 8:32 am
@Kobe
I like a guy that has a sense of humor and some your replies about Kobe hate were funny,
some things we agree on are Sims pass catching ability and that he is not an every down back. He runs too straight up.That said run blocking was the best in game 5 in my opinion.Think Sims should move to WR and fill a weakness
we have.I also agree Shephard should get more touches.as for koetter ‘s
gameplan in the losses Jameis early turnovers forced to throw it out the window with the early turnovers in the three losses.
If doug Martin doesn’t come back with a fire in his belly after Rogers showing,
we will see if he is our answer at running back.Have to think Rogers is better receiver out of the backfield than Martin who is good on the dumpoffs.
As for Koetter’s gameplan he has been thrown some curveballs: lack of effective run game in losses and jameis’s not hitting open men at times.
The turnovers are mostly on Jameis for trying to make plays that aren’t
there.