Red Zone Rising
June 15th, 2017
Red zone chatter.
There is no way to sugarcoat this. The Bucs were just bad when needing six points in red zone offense last year.
The Bucs scored a touchdown on red zone possessions 51 percent of the time in 2016, that’s No. 20 in the NFL. That’s not good. But to be fair, a third of last year’s playoff teams had worse red zone offenses than the Bucs when it came to scoring touchdowns.
Winning Bucs coach Dirk Koetter believes the Bucs will be better this year.
“We have good options,” Koetter said after underwear football practice yesterday. “The league took a jump – it used to be that 55 percent touchdowns would put you in the top five in the league. Tennessee led the league at 72 percent. That’s insane – 72 percent touchdowns. There were, I think, four other teams over 60 percent.”
Actually, there were 10 teams who scored touchdowns from the red zone in 60 percent or more of their chances. Jacksonville was No. 10 with 60 percent.
“We’ve actually raised our goal this year to try to be 60 percent touchdowns; that’s something we have to do better. We haven’t necessarily done better the last two days, but it’s a process, like everything else.”
Why should Koetter be confident the Bucs will improve in the red zone? Well, it’s one more season for America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston, throwing to stud Mike Evans. But there are two other players that should give Koetter and fans encouragement.
When you add tight O.J. Howard to the mix along with someone Mike Smith raves about in going up for and grabbing contested passes, Chris Godwin, they alone should help.
After all, who do you trust more to score points in the red zone? Cam Brate, Evans, Howard, Godwin or Roberto Aguayo?
June 15th, 2017 at 9:09 am
The plan is to score before getting to the “redzone” !!!!!! This is why we have heard terms like “explosiveness” and “speed on offense”!!!!!!!
Go Bucs!!!!!!!!!
June 15th, 2017 at 10:03 am
The plan was/is explosiveness and speed. We got that with D. Jax.
But the is more TBR!!!!! Howard brings us the option of double tight ends making it a guessing game for opposing defenses inside OR outside the 20.
Now is the time to get season tickets. You will have 1st option to get tickets for the playoffs!!!!
Go Bucs!!!
June 15th, 2017 at 10:13 am
Tennessee led the league, you don’t say. Red zone TDs come from being able to run the ball when people know you’re running. Fix the running game, improve red zone %
June 15th, 2017 at 10:18 am
The term underwear football is very tired..
June 15th, 2017 at 10:20 am
I kind of read it like.. Tennessee led the league, Jacksonville Top ten, third of playoff teams worse than the Bucs. How important is this stat really toward winning?
June 15th, 2017 at 10:31 am
I’m thinking this is a trick question Joe. You mentioned Tennessee having 70% last year, and Bucs only having 50%, yet both of us ended up with the exact same won-loss record. Went to https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/red-zone-scoring-pct?date=2017-02-06 to see the correlation between scoring % in the Red Zone and won-loss record, and found that #2 last year was San Francisco at 68% (2-14), then New Orleans (7-9), then Indianapolis (8-8) and finally Dallas (13-3) at #5.
So perhaps Realist is right … score OFTEN AND EARLY and maybe scoring % in the Red Zone isn’t as significant as one might think. Of course, then you do put pressure on your defense to hold ’em while your offense sits on the bench. So looked at average time-of-possession for each team last year (same website), and found that only Dallas & New Orleans had a higher TOP than we did (San Fran was dead last in TOP, even though they were #2 in scoring TDs in the Red Zone … bizarre). Apparently a middle ground (score a lot … from anywhere … but eat up the clock in doing it) might be advantageous.
Tend to think that Coach Koetter has the right idea. 60% looks to be an excellent ‘middle ground’ goal. BTW, that’s very close to what New England has averaged year after year after year (they look to me to be the most consistent team in scoring TDs in the Red Zone over the past 15 yrs).
June 15th, 2017 at 10:33 am
I like the duality of Koetter to knock PFF and their grading system while still appearing to be a probability nut. Seen him site percentages of success a few times before. Man PFF gives stats a bad name.
June 15th, 2017 at 10:38 am
All of the Speed is nice But Jamie’s has to work on his touch
Too many overthrows
June 15th, 2017 at 12:14 pm
If he doesn’t change his run-run-pass philosophy-we will see this again boys and girls. I am confident he just didn’t trust what we had, hopefully he will just turn the team over to Jameis in year 3 and let him do his thing, lots of weapons to choose from. Very excited about this year. I am very confident in Dirk in year 2 of being a head coach and his ability to adapt.
June 15th, 2017 at 12:53 pm
2nd down and goal to go from the 6 yard line
Evans, Godwin outside – Howard, Brate both in line on either end – Defense in base formation to guard against the run look. McNichols vacates the backfield and motions to the slot. All 5 run routes to the end zone
Good luck to defenses. Mismatch city….
June 15th, 2017 at 3:35 pm
Hard not to improve with all the increased talent