Seven Better Than Three
February 4th, 2018
Improving red zone offense needs to be a priority.
When the Bucs got into the red zone last year, it was more like a stop zone.
America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston, completed only 45.83 percent of his passes, one of the poorer numbers in the NFL, though 12 of those 22 red zone passes he completed did go for touchdowns.
Jameis needs more of those, as Joe’s good friend Tom Lang of ESPN Tallahassee and co-host of the “ScuttleBucs” podcast pointed out on Twitter yesterday.
_TomLang: [Matt] Hasselbeck on SC just now. “The more field goals you kick, the closer you are to losing.” This is a creed that Dirk has to adopt in Tampa if the Bucs are to stand a chance with him.
Since Koetter specifically focuses on offense, Joe hopes Koetter’s hours this offseason have been burned trying to unleash his offense in the red zone. The Bucs need much more of those red zone visits to become seven points, not three.
Besides, the way Bucs kickers have been in recent years, despite Patrick Murray showing some progress, why trust a kicker? As awful as the Bucs defense was last year, kicking field goals does little more than set up the defense to cough up a late lead, an area where the Bucs were quite efficient.
February 4th, 2018 at 7:58 am
This podcast is good. It just feels like they love Jameis from FSU days and are extra hard on Koetter.
Let’s apply equal pressure in 2018!
February 4th, 2018 at 8:00 am
More Touchdowns are required considering cancer93 led / captained defense can not hold leads or make critical plays in 4th qtr. I would be a huge pos cancer93 fan if the game was 2 qtrs in length. She does not have the will, drive or stamina to play a complete game.
February 4th, 2018 at 8:15 am
That’s because they see what any sane person sees which is crappy/predictable playing on the redzone. It’s like we don’t attack their scheme we just “run in our stuff” which is the exact opposite of what teams like NE and Phill do. If the see you in man they are running a fade with their best guy or crosses to get guys free. If they see you in zone they run high low concepts to make you pick your posion. Then if you just play the front line of the end zone they pound the ball at you or overload a side with a WR screen or jet sweep to out number your defenders. It really is not rocket science but it is the same issue that caused us to watch Doug Martin carry the ball more then anyone last year oe why we didn’t see Djax running more slants or deep digs. The head coach/play caller is stubborn beyond belief. He believes in things like unwritten rules like you don’t lose your job to injury or you have to have balance. When in reality neither is true we have all seen the exact opposite with the Patriots alone. If Belichick believed that you don’t lose your job to injury crap then Tom Brady would have been benched when Bledsoe was ready. And we all have seen them say this defense is great against the run so screw it we will throw 60 times today. You craft your team and gameplay around the moment not some stupid belief you heard 30 years ago. This is why they rip the coach cause that not only costs us games is severely puts the QB at a disadvantage when the other team also knows was is coming due to stubbornness. Can anyone say toss pitch in the redzone regardless of defense their in?
February 4th, 2018 at 8:16 am
That is an interesting chart. Bless is unreal with a 67% completion percentage and 20 TDs inside the 20, followed closely by Brady, Wentz and Rodgers. Winston comes in with the bottom 1/3 of starting QBs, just below Mariota and Cam Newton. Is it Winston or Koetter? Interesting.
February 4th, 2018 at 8:26 am
Harry I will answer that for you it’s Dirk and it’s simple. When the other team knows you can’t run the ball they sit back and wait for you to throw clogging up the endzone. Look at everyone of those QBS you listed above, all of them have a great running game and a creative play caller while we have neither.
February 4th, 2018 at 8:44 am
I bet Monken will figure this out. Unfortunately, Dirk will still be calling plays.
February 4th, 2018 at 9:14 am
Doesn’t take a math wiz to see they got the pass completion % wrong.
22 of 44 does not equal 45.83%.
Its interesting to look at the specifics when you click on Winston’s name from that list. One take away I have is that Winston is targeting Brate and Evans the majority of those attempts. (23 attempts for 39% w/ 7 TDs). Only 1 target to DJax within the red zone all season (incomplete). 4 targets to Hump (100% complete and 2 TDs) and 3 to OJ Howard (66.6% complete – both completions were TDs). That’s all season.
Ya think defenses might have known where the ball was probably going and adjusted accordingly?
Based on just that info – I’d say Dirk needs to get more creative inside the 20 and Winston needs to do a better job of spreading the ball around.
February 4th, 2018 at 9:45 am
Is Winston going to turn out to be the wrong qb picked #1 in the draft by the bucs?
February 4th, 2018 at 10:01 am
Improving the running game this off-season should help a lot in that area and Koetter need to get a little more creative with his red zone play designs. Mularkey used to do a good job designing plays to get guys open for Mariota in the red zone in prior seasons. Maybe Koetter can pull him in this off-season for a few brainstorming sessions.
February 4th, 2018 at 10:14 am
Joe since you’re into utilizing the next gen stats it would be interesting to do a comparison on the amount of separation Bucs WR’s get in the red zone or maybe that’s not the right stat but something along the lines of comparing the passing windows that the Bucs have in the red zone vs other teams.
It’s always tough to score in the red zone and guys are usually playing tight coverage but for some reason it seems that several other teams know how to design pick plays or utilize shuffle passes and other things to create opportunities to occasionally get guys wide open in the red zone. I never see that with the Bucs.
February 4th, 2018 at 10:24 am
Ben are you going to turn out to be clueless? Oh wait we already have the answer and it is decidedly YES!
February 4th, 2018 at 10:24 am
Jason Licht needs to take his moron hat off and smell the roses.
Paying Doug Martin and Swaggy Baker, while passing on Calais Campbell is SHAMEFUL.
“I cringe at the expectations”.
Newsflash Mr. Licht, fans don’t expect a “55ppg” offense, just win. The NFL is built for parity, and we are with Cleveland and that my friend is on YOU.
I am open to trade Licht professional occupations. At least for the free agency period. I for damn sure could not do better and that’s asinine. Get it together now.
I’ll be cringing at the tv this fall if we don’t make some big time player personnel changes.
If we roll with this coaching staff and players, and effing suck, then mutiny on the ship will occur.
No more being a wimp, own expectations and win some damn ball games!
February 4th, 2018 at 10:25 am
Great question Ben!
Publix & Uber’s QB needs to eat less pregame W’s and hit some deep balls. Take notes from your backup, he was 2-1 last year.
February 4th, 2018 at 10:27 am
Could do better than Licht in FA*
I would’ve signed Calais Campbell last year. Considering Licht’s background at Arizona makes it more of a head scratcher.
Your free agents, outside of Grimes and McDonald, underperform and it’s ON YOU.
“I cringe at the” free agent selections by an large. Wtf!
February 4th, 2018 at 10:44 am
See SteveK comments like yours about our backup QB being two and one just shows how clueless you Jameis haters are. Please tell us about those two impressive wins vs The Jets at home where Fitz threw a horrible pick right after a TO our D got and the huge road won over Miami where our D got 5 TURNOVERS AND SCORED A TD. You see its easy to just say random things when you provide no context. You see Jameis beat the Saints, had us in position to win at Buffalo and at Carolina and had us in position to tie Atlanta while playing pretty much perfect football. So you can say he needs to play like Fitz but when you do just know that anyone that actually watches the games knows you have no idea what you are talking about.
February 4th, 2018 at 10:54 am
Which comes first…the chicken or the egg? The incomplete passes in the red zone or the fact we ran it a lot in the red zone. People who want to blast Koetter’s play calling in the red zone might want to realize that Koetter knew #3’s completion % and perhaps lost confidence making him run it so much.
@Pickgrin…LUV or one of our other wonks here.
How many deep balls did #3 toss that SHOULD HAVE been caught? How many deep balls were completed only to have an OL negate it with a stupid penalty.
I would love to see stats on how many passes over 25 yards were attempted.
How many were wild throws by #3…how many could have been caught..how many should have been caught and how many completions were erased by bonehead penalties.
February 4th, 2018 at 10:56 am
@tnew…should have included you in that request for analysis as well.
February 4th, 2018 at 11:13 am
Guys you are making this to hard. Ask yourself should Doug Martin have been our RB with the most carries this year? If the answer it no, which we pretty much all know is, then you can also carry that over to the same person making those same stubborn decisions in the redzone. I mean just watch these other teams in the redzone and look at the creativity. Then watch us and you know what is coming, the seem routes to Brate or OJ, the fade to Evans, or the playfake and throw to the FB or tightend and you can tell which is coming via formation. When NE is in the redzone, is it the draw, is it the WR screen, is it a high low combination, is it a fade to gronk, is it a swing route to the RB, it is a crosser to their slot receiver, is it snap to the RB, is it a toss to the RB where they throw? You never know so you have to play a defense that is easy to identify which inturn makes it even easier to call plays. But it all comes back down to coaching and not being predictable. We are way to predictable in the redzone. Jameis makes it work between the 20’s because we run mainly a vertical offense but when it get tight we have nothing that works in the redzone. Why do you think Dirk always talks about explosives because he knows that is our best chance of scoring as when we get in the redzone his play sheet goes to crap!
February 4th, 2018 at 11:29 am
Strictly a guess based on remembrance SPBF – no analysis.
I’d say there was roughly 8 or 9 long pass attempts from Winston to DJax. A couple should have been caught, a couple more could have been caught. The 1 successful long hook up was called back due to an Oline penalty and the rest were off target throws by Winston and/or miscommunication between QB and DJax.
February 4th, 2018 at 11:50 am
Ndog,
You’re clueless af. Give me a moment to get my computer and I will statistically light your ass up.
February 4th, 2018 at 11:52 am
Ndog talks about picks, but what about all who turnovers. Our starter was a fumble/turnover machine last year.
Please look at turnover ratio before being so sure.
Picks or fumbles are turnovers and drive killers.
Jameis’ mistakes looked dumb at times. Such as bad decision.
February 4th, 2018 at 12:00 pm
So you equate getting hit from behind while throwing a ball the same as throwing a bad ball that gets picked? Or a bad snap by the center cause he is pulling out to early, which the coach said happened after the game. See those things are no the QB;s fault but when you have blind hate for one player you will see everything as his fault. You see when you actually know what you are watching, unlike you, it is more clear as to what is going on but you just watch the QB get blasted from the blind side and say man he sucks and again that is because you are clueless. Now if you want to rip the dumb throw he made into the endzone in the last game vs the Saints thats perfect as that was a very stupid throw. But the problem is people like you dont do that they just blame everything on Jamies which shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
February 4th, 2018 at 12:04 pm
What stats are you talking about SteveK? All the stats that says Jameis is on pace to be the leading passer in the history of the NFL? Yes please show me those stats to explain how much Jameis sucks. SMH dude get a clue.
February 4th, 2018 at 12:43 pm
Again guys I get that this is an “opinion” blog and everyone is entitled to their opinions.
As Sen Patrick Moynihan famously said…you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.
Generally you can separate the wheat from the chaff here by how one sided the posts are.
IMHO…#3 is on schedule but he had a setback this past year…a bum shoulder included. I think 2018 will be his year…but I’m not certain…just optimistic.
IE…#3 doesn’t walk on water nor does he suck.
GMC..same deal..not Warren Sapp…not an HOFer but as good as his draft counterpart Suh…not the greatest DT but again he doesn’t suck.
The truth generally lies somewhere in the middle not at the extremes.