Third Down Conversion Percentage Inexcusable
September 25th, 2022
Improvement not an option.
The way things are going, Bucs coach Todd Bowles won’t be looking for a new offensive coordinator next season, unless he personally wants to make a move.
Most thought, with a lot of campaigning by former Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians, that Byron Leftwich would be a head coach somewhere. Rumors had the Bucs’ offensive coordinator linked to Jacksonville last offseason.
The way this year is unfolding, Leftwich won’t be going anywhere.
Through three games the Bucs have scored two touchdowns. Two! Even more appalling, the Bucs’ third down conversion percentage was a ghastly 18.2 percent (2 of 11) today.
Wanna know how bad that is? In 2013 under offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan, who had to deal with rookie Mike Glennon and headcase, leaky, sleepy Josh Freeman (who once was so dialed into a game that he woke up just as team buses were leaving for the stadium), the Bucs converted 31.33 percent of its third downs. …And Glennon was too scared to throw a pass past the chains.
The Bucs, with the greatest quarterback who ever lived, are converting 28.57 percent of their third downs through three games this season.
That’s 12 of 42 third downs converted for those of you scoring at home (lucky SOBs).
Just browsing through recent years, the worst of offenses convert around 30 percent. But with Tom Brady the Bucs are only converting 28 percent? How?
Last year, for example, the Bucs ranked No. 5 in third down conversion at 44.8 percent.
Just think of the worst offenses in football. Do they have worse talent than Russell Gage, Breshad Perriman, Cam Brate, Scotty Miller, Playoff Lenny and Brady? Hardly!
If Joe was Bowles, Joe would tell Leftwich, “Don’t you worry about a damn thing this week. All you need to work on his third down conversion. Nothing else. But you better get it fixed and you better do it quick.”
There is no excuse for this offense to be this bad.
Joe can only imagine what kind of canned answer Leftwich might have for an owner who asks, “You have Tom Brady, so explain to me how you cannot convert more third downs than Mike Glennon?”
September 25th, 2022 at 9:13 pm
Leftwich has had one season as OC without Arians, in 2018. He finished #32nd in scoring offense.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:14 pm
2nd string receivers, 3rd string linemen?
September 25th, 2022 at 9:14 pm
Boron is looking bad.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:18 pm
Beeej Says:
2nd string receivers, 3rd string linemen?
—–
Yep. And bad playcalling on top of it.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:20 pm
If you guys wanna blame just Byron, you are missing it big time, theirs is a tandem in between BL and TB12, be realistic!!
September 25th, 2022 at 9:20 pm
Joe, you didn’t like the double reverse attempted flea flicker? Byron spent all week dreaming up that baby.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:21 pm
F leftwitch never liked him as a player and definitely not as a fake coach.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:23 pm
Zzbuc – Remember all those videos of Brady yelling at Leftwich? It all started when Leftwich gave Brady bad directions to his house, Brady knew at that point Leftwich was a screwup. I bet you anything Brady was lobbying as hard as he could to try to convince someone to hire Leftwich as their headcoach this offseason.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:24 pm
We’re failing on first and second down. Stop looking at the results instead of process. Ask yourself how we get ourselves into so many third down situations. Most of them aren’t even manageable
September 25th, 2022 at 9:24 pm
Tom do what the hell u want stop listening to clueless Leftwitch.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:26 pm
The best English tutor money can buy will not get BL ready for head coaching.
As far as the 3rd down problems…..they are because we don’t do well on 1st & 2nd……..
September 25th, 2022 at 9:26 pm
We’ll get our top three WRs back for KC. That should help.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:27 pm
Munch, my point is, when this offense was flying everybody said it was TB12 offense and now we are struggling is BL….They can,t have it both ways.
Everybody needs to chill, if injuries do not pile up, we will be fine!
September 25th, 2022 at 9:29 pm
I thought Arians was still in control of the coaching staff in his new role?
September 25th, 2022 at 9:31 pm
Sorry Coach Saban, results are what matters. This is a team with Super Bowl aspirations, not a team developing young talent.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:31 pm
Let’s see: 3 O Linemen without NFL experience and a WR unit of glorified practice squaders. What could possibly go wrong?
September 25th, 2022 at 9:32 pm
Joe what can Bowles do? Leftwitch play book is childish I mean the greatest QB in history and you cant call plays that let him score. I was really hoping Leftwitch was gone this season.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:33 pm
Zzbuc Says:
September 25th, 2022 at 9:27 pm
Munch, my point is, when this offense was flying everybody said it was TB12 offense and now we are struggling is BL….They can,t have it both ways.
———-
Dopes might have been saying it was all Brady, I said it was all Brady and Arians. It was NEVER Leftwich, Leftwich is just running Arians playbook, nothing else. But Leftwich is ultra conservative and has zero feel for the game. Even when the offense was scoring tons of points, tell me when you watched the game and thought they taking advantage of all the skill they had out there. For literally 3+ years everyone has been complaining about how insanely predictable they are on 1st down, and it constantly puts Brady, and it used to put Winston, always having to make up yards on 2nd and 3rd down.
Now that Leftwich is fully in charge of things, doesn’t have Arians yelling at him to open things up, we see the results. A super predictable, super conservative offense. The best thing Brady could do this week is take back control of the offense, pull a Manning, and tell Leftwich to go take a seat on the bench and Brady will let him know if he needs anything, like some water or Gatorade.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:35 pm
Zzbuc – BTW, I wasn’t calling you a dope, I was calling the people a dope who think the offense was all Brady when the offense under Winston was also a top 3 offense. Clearly Arians has a very good scheme — and clearly that scheme is being ruined by Leftwich.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:37 pm
We most certainly gonna lose next week too if Byron doesn’t figure this out For one thing nobody should get any days off except defense
September 25th, 2022 at 9:38 pm
@Rod Munch
BINGO BINGO AGREE 1000 PERCENT!!!!!
The best thing Brady could do this week is take back control of the offense, pull a Manning, and tell Leftwich to go take a seat on the bench and Brady will let him know if he needs anything, like some water or Gatorade.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:38 pm
In the first half at Dallas we had Evans Godwin and Julio, and Donnie. Didn’t punt. That’s coming back next AundY.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:39 pm
Sunday
September 25th, 2022 at 9:40 pm
How long before Aries blows his lid and regrets his decision.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:42 pm
Goatfarmer they scored 19 points. Anyway this offense better start playing better. It’s a joke they look so lethargic at home even with the injuries. A lot of players wasting roster spots doing nothing on this team.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:46 pm
Yes, Munch, Brady needs to select a menu of plays from the playbook.
He needs to insist on more play action.
I think things will go better with Evans, Jones, Gage, Beasely rotating in.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:46 pm
Chiefs gonna blow us out of the water if we can’t score.
September 25th, 2022 at 9:52 pm
Offs has scored 3tds thru 3games not 2 .
September 25th, 2022 at 9:54 pm
Beeej nailed it. Injuries are affecting them. And the three Defenses they’ve played are good.
Relax. 2-1 after 3 games.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:01 pm
ModHairKen injuries are part of the game but it’s sad they couldn’t beat this inept packers team at home. They still have the rams and 49ers on their schedule.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:04 pm
It sure looks like Bowles has his fingers in the offense. Uber conservative. Up the gut first and twenty. No biscuit don’t risk it.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:09 pm
Licht knew this was coming, that’s why he drafted a fresh legged punter.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:15 pm
A loss may be the best thing BUT
Thinking Fournette is any type of short yardage back is so F ing Laughable it’s like thinking a Cat is a Lizard ……….. it is beyond mind boggling what this staff and some others see ,,,,,, he is beyond terrible !!! Brady may Walk Away after this brain dead debacle …….. I can say a great defensive game by both but Scotty Miller and Permian are so missed used it’s like Byron is getting paid for 8:00 plus min drives ………….. Total Debacle ……Byron , I love the run but you don’t know your personnel !!! F c Tard
September 25th, 2022 at 10:17 pm
I bet Tom Brady would love to have Josh sitting beside him, instead of BL. This offense lacks imagination. The runs are predictable, and unless Brady is in hurry up, things look forced . Hey that’s a trick, run the Patriots hurry up. Just stick 5 guys across the formation, let Brady pick. This isn’t his offense, it’s BA/BL. He won six Superbowls throwing sideways. Coaching is letting the old man down.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:19 pm
Coach Saban!! Haha 😂
This offense can not overcome negative plays. Too many times they got penalty’s, negative plays or something that made 2nd and 3rd down to far and not manageable. BA needs to help Byron pick his plays for the week and maybe it’ll help get rid of some of these horrible calls. Need to give someone else besides Lenny the ball to run. He’ll be dead at the bye week and won’t be available for the Super Bowl push
September 25th, 2022 at 10:21 pm
The Bucs offense looks as good as the Bucs o-line.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:33 pm
Leftwich could not call his way out of a trash bag at this point.
September 25th, 2022 at 10:46 pm
Hey Tommy, ask BA for his red pen.
September 25th, 2022 at 11:21 pm
@Reedeemer. I’m a Michigan alum and followed his entire career. I held my nose and watched every Pats games. Brady, one of the greatest play action passers in the game, wants to run up the middle on first down all the time? No way. The uptempo NE offense was unstoppable. This offense is so unimaginative. The fans who want to blame Brady today for the loss is crazy/ He had a couple of bad passes and took a bad sack, but he hit 70% of his passes. The receivers can’t get YAC. Rodgers averaged 3 air yards!! His receivers were getting YAC. That’s the difference.
When leftwich was OC in AZ, he ran David Johnson up the gut on first down. This is who he is. Pass rush is mitigated by uptempo. Field position wasn’t good. Asking a struggling offense to drive 85 yards downfield on multiple drives isn’t prudent. There has been multiple factors in our offensive struggles, but one cannot deny that bad sequencing in our play calls is the biggest problem.
Stop saying we need to run more. We need to run more efficiently and with more creative. People are upset with our third down conversions. We are using on first and second down. Constantly asking your QB to bail you out on third and long isn’t sustainable. I was expecting a frustrated Brady pick, but he played calm and didn’t force it to substandard receivers. Remember the last time he faced the Packers he had three picks.
Bowles was on Cowherd was and Colin asked him if he would let Brady control the offense like Manning while he focused on the defense. Bowles shut him down forcefully and said this was Leftwich’s rodeo.
September 25th, 2022 at 11:48 pm
Byron’s talent as an OC is questionable at best.
There are NO excuses.
This is the NFL so get your head out of your *** and figure it out BL!!!!!
Defense balling out and you’re doing nothing.
September 25th, 2022 at 11:53 pm
I don’t expect our offensive players or coaches to continue being horrible, but if it does continue we’ll be in a great spot to draft a qb.
September 26th, 2022 at 12:11 am
Simple answer … B.A. is not there telling him “no that’s a stupid play for this situation! Use this one!!”
September 26th, 2022 at 1:30 am
I am most pissed that the last season of the greatest football player of all time is being hamstrung by BL and his offing high school playbook. He doesn’t have a creative bone in his body. Jesus! Let Brady just run the damn game. It literally couldn’t be worse. Win or lose, I don’t want to watch this team its so daaaaammmmm boring and repulsive. And Brady is my favorite player of all time and has been for 20 years.
September 26th, 2022 at 2:40 am
Even when fully healthy, they can’t consistently beat good teams with BL’s playbook. Weis and McDaniels, he is not. Let Brady run the offense. Or make changes now.
September 26th, 2022 at 4:44 am
FIRE HIM TODAY!!!
Biggest POS play calling I’ve ever seen in my life
September 26th, 2022 at 7:36 am
Leftwich has no feel for the game, never has. His time in Arizona without Arians was a disaster. With the talent and o-line the Bucs had the two previous seasons to this the punter should have stayed at home on game day, instead they still made it look difficult getting down the field.
Green Bay was running rub routes all day yesterday to get their crappy recievers free, and to start the game it worked like a charm. The Bucs were running the same exact playbook as if they had Evans, Godwin, AB, and Gronk out there and expecting Gage, Miller, Perriman, and Brate to accomplish what HOF caliber players can do.
Arians was all about legacy and refused to see the ineptitude. It turns out, maybe there was a reason he was going into the offensive room and red markering certain plays. He probably saw that reverse fleaflicker and scribbled all over it.
September 26th, 2022 at 7:37 am
…and keeping Arians in the building means coaching changes won’t happen.
September 26th, 2022 at 10:53 am
gotbucs@ exactly. 3 pass plays on your 1yd line, driving down the field and calls a double reverse pass with a team of backups, 1st 20 run up the middle, run up the middle with 30 seconds left causing the loss of last timeout knowing Bucs needed to make the 2 point conversion, sitting Julio Jones, Darden as a return guy, more hamstring injuries than all the remaining 31 teams combined, BA allowed on the sidelines to disrupt the team. B&B or Bevis and Butthead. One of the worst coaching staffs in the league.
September 26th, 2022 at 8:20 pm
One month and tunes will change. Go Bucs!
September 26th, 2022 at 11:21 pm
The worst coaching staff in the league all factors considered. Great players have made BL look OK for a few years. Mediocre players show his absolute lack of coaching skill. I re-iterate… Belichick is rolling on the floor laughing. He’s remembering how they won so much with Brady and no-names by utilizing Brady’s skill and creativity/skilled coaching. The Bucs coaching staff is THE REASON they look bad. Players not being on page or not doing their job is the coaching. You can win and look competent doing it without superstars, but not without good coaching.