Explosive Plays = Points
August 31st, 2023
Bucs coach Todd Bowles.
Former Bucs coach Dirk Koetter was a huge believer in “explosive plays.” He talked about it often.
Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians never talked about explosive plays. That’s because explosive plays were the core foundation of his offense.
Though Bucs coach Todd Bowles hasn’t spoken about explosive plays, Joe wonders how much he values them.
We all know that one reason Bowles got away from Arians’ no-risk-it; no-biscuit offense was he said players were too drained late in the season.
Handicapper turned stathead Warren Sharp, seems to think that move doomed the Bucs, as he detailed on his site Sharp Football Analysis.
The Buccaneers ranked #2 in explosive play rate in 2021 as they scored the #2 most points and won 13 games. But last year, they dropped to #31 in explosive play rate (a decline of 4.4 percentage points, largest in the NFL).
(Joe believes it’s better to have tired players winning playoff games than well-rested players watching playoff games on their couches. But hey, that’s just Joe.)
After reading a breakdown of explosive plays from Sharp, it seems Bowles’ philosophy may be better suited to an NFL of days gone by.
Per Sharp, teams that don’t have a lot of explosive plays are handcuffed offensively. Here are some nuggets:
If that drive has zero explosive plays (defined as a play of 15+ yards):
6.3% of drives score points of any kind
4.5% of drives reach the red zone
2.0% of drives score a touchdownBut if that drive had exactly one play of 15+ yards:
50% of drives score points of any kind
36% of drives reach the red zone
25% of drives score a touchdown
Also, Sharp pointed out that all eight of the top-eight offenses in explosive plays made the playoffs. Of the bottom eight teams in explosive plays, one made the playoffs.
This is a trend for the past two decades. Every five years beginning in 2000, Sharp documented the percentage of drives ending in points with at least one explosive play has gone up in each four-year period. It began with 39 percent for 2000-2004. It’s now 52 percent (Sharp only has data for the past three seasons in his last group breakdown — 2020-2022).
So let’s see, drives without an explosive play end in scoring 6.4 percent of the time; drives with at least one explosive play end in points 52 percent of the time, and drives with at least two explosive plays end in points 83 percent of the time.
After reading these numbers, Joe only has one thing to type:
Throw the ball and wear these guys out!
(And who helped convince Koetter to throw deep more? It came from a strange source. You can see that here.)
August 31st, 2023 at 4:12 am
Yeah I didn’t buy that when he said it then and I don’t buy it now. I think the defense is more tired with the conservative offense we saw last year as opposed to the no risk it no biscuit one. When the offense is only out there for a few minutes, the defense cannot get a break.
August 31st, 2023 at 5:14 am
Joe … ‘We all know that one reason Bowles got away from Arians’ no-risk-it; no-biscuit offense was he said players were too drained late in the season.’
You sound like a lawyer Joe who starts off his questioning with ‘Wouldn’t you say that …’. There was a LOT more to what Todd Bowles was saying than just ‘draining’ the defensive players.
The proof is easy. In 2019 (BA’s 1st year here) the Bucs’ average TOP was 30:54 on the season (we finished 7-9). In 2020 our TOP decreased by almost 2 minutes to 29:06 (we finished 11-5 and oh ya, won the Super Bowl playing 4 extra games). So the decrease in TOP didn’t exactly hurt us that year. Why? Our offense scored more points (492 vs 458) AND our defense was much better (#8 ranking vs #29).
In 2021 our average TOP increased to a nice 30:11 minutes (we finished 13-4 and made it through 2 playoff games). BA’s average over 3 years as HC? Pretty much a break-even 30:04 minutes using his ‘bombs away’ attack philosophy. But BTW, we had an OLine all 3 years that provided great pass protection; long enough to let routes develop so that we actually had an opportunity to make explosive plays via intermediate & deep passes. And for 2 of those 3 years we had Tom Brady AND Gronk AND Antonio Brown in addition to Mike Evans & Chris Godwin. Pretty good QBing & receiving talent to support BA’s ‘no risk-it, no biscuit’ philosophy.
Fast forward to 2022 (and Bowles becoming HC), and that talent level & other things changed dramatically (can’t blame BA for passing the baton?). Our OLine couldn’t run-block for beans, but they made up for it by not being able to pass-block for very long either. We lost Gronk & AB, and 45-year-old Tom Brady felt the pressure. It was also probably our worst injury year in ages. Put it all-together (with an unsupervised BL) and it spelled an 8-9 record. And BTW, despite what you say about what Bowles wanted, our TOP DECREASED considerably to 28:54 … the LOWEST it had been since 2015 when Jameis was a rookie … and when we went 6-10 under Lovie Smith, had the FIFTH BEST rushing attack in the NFL (455 rushes for 2162 yards), BUT had a a horrible TOP at 28:33 minutes.
So the logic train ran off the track Joe. Running MORE doesn’t necessarily correlate to an increased TOP and thus decreased time on the field for the defense. Tampa Bay proved that in 2015. What does correlate to less time on the field for the defense is for the defense to get off the field faster by shutting our opponents down on 3rd & 4th down. And oh ya, by ending drives via getting more takeaways. Long sustained drives are what kill a defense, helped obviously by an ineffective offense that can’t sustain its own drives.
August 31st, 2023 at 6:32 am
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bowles was saying that to cover for Brady, who absolutely refused fo throw the ball down the field in the first three quarters of every game. We can blame Bowles and Leftwich all we want for the awful offense, but why does the guy that got all the credit in 2020 and 2021(there are even some that credit 2019 to him) escape all blame? You don’t think Brady had extreme input on play calls and gameplanning? You don’t think he had the ability to audible out of a bad play and into a better one? Anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional. Brady was the major factor in the awful offense last season.
August 31st, 2023 at 6:35 am
Last chance Todd.
August 31st, 2023 at 6:45 am
Joe….. Stop beating a dead horse, Bowles wins games with such a great defense that the offense doesn’t have to score! How can you not see the brilliance of this strategy.
August 31st, 2023 at 6:57 am
I truly do not understand Todd Bowles’ line of thinking. Isn’t Bruce Arians supposed to be an advisor, or is he basically retired and still earning a paycheck? It didn’t work for Dungy and it’s not working for him. Forrest’s mom was so right.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:06 am
off subject, is Calijah Kancey practicing when the the team returns to practice
August 31st, 2023 at 7:08 am
You know what helps time of possession? 1st downs! Gronk was a machine and Godwin when healthy is the same. The problem is even when Brady was here we had a tendency to start games slow and have to come from behind. Get that D fired up to start games give us a few 3 & outs.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:13 am
We have more penalties than explosive plays.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:40 am
Will find out in a few hours.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:48 am
It appears Bowles is more interested in keeping his defense fresh with extended offense series eating the clock rather than a quick strike offense where they are on and off the field in a few minutes and the defense has to get back into the game quickly. Defense minded coach concerned about keeping that side of the ball fresh with a balanced offense.
I get his logic, but the NFL is moving towards a more pass-oriented offense. Passing the ball is statistically more advantageous than running the ball. What hurts the Bucs with this philosophy is they don’t have the horses to effectively run the ball like Bowles wants to in a 80’s-90’s style offense that he wants to run now.
Bucs should play to their advantages of having the studs in the WR room and throw the ball more than trying to run with the RB group they have. Not suggesting they throw the ball 50-60 times a game, but longer big plays can be an advantage both physically and psychologically against your opponents.
Cheers.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:50 am
If Bowles continues to stick with a low scoring offense and relies on the D to stop the other team in the 4th qtr. he is going to get burned for a second year. The guy is so stubborn it is mind boggling. At least he will be gone next year.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:54 am
“Joe believes it’s better to have tired players winning playoff games than well-rested players watching playoff games on their couches. But hey, that’s just Joe.”
That’s Ken, too.
As for last year and the so-called “explosive plays,” don’t forget Evans drop in Carolina. That was a huge game changer. I bet it still eats at him.
August 31st, 2023 at 7:58 am
Stats can’t solve this riddle! Hell yea they were gassed because that joker wouldn’t call enough run plays and you have receivers running long slow developing routes for nothing. Yes it’sa passing league but a run game is still important
August 31st, 2023 at 8:00 am
Now fans will have to suffer another year watching Todd bowels boring as offense and Swiss cheese defense
August 31st, 2023 at 8:07 am
I know Bowles would’ve have called that td to Scooter right before halftime against the Packers
August 31st, 2023 at 8:14 am
The biggest problem last year was running up the middle on first down. To the same spot 9 out of ten times in the first half. I don’t know if leftwich was told to run by bowles so he just ran the same play or if he was just totally inept. We be will never know.
August 31st, 2023 at 8:26 am
The number 1 and 1a reasons why pundits far and wide do not believe in this team for 2023
1 – Baker
1a – Todd Bowles
End of story
August 31st, 2023 at 8:29 am
The bottom line is always putting up more points than the other team. If it takes a 45 second drive to get 7, I’m all for it. If it takes 6.5 minutes to get 7, sweet! A balanced offense is desirable but if the pass is working and the run isn’t, then you use what is working more! And vice versa! You shouldn’t stick to what is not working for too long. The game is only 60 minutes long.
I have faith that Canales will mix up the run with the pass effectively! He appears to have a clue about how to keep the defense guessing! I worry about TB’s defense not getting off the field on 3rd and 4th downs as @Defense Rules pointed out!! That really hurt this team last year!
August 31st, 2023 at 8:41 am
Come on Frozen, leave my man Baky alone..
You Forget he IS the master of the “less than 10” now and has Master bated on the dinky dunky to a tee!
~ Seriously, it’s the “west coast” style of attack. It does work. Once apon a time Brady perfected it and tried to bring it back in his last year with us. Problem was, “nobody else” really trained for it or had a clue as to what was going on (except Leftwich and other head coaches and OC’s) so it was indeed a train wreck when he attempted it. Not sure why that hasn’t been brought up. It should have been QUITE CLEAR…
He won many a Super Bowl with the dinky dunky combined with Explosive Plays mixed in. That’s EXACTLY what Brady attempted last year. But as I said, they didn’t train for it so it was an ABSOLUTE FAIL.
What we haven’t seen in pre season is the Explosive part of the formula. THAT’S the surprise that Canales is holding back. He demonstrated it with Trask…
He actually used both parts of the formula but separated them between QBs. I believe we are about to see it all come together in game number 1. The “west coast style” of attack is about to be unveiled.
You can go ahead and deposit that in the bank.. The question is which QB can pull it off and “THAT’S WHY” they chose Mayfield over Trask. Mayfield has training in the style. Touched on in the Rams system. Trask is better suited for a different style. Trask would be IDEAL for Arians style and still needs time to work on the west coast style to catch up. Canales went dinky dunky with Mayfield and he went explosive with Trask… If you noticed, he used each QB FAR DIFFERENTLY than the other in preseason and the “whole product” will be introduced in game 1. You’ll see….
August 31st, 2023 at 8:47 am
Kaptain Morgan Says:
August 31st, 2023 at 7:48 am
I get his logic, but the NFL is moving towards a more pass-oriented offense. Passing the ball is statistically more advantageous than running the ball. What hurts the Bucs with this philosophy is they don’t have the horses to effectively run the ball like Bowles wants to in a 80’s-90’s style offense that he wants to run now.
———————————————————————————–
I would wait until the regular season before we evaluate whether or not we have the horses to effectively run the ball. When our starters played in the last preseason game our running game looked pretty good.
And I wouldn’t necessarily characterize our offense as an “80’s-90’s style offense”. Seattle won a Super Bowl with it in a dominating fashion back in 2014, 43 – 8 over Denver.
August 31st, 2023 at 8:53 am
@ Frozen: Baker can throw the long ball better than Trask. Not even close!
@ Voice: Baker can throw the long ball better than Trask. Not even close!
@ Both: Baker throws Touchdowns. Trask throws Field Goals.
@ Both: Baker is much smarter than Trask, and is also a much better golfer.
#BAKER IS BETTER!
August 31st, 2023 at 8:58 am
Ah,the Monday morning troll attack.Here is how it will go. The Bucs have at least three stallion receivers and Baker has a Bazooka. They didn’t show you morons the deep ball because it was pre season and they were not about the give the rest of the league any clues. Now you will see ther play action and Baker firing deep to those stallions to take the top off the defense and stretch them til they break.Get ready to eat CROW trolls. You will be singing a different tune come the break when the Buc are 3 and 1 or 4 and O!
August 31st, 2023 at 9:02 am
Your logic never left the station. If anything you tried to build a straw man.
Please point out where Joe referenced time of possession? He didn’t because that is not what this post is about.
Additionally, you *speculated* why Todd Bowles deviated from Bruce Arians’ offense. Joe *knows* one reason why. How does Joe know this? Bowles told Joe this in a very public forum.
There is a huge difference between documented and speculated (guessing).
August 31st, 2023 at 9:27 am
defense rules — that’s a lot of relevant stuff, but I bet Brady’s divorce was the biggest thing of all
August 31st, 2023 at 9:36 am
Explosive plays eh? So, in the preseason ,” competition”, Mayfield threw for a total of a little over 100 yds, While Kyle Trask threw for a little over 500 yds, and Mayfield is then gifted the starting gig! I’m going to have to look up the definition of “explosive play “ in the dictionary, I don’t think it means what you think it means!
August 31st, 2023 at 9:44 am
Voice of Truth: I think it is common sense to assume that Coach Bowles will cost the Bucs 2 or 3 wins against what a coach like Arians would accomplish with the same roster and schedule. I guess for proof of this we could point to Cleveland and Pitt last year for certain and perhaps the ATL finale as well if the Bucs actually had something to play for, like a better seed, if they did have a few more wins under their belt. Since the fluke season in his first year with the Jets Bowles is a coach with an average of 5 or so wins a season so I think he is the primary reason the wise guys in Vegas have the Bucs at 6 wins o/u. The national media simply hates Mayfield so while some people may think he is the worst qb in the league, he does have some people in the know who thinks he can play decently for this new OC. The prob is that Bowels plays not to lose and might simply try to pound the rock ala Leftwich and voila, the Bucs are a 4 to 6 win team and fighting it out with the ATL or Saints for the basement of the division.
I saw some future odds on BetOnline about which head coach would get launched first and if memory serves me right: Mike Mccarthy, Bowles and Ron Rivera are the top 3 picks at +600 and only a few other coaches are under +1000 like Dennis Allen, Josh McDaniels and that guy in Cleveland Stefanski…. The only reason I would hedge on those odds on Bowles is that the Glazers might not launch Bowles midseason as they let guys like Schiano and Raheem play out their seasons before sacking them and they could decide to tank after a bad start since they saw how a coaching change caused Carolina to move back from a top 2 or 3 overall pick to #9. Carolina paid a lot to move up to #1 because of those 4 or so meaningless wins their interim coach got which Rhule would have managed to lose in all likelihood.
August 31st, 2023 at 9:52 am
Looks like this guy knows numbers. Here’s more numbers.
Interceptions chances:
0-10 yards is 2%
10-20 yards is 4%
20 yards Plus is over 8%
Long pass is 4 times as risky.
Trick is to throw screens or go right to your check down and hope the receiver turns it into a 15 Plus Play.
Benefits are High Completion Rate, Low Interception Rate, and it wins QB Competitions.
Down side is if the defense can tackle better than College Level Talent the results are 7 Play 12 yard drives that end in Punts.
August 31st, 2023 at 10:34 am
AMEN Joe!
Playing safe, playing scared, playing not to lose, etc., rarely results in wins. You gotta take chances and be aggressive.
I also got a nice chuckle reading the comments on that Koetter article about throwing deep. (I remember the article from when it was originally written too). Funny to see everyone chitting all over Mike Evans and claiming we have no deep threats, and everyone hoping Kenny Bell was the answer lol. Though to be fair, I do think that was after Mike’s lone season of the dropsies…
August 31st, 2023 at 10:35 am
Pmarshmellow says he’s got it figured out.
Did you read my write up and put it together and then call everybody else a moron???
That’s cute…. Try your on material before you pretend that you got it all figured out and start calling people names. Not Cool….
August 31st, 2023 at 10:46 am
Breakout plays aren’t always long passes. Well designed play action screen passes that are setup with the the correct blocking, can net you huge gains. Trask’s pass to Brown in the backfield, turned into a 24 yard gain against the Ravens and Brown’s no great runner. It doesn’t have to be a 70.5 (yards in the air) pass, like the one Mayfield threw when he set the NFL record. But Mayfield’s capable of making good passes that can net long yards and his long each season has been good: 2018: 71 yds, 2019: 89 yds, 2020: 75 yds, 2021: 71 yds, 2022: 75 yds. I’ll take a lower risk/higher catch rate, 10 yard slant to Godwin that nets 20 yards all day long and 4x on Sunday.
August 31st, 2023 at 11:29 am
Since Todd Bowles is not calling the offensive plays, what difference does it make whether he thinks explosive plays matter, or don’t matter?
Canales is the OC and he is calling the plays. If he calls plays, within his offensive scheme, that results in lots of explosive plays, great. If he doesn’t, but produces a grind it out offense that lets the defense rest and still scores points at the end of long drives by being effective in the red zone, that’s great too.
There are always multiple ways to win, and multiple ways to lose. Fans and media critics should not care as long as the wins are produced. If not,there will be a million geniuses including JBF who will remind us all of their geniosity and if only the Bucs had hired them to run the team then a Super Bowl championship would have been a done deal.
August 31st, 2023 at 12:10 pm
Joe … ‘Please point out where Joe referenced time of possession? He didn’t because that is not what this post is about.’
I’ll readily agree Joe that you never used the term ‘Time of Possession’. But the article said right up-front ‘We all know that one reason Bowles got away from Arians’ no-risk-it; no-biscuit offense was he said players were too drained late in the season.’ Doesn’t that kinda imply that his defense was having to spend too much time on the field? And the time a defense has to spend on the field equals 60 minutes minus the TOP (OK, except in OT games). So there’s a direct correlation.
All I was trying to show is that IF Todd Bowles got away from ‘no riskit, no biscuit’ & WANTED to run more solely to lessen the amount of time his defense had to spend on the field, then he was using faulty data to come to that conclusion. Bucs best running attack in 8 years (2015) had the lowest TOP (28:33 minutes) and thus the defense had to stay on the field longer. The irony is that the Bucs ended up rushing the same number of times (386) in 2022 that we did (385) in 2021 but got a LOT fewer rushing yards (1308 vs 1672).
[Once again, this post has *zero* to do with time of possession. – Joe]
August 31st, 2023 at 12:25 pm
The stars in this article are why most people are down in having a run-centric offense in this day and age.
That is, unless you have a very effective and dynamic RB/running game…
In which, ours has been basically futile for the past few seasons and there’s no guarantee that it will be any better this season.
Although, I will say that the initial looks of our offense and overall attack seem to be promising and encouraging, so hopefully with a better scheme/playcalling, we can actually add a bunch of exclusive plays in the ground game this season.
LFG
August 31st, 2023 at 12:25 pm
*stats not stars
August 31st, 2023 at 12:26 pm
People want to give Hoo Rahs for a 71 yard TD but then give them a pass on the negative because they have an Injury. Hell Bayless even had his injury as the throwing shoulder.
If this is the 71 yard pass against the Chargers in week 8 that all the Hoo Rah is about then lets recap how it went after. Crunch Time.
Down 42-47 with a chance to win the game. Piloted an 8 play drive for 21 yards on 4 of 4 passing 6, 3, 2, ad 10. Burned up his time on short passes and then 0-3 trying to get the ball down field after that. Chargers even helped them out with a timeout.
0-5 on Game winning drives that season alone. Biggest failure was 2020 vs Chiefs with another short failed game winning drive of 7 plays and 20 some yards. All short passes. Not the guy for me when the game is on the line.
Guys got a rifle for and arm but horrible under the gun. Defense is not wearing Underwear and he’s not wearing a Red Shirt now. Not playing against College talent. Practice Baker might be great in but that’s where it ends..
Usually among the 5 worse passers under pressure. Maybe why he went to the dinks and dunks.
August 31st, 2023 at 12:26 pm
*explosive
August 31st, 2023 at 12:59 pm
First just because Cleveland can’t find their arse with a map doesn’t mean Baker made the wrong choices. That team was horrible with play calling.
Like having the fastest horse in the Kentucky Derby and trotting out Beater Squaw, a show horse.
Canales knows what he is doing and that will be the difference
As far as TOP and all that, the logic was simple to see.
BL calls for 3 straight down field passes believing we do what we do, and 2.5 minutes later real time, the defense is back on the field.
And just because we run it doesn’t mean White or Tucker aren’t gonna rattle off 25+ yd runs all the time either. Or screens, or draws, or Otton end around for 12.
Its possible for a long drive between quarters, to last 30 minutes real time.
Think about that kind of rest for a defense, who promptly takes the opposing team out in a 3 and out situation.
Now your up 14-0 and their defense is spent, so you spread them out and make them run more and this time it works because they are slower.
This is the time in a game where teams look like they own the other team.
Everything works.
Now after a rest for everyone at halftime, the 2nd half is a new ballgame.
In terms of a truly rested defense, a vertical passing scheme Does Not Help!!!!!!
August 31st, 2023 at 1:27 pm
@BucsFanSince1996
Valid points. We shall see.
Cheers!
August 31st, 2023 at 2:14 pm
Bowles is a Dinosaur .. the league has changed
August 31st, 2023 at 11:21 pm
“(Joe believes it’s better to have tired players winning playoff games than well-rested players watching playoff games on their couches. But hey, that’s just Joe.)”
Ditto Joe! BS meter went off then and is still sounding the alarm. What kind of idiot says my guys were tired so we need to score less points with a slow, plodding, dink and dunk offense. Ditch a Superbowl winning offense? Drives me nuts!
I played the game and believe me. Practices were tougher physically than games. If you were not in shape you did not practice well and thus you did not play.
If these millionaires are not in shape that is on them and the coaching staff coach Bowles!
Go Bucs!