Bucs Offense Turned The Corner
January 5th, 2024
Offense improved (just not on Sunday).
It’s hard to tell when the freshest Bucs memory in Joe’s mind makes Joe want to inhale a four-pack of Bromosa to purge the hard drive.
The Bucs were downright wretched on offense last week in the groin stomp to the slimy Saints, but that may have been just a hiccup.
The Bucs media relations staff issued a graphic highlighting the improved offense in the past five games. Yes, that includes Sunday. The evidence, statistically, is clear.
In rushing yards per game, the Bucs went from 31st to 19. That’s a fairly big jump. Passing yards per attempt was 6.4 before Week 13. Since, it’s been 8.1. That’s an increase from 17th-best in the NFL during tht time period to third-best.
So yeah, the Bucs offense did make a turn for the better after losing to the Colts in Week 12. Now Joe just hopes last week was an outlier and not a harbinger.
(Courtesy Bucs media relations.)
January 5th, 2024 at 4:11 am
This just screams “Step down from the ledge” to me
January 5th, 2024 at 5:12 am
If we lose Sunday, the toilet needs plunged before flushing . I also knew the offense was getting better . It’s the frigging defence that pukes !!
January 5th, 2024 at 5:46 am
Hail2dabucs.
Sir, I think you may be wrong.
TB is called a defense guru.
I thought ?
January 5th, 2024 at 6:18 am
This looks like something the fanbois would print “oh look at his 28 tds and 10 interceptions and he’s had soooo many passes dropped or statistically he’s the 10th best qb in the league” but never talking about all the open receivers he’s missed or miscues. Statistically speaking he’d part of why we’re 9-7 and he’s like 41-48 for his career. The Bucs will never turn the corner on offense because Baker has hit his ceiling with us. He’ll always be never consistently great nor bad. He needs great coaches and great defenses around him to be better than he already is now
January 5th, 2024 at 6:29 am
Keep spinnng it…
Bucs media relations needs a lot of work. As do the Public Relations execs.
Go Bucs!
January 5th, 2024 at 7:00 am
Thanks for dressing up the pig, Joe.
January 5th, 2024 at 7:02 am
Good enough for me… I am back on the bandwagon pending Sunday’s big game!
Go Bucs!
January 5th, 2024 at 7:16 am
Those stats are cherry picked. Probably some where we got worse. Anyway, win Sunday and we finish the season 5-1. Pretty good. Win convincingly and we are all feeling very good going into the playoffs.
January 5th, 2024 at 7:31 am
We need to come out passing and keep on passing…..no more trying to “establish the run” …..let’s establish a lead….
January 5th, 2024 at 7:33 am
But…I thought the season was 17 games long? Talk about twisting the numbers!
January 5th, 2024 at 7:38 am
I won’t be tricked by this schizophrenic team anymore.
January 5th, 2024 at 7:39 am
Anyone saying the Bucs looking very good going into the playoffs has broken the puff puff pass rule
January 5th, 2024 at 7:59 am
We have to get better play from the CB position. You can’t give 10 yards of cushion on every receiver, every game. Press somebody, give the D-lineman 1.5 seconds to disrupt the QB. Carlton Davis is a disappointment and McCollom just isn’t ready yet at this level of football, maybe next year.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:01 am
Onetrickpony Says:
TB is called a defense guru.
I thought?
Bowles is known for his creative defensive schemes. The term “guru” tends to reference strong technicians. However, he is superlatively weak at all other important coaching skills / attributes including in game play calling and adjustments, leadership, motivation, communication, teaching, ACCOUNTABLIITY (uhhh… not my fault, man), and [insert whatever I may have missed here]. The only value Bowles could possibly bring to an NFL team would be as a consultant behind the scenes.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:06 am
Canales quote from press conference transcript.
“We didn’t play our type of football like we’ve been playing the last month. The balance stuff, the execution, the fundamental things that just weren’t there on the day. It got away from us, and at a certain point we just had to go, ‘OK, let’s switch modes and attack and see if we can get back in the game.’”
When will the Bucs know whether Mayfield will be able to go Sunday?
“Honestly, that’s going to be a decision for Baker,” Canales said. “I know for sure Baker gives us our best chance to win. If he feels like he’s ready to go, that’s a decision he’ll be able to make.”
Comments:
1. You should have switched to attack mode after going down 14-0 in the first half. No huddle let Baker run the show.
2. If Baker starts he needs to stay loose and in Rhythm or the ribs tighten up. Run no huddle the entire first half.
3.If you have a 4 touchdown lead like against the Jags let Trask or Wolford play in the second half. If Trask throw 2 interceptions bring Baker back for a run short pass game until he gets warm than go for the Jugular on a long TD.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:08 am
Not Says:
Maybe they’re telling us they might keep DC and BM but toilet is gonna get flushed.
You just described the ideal scenario, IMO. Of course, keeping DC would be up to the new HC who will likely want to select their own OC.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:12 am
My biggest issue with this buc team is that I think we all expected this bucc offense to struggle and it has. We have a new OC, new QB with a questionable past a new starter at RB and a patch work OL. I expected this and I am glad to see the improvement and DC should get a ton of credit for it.
However, that being said we have struggled MASSIVELY with our defense the very area in which Bowles is supposedly a guru. We cant get a pass rush, we cant cover anyone and we have our star players like White having personal issues. Sure White could be doing this on his own a diva type but we never heard about this stuff when BA was in town. It just seems to be a lack of leadership starting with the HC.
I expected this team to play mistake free football and have a really sound defense that always kept us in games and that is simply not what we have. There are several games like the Texans & Colts games as examples in which we completely lost because of our poor defense. Baker brought us down the field with almost no time remaining against the Texans we all think its in the bag and Bowles & his Defense completely sh*t the be allowing stroud to score. Then against Indi who is missing their QB, star RB and others, we allow them to put up 27 on our “elite” D? These things just cant happen IMO.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:23 am
Now show those positive offensive games against opponent defense. I know GB was rolling out a historically bad defense. Jax was statistically okay, I think, but that game felt like a big outlier for them.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:32 am
This is an average offense at best. I think Canales has serious potential but its hard to judge him – he works under Bowles, after all.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:32 am
Worried bout the defense as usual.
January 5th, 2024 at 8:43 am
LOL run on 1st & 2nd way too often. What drives me nuts is WHEN they have 2nd & short to go, WHY not take a shot down field? They could always run it up the gut on 3rd if the pass does not work. Get agressive and stop playing for field goals.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:11 am
They picked some stats and are now trying to sell us a bridge. Sorry they had a couple games against bad teams and they looked good. At least 12 games this season offense was not good. Looks like we are going to be reliving the lost decade. It’s a bucs life.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:18 am
This is hilarious cherry-picking from the Bucs media relations team. Baker was great against GB. His 13.6 YPA in that game is double his YPA for the rest of the season (6.9).
It’s not a 5-game streak of good play. It’s one great game, one good game, and 3 bad games.
The real improvement is the running game, which has 99+ yards in 4 of the last 6 games. They only hit that mark 2 times in the previous 10 games.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:20 am
Have not moved up the ladder much on yards per game rushing. Still at the bottom. Pick a 4 game sample and it looks like the needle is moving when it really is not.
We have a QB that ranks 8th in Passing Stats yet the team is 15th in yards. Throw a few 50 yard passes 10 yards past every guy on the field and you can fudge the yards per attempt to make it look like you doing something besides checking down most of time and padding the Completion Percentage. I see more Cooking the Books than Baking going on.
Take away the quick outs, WR screens, and shut down the running back release routes and the guy struggles. Might as well have Mitch Trubisky in there. Looks great in garbage time though.
Saints gave everyone a look behind the curtain week 17.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:22 am
Cherry picked piece by Joe, every now and then they do articles like this. But stats don’t tell the whole story. How about showing the entire season stat line of
the first half offense. How many touchdowns has Baker been putting up at the start of game and into halftime.
I havn’t seen the stats but it appears that many of the yardage numbers and touchdowns are in the middle of the 3rd quarter to the full 4th quarter as many of these games the Bucs were already defeated.
Mayfield is fine at leading the comebacks but what about starting out games fast and getting some points going into halftime? What are his ratings and numbers when the games start? We know he’s a great finisher but the game is 60 minutes, not the last 20 minutes. That would be good column to really show where this offense is.
I remember at least 2 or 3 games where the Bucs had less than 100 yards of offense in the first half, am I correct? How many games did they only get field goals in the first half. Would like to know the whole story on this offense.
We know they are 31st in the league at running the ball with a 3.4 YPC average.
That is piss-poor offense. Are the points coming from the prevent defenses or are they coming at the beginning of games when the opponent is flexing its muscles and you have to play against motivated defenses. We all know once a team is up 2 scores the defenses play softer.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:35 am
Todd Bowles obviously wasn’t #1 on everyone’s Christmas card list, but step back for a second & look at the big picture. We had a huge personnel turnover last season, and one almost as big this season. LOTS of new guys, and our veterans for the most part aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. Most projected this team to win 6 games this year, which probably would’ve seen us end up #3 in the NFC South. Instead we’re on the cusp of winning 9 games plus the NFC South (and in reality we should’ve won 2-3 more than that, but I digress).
It still bugs me when I see opponents’ offenses march up & down the field, BUT … our defense is in the Top 10 right now (OK, ranked #9 in Points Allowed). We’ve given up 325 points through 16 games (20.3 PPG average), and if we stay on-track Sunday we’ll end up surrendering 345 points on the season … BETTER then we did in 2022 (358 pts), 2021 (353 pts), 2021 (355 pts) and certainly better than we did in 2019 (449 pts) when we also had a bunch of new guys & youngsters.
Last I recall, Points Scored vs Points Allowed determines the winners & losers in each game. And by that Points Allowed measurement, this SHOULD end up being Todd Bowles best season here. And that’s with a BUNCH of new moving parts. Can think of a number of very ‘motivating’ DCs over the years who would’ve loved to achieve that level of PERFORMANCE. Still, it really bugs me to see opposing offenses marching up & down the field.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:38 am
The playoff game against Dallas, a loss, was a mirror image of last weeks New Orleans game. Flat, disinterested absolutely no MOJO, that’s on the head coach and the pretend coach’s behind him. If the players are unprepared, that’s on the head coach. If they are booked at resorts in the Caribbean already, that’s on the head coach. I see a pattern that won’t go away. I told myself that I wouldn’t bother watching another game after their four game loosing streak, well that didn’t happen. I support this team and have been supporting them for 45 years. From The Big Sombrero to the Glazer Hut, go down to Charlotte and take care of business or Ira himself will be driving the orange and white U-Haul truck come Monday morning.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:40 am
Todd will be back for sure! He’s already exceeded expectations. What more can an owner ask especially if he has to eat years of a contract if he fires them.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:52 am
I think they forgot to gas up before getting on the road.
January 5th, 2024 at 11:26 am
PewterStiffArm … ‘If the players are unprepared, that’s on the head coach.’
At times I feel the same way, but at other times I reverse course & think ‘Hey, if a player making millions of dollars a year can’t get himself motivated for a big, must-win game then what would make me think that any head coach could get him motivated?’
Most of us have worked for some fairly good-size organizations at one point in our lives. How many rah-rah speeches from the head honcho can you remember? (None? Ditto). What most probably do remember though is that the honchos came up with an excellent (or crappy) plan to tackle a problem, and we remember working together as a TEAM to make it happen.
Success breeds success IMO. When the Bucs for instance start off flat for say the first half, that’s not success (that’s usually getting your butts kicked & being behind by halftime). Every single game the Bucs have won this season we’ve been AHEAD (7 games) or at least tied (1 game) at halftime. Every single game we lost we were BEHIND (7 games) or tied (1 game) at halftime. Slow starts are deadly in Bucsville.
So who’s at fault for the slow starts? The defense? Partially; here’s how many points our opponents have generated by halftime: 10, 10, 13, 3, 10, 10, 17, 10, 3, 13, 17, 3, 10, 10, 0, 17 . Our defense has given up a total of 156 pts in 16 games in the 1st half of games (9.8 PPG average).
The offense? Partially; here’s how many points our offense has generated by halftime: 10, 13, 3, 14, 3, 10, 10, 17, 7, 7, 10, 7, 12, 13, 20, 17 . Our offense has scored a total of 173 pts in 16 games in the 1st half of games (10.8 PPG).
My thought is that our game plans are designed to start slow and keep the games close (fear of falling too far behind?). We don’t take risks until we absolutely have to, and about half the time it’s too late by then (we’ve lost half our games?). Several big plays early make a huge difference, but we’re not making those big plays early. Personally I think it’s much more about how we’re game-planning and play-calling than it is about ‘motivation’.
January 5th, 2024 at 11:41 am
BTW Pewter, Bucs defense gave up only 49 pts in the 1st half of our 8 wins (6.1 PPG average) and 107 pts in the 1st half of our 8 losses (13.4 PPG). Bucs offense scored 96 pts in the 1st half of our 8 wins (12.0 PPG average) but only 77 pts in the 1st half of our 8 losses (9.6 PPG).
January 5th, 2024 at 2:25 pm
Last week was an outlier. Came out flat as a 3 day old beer and got their butt kicked. Whipping that Aint butt early season was too easy and in the back of their minds. Best thing that could happen was a wakeup call and they sure got one. They will flatten the Panthers, then the Iggles in the playoffs. Prolly lose to SF in the playoffs but give them all they want
January 5th, 2024 at 3:08 pm
Helps when you play against literally the worst pass defenses in the NFL multiple weeks in a row.
To be clear, that isn’t a criticism of anything, just the reality of the schedule, and you can only play who is on the schedule – and you want to beat up on those guys.
It’s sort of how the 2000 Ravens defense is brought up as being an all-time great when they beat-up on an expansion team and a bunch of bad offenses in their division, while the 2002 Bucs defense is vastly superior and played in a division where the offenses were much better than average that year – and in the playoffs they faced three top 10 offenses, including the #1 overall offense, and gave up a total of 3 net points over the entire playoffs.
January 5th, 2024 at 4:35 pm
Imo the reason offenses run amok against us is that we don’t have DBs that can cover man ! We have to play zone and when the pass rush isn’t there we get burnt especially in 3rd and long when we should be off the field.
Not only that,CD and J D get hurt every other play.
If you are that brittle u have no business playing pro ball.Time to hang up.
the cleats.
January 6th, 2024 at 8:45 am
I just love the attitude in some of these comments.
EVERYTHING SUCKS!! ANYTHING POSITIVE IS LIES!!!
It’s almost as if it would be crazy to think a team that is around 30% rookies with a first time play caller, new qb and completely revamped system might take a little while to figure things out.
Is everything wonderful? Of course not. We are a mid-range team so there will be good and bad. I just wonder what people’s expectations would be if some super coach were in charge this year? One more win, two? Or do people think this team is talented enough to have contended with San Fran for the 1 seed?
And for those wanting Baker gone better be hoping the Bucs don’t make the playoffs. If we do, you’re in Kenny Pickett draft territory. Yuck