First Quarter Touchdowns
July 20th, 2024
First quarter touchdowns would be nice.
How bad has the offense been the past two years? Well, they certainly haven’t been off to strong starts.
We all know the Bucs didn’t score one touchdown in their 19 opening drives last year. That’s just sad.
Noted handicapper turned stathead Warren Sharp has a list of NFL teams and all of their first-quarter touchdowns the past three seasons. Of course, three years ago was Bucco Bruce Arians’ final season as Bucs coach.
In that same year, 2021, the Bucs led the NFL with 63 offensive touchdowns. Nearly 25 percent of those came in the third quarter (15).
The last two seasons? The Bucs have scored seven touchdowns total in the first quarter. The number of first-quarter touchdowns the Bucs have scored in the last three seasons is 21. And yes, that includes the 15 first-quarter touchdowns scored in 2021.
That’s the sixth-worst total number of first-quarter touchdowns through the past three NFL seasons, despite having 15 in 2021.
If new Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen wants to make a dent with this offense, he can score some touchdowns in the first quarter, preferably three or four on opening drives.
1st quarter TDs scored last 3 years
44 – DAL
43
42
41
40
39
38
37 – KC
36
35
34 – PHI
33
32 – BUF, SF, IND, MIA
31 – DET
30
29 – SEA, CIN
28
27
26
25 – LV, CLE, GB, BAL
24 – MIN, LAC
23 – TEN, ARI
22 – LAR, DEN, HOU
21 – TB
20 – CHI, NO, CAR
19 – JAX
18 – NE, PIT, ATL
17
16
15…— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 15, 2024
July 20th, 2024 at 12:25 am
These numbers don’t add up:
15 + 7 = 22 last time I checked. Not that it makes that much of a difference to your overall point.
And I know it’s the offseason and all, but we’ve kinda beaten this subject of 1st quarter scoring to death at this point… just sayin.
July 20th, 2024 at 1:48 am
Todd knows he needs to be better at getting his offense to be more explosive, especially early. He also knows his defense has used the first series or two to figure out what the opponent is doing on offense – and thereby being behind early – this also he will change to dictating what the opponent cannot do in the passing game.
Offense 25ppg
Defense 15th in passing yards against
#AsToddEvolves 11-6
July 20th, 2024 at 2:45 am
The Green Bay game last year was a turning point. Canales put Chris back in the slot, and it seemed to ignite the whole offense. Yes, they laid an offensive egg in the Carolina game ( Baker hurt week prior against the Saints), If Coen can get the offense to do what they did against Green bay, Jacksonville, and the Philly playoff game, with some added wrinkles, 10 and 6 is rrealistic.
July 20th, 2024 at 2:58 am
Say what you want about Todd, but he knows his role. That’s why Liam Coen was hired. Thataway, Ole Todd can stay in his lane. Everyone just needs to” do their job” as Bill Belichek (prolly sic) has said! Everything else will take care of itself in due time. That’s why they make the big”Bucs” (pun intended)..LFG!!
Football is a team sport let’s have a lil faith in the rest of the team. Last time I checked they were taking the upstart Lions to the brink! We’re a to 10 organization something Tampa Bay can be proud of. They will get the job done one way ort de other! #Fire the cannons#Re-siege the day!! #Justwinbaby
July 20th, 2024 at 7:45 am
In that same year, 2021, the Bucs led the NFL with 63 offensive touchdowns. Nearly 25 percent of those came in the third quarter (15).
__________
?
July 20th, 2024 at 7:51 am
Todd Bowles is not going to stay in his lane because he has a game day philosophy that he expects his coordinators to abide by. He believes in getting turnovers, pressuring the QB and on offense he expects ball control and not turning the ball over. If you think he’s going to let Liam Coen go all Bruce Arians out there it’s just not going to happen. We’ve got some offensive lineman now that can create some holes and move piles.
July 20th, 2024 at 8:05 am
“The last two seasons? The Bucs have scored seven touchdowns total in the first quarter. The number of first-quarter touchdowns the Bucs have scored in the last three seasons is 21. And yes, that includes the 15 first-quarter touchdowns scored in 2021.”
It’s 6 TDs not 7 combined scored in the first quarter between ’22 & ’23, which is terrible when you consider it’s >30 total football games.
Coen can draw up anything he wants, if our guys come out and struggle putting it together fans are just going to incorrectly blame Coen for it just like alot of you are still doing with Canales because “it can’t be Baker” and that’s weird to me.
July 20th, 2024 at 8:11 am
Baker doesn’t get a free pass. He seemed so hyped up on game days a lot of his passes sailed high with way too much juice behind them. Usually settled down by the second quarter. Canales is to blame for running plays that didn’t work over and over again. Can’t tell you how many times the offense faced 3 & 7 or more. I can tell you the odds of getting a first down on 3rd and long are terrible.
July 20th, 2024 at 8:21 am
Joe … ‘The last two seasons? The Bucs have scored seven touchdowns total in the first quarter.’
OK Joe, after all the articles on this subject, you finally got me curious. Looked at every 1st qtr drive (45 all together) just for kicks to see if anything significant jumped out.
o Bucs won the toss 6 times; we deferred every time. When our offense finally did get the ball, it did terrible … Three 3 plays-then-punt, One 7 plays-then-punt, One 5 plays-then-FG, plus One 5 plays-then-INT. We ran a total of 32 plays on those 6 drives, yielding an average of 5.5 plays total per drive, with 3 total points scored. Bummer.
o Bucs lost the toss 11 times; other team deferred EVERY time, so we took the field first (odd isn’t it). We actually did better … 113 total plays on those 11 drives, for an average of 10.3 plays total per drive, 15 total points scored (5 FGs). We also punted 5 times and turned the ball over once on downs. So we typically had long drives when we got the ball first that fizzled at the very end. Hmmm.
o Bucs ran 279 total plays in the 1st qtr, an average of 16.4 plays per 1st qtr. That’s plenty of plays to do lots of damage, yet we didn’t. On the season we ran a total of 1047 plays BTW, so that 1st qtr total was 26.6% of our total plays.
o Bucs had 17 Drive-1 (145 plays), 17 Drive-2 (97 plays), 9 Drive-3 (32 plays) and 2 Drive-4 (5 plays) in the 1st qtr, for the total of 45 drives (279 plays). Of those 45 total drives, 11 extended into the 2nd qtr, and ultimately resulted in 3 TDs, 6 punts, 1 INT & 1 Fumble. Took us awhile to get warmed up?
o How the Bucs’ offense performed on each of those drives varies considerably.
Drive-1: 6 FG, 9 Punts, 1 Out-on-downs, 1 INT. 17 total drives; 18 points.
Drive-2: 3 TD, 1 Blocked FG, 1 Missed FG, 5 Punts, 2 INT, 1 Fumble, PLUS … 4 partial drives (ended in 2nd qtr with 1 TD, 1 Punt, 1 INT, 1 Fumble). 17 total drives; 21 points scored in 1st qtr plus another 7 points scored at beginning of 2nd qtr).
Drive-3: 1 FG, 3 Punts, PLUS … 5 partial drives (ended in 2nd qtr with 2 TDs, 3 Punts).
Drive-4: 2 partial drives (ended in 2nd qtr with 2 punts).
o When the Bucs ended the 1st qtr ahead, we won 3, lost 1. When we ended up tied at the end of the 1st qtr, we won 2, lost 1. And when we ended the 1st qtr behind, we won 4, lost 6. So we did very well (5-2) when we ended the 1st qtr at least tied.
o Bucs had 5 takeaways in the 1st qtr, to go along with 4 giveaways. We were 3-1 in games where we had a takeaway in the 1st qtr. We were 2-2 in games where we had a giveaway in the 1st qtr.
Thus the rules?
1 – Put your offense on the field first and Bucs have a better chance of winning.
2 – Get ahead or at least don’t fall behind by the end of the 1st qtr and Bucs have a better chance of winning.
3 – Take the ball away more often than you give it away and Bucs have a better chance of winning.
4 – Long drives are nice, but they need to result in points; preferably TDs.
July 20th, 2024 at 8:27 am
^^^
All this cannot be blamed on Dave Canales bucs fans, the game isn’t decided by the playcallers alone, your players have to make plays and our guys were not consistent in that regard
Great post DR.
July 20th, 2024 at 8:54 am
If it happens this year the OC will be the scapegoat for Baker’s bad play on the field. I’m tired of y’all blaming the coaches for our offense not scoring points the players has to do their job also. It’s not the OC fault because our staring runningback has bad vision when he runs the bad out the back field. It’s not the OC fault when the quarterback is getting balls batted down at line of scrimmage and missing receivers open. It’s not the OC fault when the line don’t block . Stop with the excuses for this team and understand this is not a super bowl team at this point maybe they can get to the NFC Championship I hope. But you guys kill me with this belief that we have this great team with a 9-8 record last year in the weakest division in football. If we were in any other division we wouldn’t have even made the playoffs and that’s a fact. You don’t have to put on blinders for the team to be a real bucs fan .
July 20th, 2024 at 9:21 am
Oneilbuc, I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone on this site claim the Bucs as a Super Bowl ready team. Last season they were the youngest team in the NFL this year they are the second youngest. No one seems to except the fact that this is a rebuilding team and will continue to be one until the debt (cap space) is cleared. Licht has done an excellent job of drafting and at least keeping this team competitive. The fact that we’ve been able to win despite of losing several pro bowl players has been fantastic. I never want to go back to the 4-12 years!
July 20th, 2024 at 9:34 am
This is also a reason our edge rush has suffered. Look how often the defense doesn’t play with any sort of lead, let alone a big one early in games. If any of our current edge rushers have any shot of looking good, playing with early leads would surely help. I think Coen can get it done, we’ll soon find out.
July 20th, 2024 at 10:14 am
Every stat shows the same thing… the middle of mediocre. Big year for Bowles. He had his QB. The team must improve.
July 20th, 2024 at 10:35 am
Oneilbuc & Dude … Analysis can tell you WHAT happened, but usually not WHY it happened. The 1 thing that stands out to me about the Bucs 1st qtr drives is that our Drive-1 was quite unproductive (6 FGs in 17 opportunities) even though most of the drives were quite long. So we quite often showed the capability to move the ball down the field on our 1st drive, but not punch it into the end zone. Hmmm. But WHY?
We did score 6 FGs on those 1st drives, so we walked away with at least ‘something’ on 35% of our drives. But we punted on 53% of those drives, went out-on-downs on 1 drive (6%) and Baker was intercepted on 1 drive (6%). The big question in my mind is WHY were we so ineffective on 3rd down on the last series of those 1st drives?
Joe will be disappointed with this (after all, Baker was a Pro Bowl QB last year), but our poor 1st drive performances were largely on Baker himself. If you look at the last series of the 1st drive, there were 17 3rd down opportunities (17 games). Of those:
o There were 4 Completed passes that led to 2 FGs & 2 Punts (they were all short obviously of the 1st down).
o There were 10 Incomplete passes that led to 2 FGs, 6 Punts, 1 INT & 1 4th Down opportunity (Pass Incomplete).
o There was also 1 sack on 3rd down plus 1 scramble by Baker (short) that both resulted in FGs, plus 1 other run (gained MINUS 1 yd on 3rd down) that resulted in a punt.
Sorry, but completing 4-out-of-15 passes (with all 4 short of the 1st down) is NOT a good look. Neither however is having so many 3rd-and-longs (average was 3rd-and-9 on those 17 last series of Drive-1). Only 4 of the 17 were 3rd-and-5 or less. Another 8 were between 5-10 yards to go, and the remaining 5 were greater than 10 yards to go. IOW we really sucked on 1st & 2nd down in those 1st drives. Baker’s performance on 3rd down in those situations might’ve left a lot to be desired, but the real culprit was what happened on 1st & 2nd downs in those series … both play-calling AND play execution.
July 20th, 2024 at 11:28 am
As always DR awesome, informative post.
One thing I cannot understand looking at Mayfields splits whether it be from last year or his entire career, is the drop of in his production between having 2.5 seconds in the pocket.
Last season w/2.5 seconds to throw:
134 attempts
234 completions for 57%
1928 yards
11 TDs
74 first downs
6 INTs
36 sacks taken
Every year of his career this trend is present, there’s no way as a play caller you can fully open your offense up with this type tendency from your signal caller and it also explains the difference in production when Mayfield is throwing to RBs and how the efficieny takes a hit throwing to non-RBs which is pretty much everybody else. No bueno
Looking at that makes me think of why Canales our new OC last year in one of his first few pressers felt the need to emphasize to the media he’s telling guys he’s scouting for the first time as an OC to “not hold the ham” and get rid of the ball. So far all those critiquing the playcalling, please understand as an OC you can goto everything you got in the bag if it puts your QB in a danger zone. Baker Mayfield has a danger zone, and it’s not a good thing
July 20th, 2024 at 12:16 pm
Otard keeps playing the fool. Acting like she has wisdom when all she has is a man crush on JaMiss and a “Go Browns” tshirt she wears to bed at night.
July 20th, 2024 at 12:37 pm
Dude … Well, that explains at least some of the WHY. I’m sure that every QB has ‘good’ tendencies and ‘bad’ tendencies, and that new OCs especially need to quickly figure out what those are & play-call accordingly.
That said though, if a QB’s tendencies lead to bad consequences too often, the OC & the QB coach need to get that fixed (or in the case of Jameis, move on to another QB).
In Baker’s case, I’d love to do an in-depth analysis of each of his years focusing on just the 1st qtr, and especially the last series of Drive-1, but don’t have that kind of time. He seems to have some pronounced tendencies there for some reason, but that still doesn’t help explain the WHY.
July 20th, 2024 at 12:48 pm
BTW Dude, based on those 2.5 sec numbers, looks like Baker was awesome when he had time. He threw 566 times with 364 completions last year, so subtracting the 234 attempts & 134 completions would result in him throwing 69.3% completions IF he had longer than 2.5 seconds to throw.
Tells me that IF our OLine can protect him better this year, Baker SHOULD have a very good year.
July 20th, 2024 at 12:58 pm
All the teams at the top are playoff teams. Legit stat.
July 20th, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Dave Pear. God bless you man hope you get the help you need !!
July 20th, 2024 at 5:26 pm
Thats about to change. Coen is a whole different bird than Canales.
July 20th, 2024 at 6:37 pm
Otard, there’s no help for you. Sad.