Bucs Were Explosive
September 10th, 2024
Bucs OC Liam Coen.
Joe never, ever expected to see the day so long as Bucs coach Todd Bowles was piloting the pirate ship.
Remember when Bowles took over the Bucs? And the offense went from high-flying excellence to gear-grinding godawful under the talents of disgraced offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich?
The only thing explosive about witnessing that offense happened when, after watching three quarters, Joe had to sit on the throne.
At times, under Dave Canales, the Bucs were explosive. But Canales preferred to run one of the worst running backs in the league up the middle time and time again for reasons Joe still cannot fully grasp.
But Sunday? The Bucs were one of the most explosive teams in the NFL!
The Bucs had the fifth-most explosive plays on offense in the NFL in Week 1. The Bucs were tied with the mighty Chiefs with their explosive offense.
There are various slight differences in the definition of “explosive play.” In this Football Insights metric, a run play of at least 10 yards or a pass play of at least 20 yards qualifies.
So 11.5 percent of the Bucs’ offensive snaps resulted in an explosive play. That was behind Jacksonville (15.1), Minnesota (14.8), Green Bay (13.6) and San Francisco (12.7).
And the flip side was the Bucs defense. Only the slimy Saints held their opponent to a lower percentage of explosive plays than the Bucs did. Only 3.4 percent of Washington’s plays were explosive.
So the defense did well for themselves, too, even with all the injuries.
Jaguars had the highest explosive play rate in Week 1 at 15.1%. pic.twitter.com/z9WXT2bqsG
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) September 10, 2024
September 10th, 2024 at 1:32 pm
Cowherd got us 10th today in his top…..oh well, we’re 10th, nothingness scrubs according to someone who should know better.
September 10th, 2024 at 1:52 pm
-Time to pass.
-No blocked passes.
-Holes through which to run.
-Run blocking.
-An offense with the opportunity and capability for generating explosive playmaking.
Wonder if that has anything to do with an enabling O-line?
September 10th, 2024 at 1:55 pm
It is so silly that after the game there were complaints about Bowles and his defense. There you go, the 2nd least number of explosive plays allowed.
September 10th, 2024 at 2:08 pm
Great graph! And the Lions are under us. Can’t wait for the game.
September 10th, 2024 at 2:12 pm
The Bucs have an “explosive” offense?
Who woulda thunk it?
September 10th, 2024 at 2:15 pm
Imagine that. Saints and Bucs were one and two in Defenses that gave up the fewest explosive plays against the Panthers and Commanders. Wonder just how many explosive plays were made by Carolina and Washington to have pick one and two in the 2024 Draft?
As far as the offensive side Bucs should have been first playing against a Defense finishing dead last in 2023.
September 10th, 2024 at 2:16 pm
Do u have a quota you need to meet on R. White put downs ?
September 10th, 2024 at 2:29 pm
Coen may be the remedy to Canales and Lefty. Just what bowles needed.
September 10th, 2024 at 2:32 pm
HC Grover – Agreed!
September 10th, 2024 at 2:38 pm
Ya but, with Bowles’ ridiculous “Pull-back, zone-defense” the opposition doesn’t have to be explosive: Bowles gives-away free touchdowns. Even if he gets lucky, it’s still not good for the players psyche to let the opposition walk all over them, even if it is intentional.
Also, Bowles will start “protecting a lead” with as small as a ten point lead, as early as in the middle of the 3rd qtr. That’s what cost the GOAT a losing final, career season, instead of a sure win (by just continuing to play a normally aggressive game to the end) for a winning season, regardless of the
fact that the division win was bagged, anyway. Hard to forget that example of one the worst coaching decisions, ever; the problem is, it’s part of his “coaching policy.”
A general policy of: “First, cover your a$$” politically/job-preservationwise. Bowles would much rather gives-away a touchdown through soft-secondary defense than lose a game to an explosive “deep ball” play that’ll be on the ESPN “game- highlights.”
He did it again, Sunday, with that last touchdown; that Washington in no way deserved to have in their stats, nor the Buccaneers’ defense deserved to have in their “points-against” stats.
A win has to be “Bowles-proof,” with a minimum of a 3 touchdown lead to be safe from an opponents’ turnaround: with a quick touchdown/turnover combo, for example, and they’re “back in it.”
September 10th, 2024 at 2:39 pm
Fan of the South why are you such a killjoy man! Of course you are welcome to your opinions as much as anyone on here. But what I don’t understand is – do you even like football? Do you know what good football looks like? You can see good H.S. teams sometimes. Good College teams sometimes. Good pro teams like our team. One thing about all of them-they work together. And like each other.
September 10th, 2024 at 2:47 pm
More and more Mayfield’s “style” is reminding me of Fran Tarkenton. Tarkenton didn’t talk smack but then nobody really did back then.
But Tarkenton, like Mayfield, a smaller QB could make a guy or two miss and extend plays with his legs forever. It infuriated opposing defenses. I thought the OL did a good job of stopping any “jailbreaks” where Baker didn’t have a chance.
Most of the time it was an individual and Baker was able to juke him and continue on.
I think Baker and the OL already have a comfort to them, a feel for where they’re supposed to be. Only breaking in one rookie this year and he’s been exceptional!
September 10th, 2024 at 3:04 pm
Nah, Joe could just use his stats. That says it all.
September 10th, 2024 at 3:07 pm
Jag’s had the most explosive plays and they only scored 17 points.
Funny.
September 10th, 2024 at 3:25 pm
Hey Eddie!
Half of the defense at the end of the 4th qtr was backup players!!!!!
Btw we won the game. Who cares what BSPN has to say or show about us????
Bucs WON!!!!!!
September 10th, 2024 at 3:46 pm
JOE I mentioned this n an article you wrote earlier about Bowles saying we can score more points. I was very surprised by that comment. He killed the Arians offense as soon as he retired. I was mad about that because it worked and worked very well. With just leftwhich and canales our offense was not even close to what Arians had hell it wasn’t close to what dirk koetter had. Love what coens is bringing to the table and how Bowles has jumped on board. If coens keeps this up it will be bitter sweet. He’ll be coaching his own team next year.
September 10th, 2024 at 3:58 pm
I’m watching the ALL 22 – and btw, if you didn’t know, you can now just watch individual player snaps, or filter by things like showing every run between the tackles, or ever blitz on defense, it’s really an awesome feature.
Anywho, I just watched every run between the tackles, and it’s remarkable how many times Bucky got the ball with no one around him and a wide open hole in front of him. Don’t get me wrong, not dissing him at all, on other plays he made some great moves, it’s just that you literally never White get those looks, every play with White is like needing to dog 3 defenders just to get back to the line. Also White looked fantastic when he wasn’t asked to do the impossible. A run at around the 10 of the Redskins, there is nothing there at all, and white sidesteps, waits for a hole, then explodes through it to get 5 yards when that should have been a 2 yard loss.
Also, early concerns about Cody seem unfounded. While he got blown past early in the game, that’s really not an issue later in the game, and he looks pretty solid. Barton, meanwhile, actually showed up more times missing his blocks – which I didn’t see watching the game live. Again, just talking about interior run plays. No concern about Barton, it’s his first game, but I didn’t see that watching it live.
Watching all the defensive blitzes, and wow does Britt suck even worse than I thought. He is so slow it’s ridiculous he’s even on the field. On some of the blitzes he’s tasked with covering the RBs, and they just blast by him. I’m not saying like Britt is caught flatfooted, I mean he’s turned already and running with them, and they’re open by 2-3 yards only 10 yards down the field and the gap is getting bigger by the second. No way other teams don’t watch the film and see that – he looks like a defensive lineman trying to cover a RB out there. Also his blitzing stinks as well – although in fairness he didn’t rush that many times, but when he did, he just got stood straight up.
BTW, on a different note, listening to some Redskins podcast where they have a former player and coach on it, and he’s breaking down film, and he couldn’t say enough about how good YaYa looked. Always interesting to hear what other teams have to say about Bucs players, and they didn’t know much about him, but think he’s going to be a star player. I will say watching some tape yesterday, YaYa was a beast, and getting held on basically every play – solid pulling the jersey off holds, that’s the only reason he didn’t have a monster day. Big season for YaYa coming up.
September 10th, 2024 at 3:59 pm
Maybe whoever started the hashtag #astoddevolves had a point.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:02 pm
Joe Says:
September 10th, 2024 at 3:04 pm
Do u have a quota you need to meet on R. White put downs ?
Nah, Joe could just use his stats. That says it all.
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Better yet, watch the tape. NFL Premium lets you easily do it now, you can just type in White’s name and see every snap from the sideline and ALL22, and see the blocking and what is actually happening. It doesn’t fit the narrative that White sucks – instead White looks like a damn good runner if he has any blocking at all, and even when he doesn’t he’s making some outstanding moves to pickup yards.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:17 pm
I knew as soon as the Bucs drafted Barton, MacMillan and Irwin, the offense would improve instantly. I think Jason Licht finally is drafting big time players from big time schools instead of gambling on the likes of a Logan Hall or a JTS.
MacMillan was polished and NFL ready from day one. Barton has all the tools and wants to get better. Irwin is an instinctive runner.
2 of those players are starting and right away are contributing to the offense. Irwin isn’t starting but his squirmy running style reminds me of Warrick Dunn minus the breakaway speed. He makes people miss, something that Rachad White does as a pass catcher but struggles to do after a handoff.
The depth the Bucs have on offense is solid. If they can scheme Palmer to get behind the secondary and he can follow the ball (like MacMillan can) the Bucs passing game becomes top 5 in the league!
September 10th, 2024 at 4:24 pm
I got to give credit to Baker. Looking at his last 6 healthy games (not counting the Panthers game where he played on one leg) he’s been on fire. 1,948 yards, 325 yards per game, 17 TD’s to 4 INT’s. Those are elite numbers. He’s just got to stay consistent. Can’t have long stretches of not playing well like he did in the middle of last season.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:34 pm
If I were Coen, I would not want to jump to a HC position somewhere else. He has good chemistry with Bowles. He has wanted to call plays his whole career. He has to show what a great OC can do here.
Canals was not a good OC and knew it. That is why he poached 2 of our other coaches (not so good either?) when he left for his 30 silver. I bet he will be looking for another job soon and that will make me very happy when it happens.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:37 pm
I’m watching all of White’s runs, and man, talk about bad luck – on one run, Q4, 9:45 left in the game, the run is to the left, and Wirfs pancakes a guy and he’s hit so hard he flies into White’s running lane as he’s trying to get around the edge. The play is all jacked up anyways, Barton was pulling and appeared to not get to his guy, but White had to move towards the line earlier than you’d want since the victim of Wirfs was in his path. It was just amusing.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:49 pm
OK I just watched every single run that White did on the ALL22, sideline and endzone, rewatched most of them multiple times, and out of 15 rushes, perhaps one play – the one above where Wirfs pancakes the guy into the running lane, perhaps on that play you could make the case he should have cut back and he might have got back to the LOS instead of losing 3, but it’s not clear cut that was the move. However that is the only play I saw that was even remotely questionable in terms of White making the wrong call. White, meanwhile, make some really good runs, and one remarkable run that was only 5 yards, but was fantastic. On other runs he’s literally making guys miss and breaking tackles just to get back to the LOS.
Anyone bashing White, go watch the tape, all the stuff you people are complaining about just isn’t true. White is not slow or indecisive or making the wrong reads.
Also, Barton really stood out for how many times he appeared to miss his blocks. Cody on one play looked, from the TV angle, like he got blown up – but from the endzone you can see he was expecting help from Barton, as they’re doing a lot of 2-on-1 blocking, and Barton wiffed, and Cody wasn’t fully leveraged, so it looked like Cody blew the block, but that isn’t what happened. That’s all the ALL22 is such a great tool if you enjoy this stuff.
Not worried about Barton, he’ll learn and improve, and physically looked good – but in 15 carries from White, Barton probably had at least 5 blown blocks that blew up plays. Cody, meanwhile, watching all these again looked a lot more solid than he did on TV.
This new NFL Pro is great however, you just type in the name of the player, pick what situation you want to see them in, and it cues it up for you.
September 10th, 2024 at 4:58 pm
1#bucsfan … ‘He (Bowles) killed the Arians offense as soon as he retired. I was mad about that because it worked and worked very well.’
What killed Arians’ offense in 2022 was the loss of players like Gronk, Brown, Marpet, Jensen, Cappa on offense, plus the impact of the loss of certain defensive talent such as Suh, JPP, Whitehead, and others. The Bucs’ offense (OLine especially) underwent a major personnel change due to … oh ya, injuries, retirements, lack of salary CAP, etc.
The sad fact was that our offense went from #2 in Points Scored (511 points) in 2021 to #25 in Points Scored (313 points) in 2022 because our OLine sucked after losing Marpet, Jensen & Cappa, and our 45-year-old QB couldn’t buy time to adjust to the inadequate blocking. Same OC, same QB, different OLine.
Yup, it’s all Todd Bowles fault. Do you even know that Brady actually passed MORE in 2022 (751 passing attempts) than he did in 2021 (731 passing attempts)? Or that the Bucs ran virtually the same number of times BOTH YEARS (385 rushes in 2021 vs 386 rushes in 2022)? Instead of bemoaning Todd Bowles’ performance you should be thanking him & Jason Licht for how well the TWO of them have handled this horrendous salary CAP mess, maintained a competitive TEAM through all this transition, and gotten us into a position where we have a chance to win our FIFTH STRAIGHT NFC SOUTH crown.
September 10th, 2024 at 5:25 pm
Defense Rules – The 2022 offense was run up the middle for 0.5 yards on every first down, then throw WR screen pass for 1 yard on every 2nd down.
In the game threads, not only me, but literally everyone, were calling out what the plays were going to be during the commercials.
Having, in theory, the same playbook is not the same thing as running the same offense. Nearly all of the aggressiveness was gone – and not just on offense, but also on defense. Everything on offense was super predictable, just the same plays in the same situations, over and over and over again. As the Ravens said in the MNF game when they were mic-ed up – the Leftwich offense was just running the same plays over and over again just out of different formations. Heck, in the Seattle game, they literally ran the same trick play only a few plays apart.
That is why Leftwich doesn’t have a job. He’s an idiot, and that was not Arians offense out there, maybe it was his playbook, but it was not his offense.
September 10th, 2024 at 5:29 pm
Rod Munch … ‘Not worried about Barton, he’ll learn and improve, and physically looked good – but in 15 carries from White, Barton probably had at least 5 blown blocks that blew up plays.’
Don’t doubt your analysis one bit Rod, but I’m wondering if there might be a little more to it than that. White had 7 runs to the Left that only gained a total of 10 yards. Of those, 4 were around Left end, and 3 of those resulted in negative yards (-6 yards), and the other run around Left end only gained 2 yards. What’s even more bizarre is that 1 of Rachaad’s runs to the Left was over the LG, and that went for 15 yards. IOW, his other 6 runs to the Left resulted in minus 5 yards total.
My suspicion is that that side of the Washington DLine was a lot better than their other side, and that they played contain very well. Rachaad did better running to the Right side (8 rushes for 21 yards), and none of those were around Right end.
September 10th, 2024 at 5:35 pm
Rod … ‘that was not Arians offense out there, maybe it was his playbook, but it was not his offense.’
Don’t disagree one bit with anything you wrote. But isn’t it likely that the major changes in the OLine in 2022, combined with the loss of Gronk & Brown in particular, adversely impacted Brady’s capability to operate that offensive scheme as well as he did in 2020 & 2021?
September 10th, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Now that’s some serious good reading. Thanks Rod Munch and Defense Rules.
September 10th, 2024 at 5:38 pm
KDK why people feel the need to insult the RB, HC, former OCs, and the Easter Bunny, rather than just enjoying the W for a week.
September 10th, 2024 at 5:56 pm
Defense Rules – you really should spend the $15 and get NFL Plus, you enjoy the X’s and O’s enough that it would easily provide that much entertainment to. This new NFL Pro thing is fantastic, literally you just go to the film room, type in the players name you want to see, then you can say show me every interior rush – or show me every passing down, etc. I only just started using it this afternoon, but what a great tool.
But watching all the run snaps – the Bucs offensive lineman were moving a lot, lots of pulls. Also I saw Barton a lot of times not even blocking what seems to be the obvious block, and instead getting to the 2nd level, while Cody would be expected to twist and get to the 1st level defender. It looked quite complex compared to what I’m used to seeing – and Barton, to my eye, seemed to not always get the right guy, and left Cody out to dry on some plays. Perhaps I’m wrong, I don’t know the blocking scheme obviously, but it certainly appeared to me like Barton was just making some bad reads. Again, not bashing him in the least, he’s a rookie making his first start, and he’ll get much better as the season goes along, and Barton physically looked good. Also I saw one pancake from Cody, which was good to see, he looked more physical this year compared to last year.
As for White, I really wish people would just watch all the snaps from the endzone view, and then tell me what he’s doing wrong. It’s really amazing, Bucky, who looked great, would get the ball and over and over again just had as clean of a lane as you’ll ever see. White, meanwhile, not even once did he have anything close to that.
In any case, the run game is going to be a lot better this year. Scheme plus talent should really improve things.
Also I didn’t notice Bredeson, in the running game, at all. Which I think is a good thing, but is also because they really didn’t run behind the guard on the left side, when they went left it was mostly outside – at least by memory.
September 10th, 2024 at 6:03 pm
Defense Rules Says:
But isn’t it likely that the major changes in the OLine in 2022, combined with the loss of Gronk & Brown in particular, adversely impacted Brady’s capability to operate that offensive scheme as well as he did in 2020 & 2021?
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Blocking was an issue compared to 2021, sure, but man – if people in the comments of a website and in unisan call out what play you’re going to run while in a TV break, and get it right 95% of the time, that’s a huge issue.
As for Brady, I think he was just extremely frustrated with the entire situation. He unretired only to have Arians then retire on him. For how great Brady was, he’s a robot, he does what he’s programmed to do and does that better than anyone – remember how big of a deal it was that he changed the call at the end of the Rams game. But, as we learned in school when it comes to computers and robots, garbage in = garbage out, and over and over again, Brady was just given garbage plays, and he’d try to make the best of it, but you could tell he had zero confidence in Leftwich and the team missed the first that Arians brought.
Losing Arians in 2022 was what changed everything. Bruce didn’t coach long enough to be a HOF’er, but he is a HOF caliber coach if I’ve ever seen one. All of the aggressiveness of that 2019, 2020, and 2021 team was gone once Bowles took control, and no one was there to kick Leftwich in the rear when he went into a shell or just called the same stuff over and over again.
September 10th, 2024 at 6:56 pm
Barton did seem to go the wrong way a few times. The two DTs he was up against are very good and have been playing together since college.
White looked fine. He must have had close to 100 yards total. They could use him like Deebo Samuel.
September 10th, 2024 at 6:56 pm
DR and RM, great analyses. Appreciate them. I’m not up on Xs and Os, so I read football blogs to educate myself. I have enough general knowledge to love the game, but not good with the tech details. BTW, losing Fruitball Antonio Brown was a positive, not a negative! What a dimwitted yo-yo, and I watched him when he was a Steeler. Anyway, go Cardiac Bucs!!
September 10th, 2024 at 7:14 pm
Rod … ‘Losing Arians in 2022 was what changed everything. All of the aggressiveness of that 2019, 2020, and 2021 team was gone once Bowles took control, and no one was there to kick Leftwich in the rear when he went into a shell or just called the same stuff over and over again.’
Losing Arians definitely stung, especially because he waited until late Mar to pass the baton. That left Bowles with no option but to keep everything same-o same-o. I’d give anything to find out exactly how involved BA was in the 2020 & 2021 offense while Byron was his OC (I never once saw him calling plays while on the sidelines on game days).
And I’ll be forever convinced that Todd Bowles was hands-off the offense in 2022. Kinda wonder if having Brady return for 2022 didn’t somewhat intimidate Todd. Bucs only ran on 33% of their offensive plays that season; that’s VERY uncharacteristic of a Todd Bowles team.
September 10th, 2024 at 7:17 pm
BTW Rod, you’ve got me confused with the NFL Plus thingie. I thought that was a streaming service, not an analysis tool.
September 10th, 2024 at 7:59 pm
I was just looking at that. There’s 2 levels, $7.00/month for the normal thing, $15.00/ month for RedZone and “NFL RedZone
Full, Condensed and All-22 Coaches Film Replays”
Probably gonna do that
September 10th, 2024 at 9:00 pm
Defense Rules Says:
September 10th, 2024 at 7:17 pm
BTW Rod, you’ve got me confused with the NFL Plus thingie. I thought that was a streaming service, not an analysis tool.
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NFL Plus Premium -whatever the name is, it’s $15/month, that level, it also includes NFL Redzone which is the best thing in sports, when the Bucs aren’t on at 1pm, it’s a must watch for me, and even during Bucs games I have it running in the background. No commercials is huge. Also you get all the radio streams, which is great, every teams home and away, plus the great Westwood One radio streams for national games.
But as Beeej above pointed out, you also get the ALL-22 and the new NFL Pro tool which I was playing with today. They have a film room tab, once you’re in there, on the left hand side they have a search within the film room where you can search by player, then further by runs, then further by run inside or outside, etc. Also, you can do stuff like watch all the defensive blitzes for the team – or just every snap. Basically it’s a great search tool for the ALL-22 film makes it much much easier to find stuff.
Anyways, I’ve had this for many years but the new search stuff is just fantastic, makes it way more useful. For example, I wanted to see how Britt did on every defensive coverage snap – and you can easily do so – and watch as RBs just easily beat him to the edge and run right past him in coverage. It’s great for confirmation bias, or to dispel things, like I thought Cody really struggled when watching the game live, and after seeing the ALL-22, I think he was fine.
September 10th, 2024 at 9:07 pm
BTW, to follow-up on the above, I will say the NFL Pro site isn’t organized the best, as initially it’s very confusing as they have a regular search at the top of the page which pulls up players, but there’s no video or anything. To get that, just google NFL Pro, then make sure you click on the Film Room tab, then use the search lower on the page on the left, once you pull up a player, or team, you then can do all the additional filters of what types of plays, etc.
To be clear, when you search by player you’re still getting the ALL-22 tape, the search / filters are just helping you find the play you want. I think it’s obvious but just wanted to make sure I didn’t give the impression that it’s some new individual video focused each player, which would be awesome, but is probably a few years away.
September 10th, 2024 at 10:55 pm
If Washington didn’t have a QB that could run … for instance Cousins back there… that game would have been 48-9. Daniels running plays where the Bucs lost contain were the only explosives given up. Without Daniels, that game was gonna be real ugly for Wash.