Time To Throw
October 3rd, 2024
Hurried?
Joe has been displaying Baker Mayfield’s passing charts each week and while pointing out a consistent theme.
He is rarely throwing past 20 yards downfield. The Bucs’ passing offense, in many ways, has turned into a dink-and-dunk offense. There may be a reason.
Sunday, Mayfield was getting rid of the ball as quick as he ever has. That pretty much (not entirely) nullified a pass rush. Get the ball out quickly and pass rushers don’t have time. But that also means Mayfield doesn’t have time to let receivers get open downfield and can’t wait long for plays to develop.
Judah Fortgang of the PFF tribe seems to shed light on another factor: Mayfield isn’t getting a lot of time to throw deep whether he wants to or not.
Only six other quarterbacks have had less time to throw than Mayfield through four games (based on the mysterious PFF charting). What is interesting from this data by Fortgang is that another quarterback who has nearly the identical time to throw as Mayfield is the guy who the Bucs defense will have to stop tonight.
That guy’s name is Kirk Cousins. Still hampered after his Achilles surgery, Cousins is only slightly more mobile now than a sloth. Mayfield has wheels to escape and he uses them, too.
QB Time To Throw and Depth of Target (without AR 15 for scale) pic.twitter.com/we3rNyraVA
— Jrfortgang (@throwthedamball) October 2, 2024
October 3rd, 2024 at 12:24 am
The Bucs would be better off signing Tom Brady to play RT than to continue playing Sucke, who is terrible. The idea that he has improved is ridiculous. Rewatched every snap of the game, and the only reason he didn’t have another awful week was the game plan. Guys literally just go around him, through him, like he’s not even there on most plays. The Bucs need to keep in White to help, on the tape last week he stood out for some really great one-on-one blocks in a way Sucke could only dream about.
October 3rd, 2024 at 1:09 am
bucky snap count limited due to white helping out with the blocking?
October 3rd, 2024 at 1:50 am
White still has his job because he is our best at pass pro. Joe’s can diss him all they like. He’s a pro. Bucky may have a little more juice but White is just as valuable.
October 3rd, 2024 at 3:05 am
You do what you have to do to win, and we found out Sunday what that is. Our OLine played better (than against Denver), but it’s still got a long ways to go. Run blocking improved somewhat, but our better average (4.7 YPC excluding kneeldowns with 2 rushing TDs) belies the fact that we had 4 rushes totaling 55 yards (2 by Rachaad for 30 yds, 1 by Bucky for 15 yds, and 1 by Baker for 10 yds). That means on the other 20 rushes we averaged 2.9 YPC (clock-eaters IOW).
It looks to me like the 1st half effectiveness of our short passing game opened up our running game. Baker was 14-of-16 passing in the 1st qtr, 8-for-17 in the 2nd qtr, 4-for-6 in the 3rd qtr, and 4-for-8 in the 4th qtr. He cooled down after the HOT 1st qtr start, but the damage had already been done. He was 0-for-1 deep in the 1st half (plus a DPI deep accepted), and 1-for-4 deep in the 2nd half. His short game IOW stayed hot (29-of-42 … 69%), but his deep (1-for-5 … 20%) wasn’t. I’d credit nice play-calling by Coen for limiting pressure on Baker.
October 3rd, 2024 at 4:53 am
It was thrilling to see how much quicker Baker threw the ball on Sunday and his mobility has been impressive. It’s exactly what needs to be done tonight while protecting Baker and also putting a lot of pressure on Cousins.
Saying all that, we still don’t know which Cousins will show up tonight and I am uncertain of his overall record for prime games in his past. However, we are on their turf and the Falcons barely won their Monday night game, but did win.
DR – Great analysis about the Bucs improvement and 1st half effectiveness in the Eagles game.
October 3rd, 2024 at 7:35 am
The OLine didn’t play better – Coen schemed away a weakness. Skule and Mauch didn’t suddenly stop resembling unlocked swinging gates.
This is what good OC’s do. Bad ones (cough….Leftwich) just ‘do what we do’.
October 3rd, 2024 at 7:55 am
But I was told on good authority that Baker gets sacked because he can’t process what’s on the field and holds onto the ball too long?
October 3rd, 2024 at 8:19 am
Look where Dalton is. All that graph tells me is the Coen Offense is morphing into more of a Dave Canales Offense.
Opposing Defensive Coordinators will graph passes with dots based on distance without YAC. What they will see is for every 10 passes between -2 yards to 5 yards in distance there will be 1 @ 55 yard incompletion that skews the distance per throw.
As defenses apply recourses to limit the WR Screens and short passes outside the numbers it opens up the middle to the rush. That is the reason for Irving’s success and not that he is the next best thing.
70 yards rushing from Irving is not going to beat you. 25 of 30 for 300 where 250 is YAC will. Good defensive Coordinators / Head Coaches will figure it out.
With some luck the Bucs won’t come up against those guys 10 times this season or 8 and a couple of them twice.
Closer the count gets to 3 Mississippi with the ball still in the backfield the more Mayfield and the Offense will struggle,
October 3rd, 2024 at 9:53 am
Offenses need to score points and minimize turnovers, so 33 pts is pretty darn good. I’m not going to nitpick about how Coen does it. The deep passes will come with better pass pro. Even without too much success, I like throwing long to Mike just to stretch the field. However, ATL has some good safeties so maybe not tonight.
October 3rd, 2024 at 10:44 am
The Bucs OL couldn’t be much worse if you got Kenyatta Walker off his couch and Ian Beckles off his radio show, and had them man the right side tonight.
If I’m the Falcons I put CB’s and LBs up close to take away the quick passes and force Baker to beat them deep. One would hope that Todd would instruct Liam to have a solution for that, such as max protect, 2 out in patterns and then a dump off if necessary. So far Liam hasn’t done that.
I hope they have an adjustment for when Rahee takes away the quick passing game.
And it’s a real atrocity that they’ve done nothing to address the gaping, oozing wound at RT. We are so vulnerable right now. And no, Drule hasn’t gotten any better. Can’t. Won’t.
Similarly, as Chucky said, if I’m Atlanta I get Bichon, Algier, and Pitts working against Cement Shoes Britt. Damn, too bad Winfield is still out, you could bring Whitehead up to play “nickel LB” with Izzy and Twan manning the deeps.
If the coaches are prepared and the players are fired up to keep applying pressure early, we should be ok. Cannot let the statue Cousins stand there for 5 minutes surveying the field. And Mooney scares me.
October 3rd, 2024 at 11:08 am
LOL!
October 3rd, 2024 at 11:47 am
Well, we would take more shots downfield if we had our right tackle that graded out as one of the best pass protecting tackles last yr. Apparently however, when the Bucs get concussions, they’re out for the next 27 games. Guaranteed Luke wants to play tonight but the league and teams are exercising an abundance of prudence and caution. Tua for example can f’ing play right now, he has actually been cleared. It you have teams overruling the players’ desire and these annoying arm chair doctors that just assume tell Tua to retire. Newsflash, it’s a dangerous game. Their body their choice
October 3rd, 2024 at 12:35 pm
The Brady Plan…chip chip chip at em then hit it long…Hit Evans early and often.
October 3rd, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Skule does suck , but they clearly don’t have the help anywhere else to add anyone to the team and they rather take a flyer and risk growth even if it’s long term to make it happen.
I personally liked the idea of bringing Donovan Smith back and having him play RT instead of Left. That’s just me he’s older and a bit slower , but he’s probably a better fit and maybe even more affordable now than he use to be.
Doesn’t matter not my money. If they wanna lose in playoffs or lose games single handedly because of this down their road go for it. I’ll just stop watching and it’ll make me win more money down that road lol.
No protection vs a good playoff team means L every time. Skating by isn’t going to get us very far. What SB contender won with a trash OL? None that’s who.
I have TB with many needs going into the offseason and I just don’t think they look good fill any of those needs anytime soon, but I do have them taking two OL in the 2025 NFL draft. LG and a RT because they need guys here clearly.
I also have TB drafting two TEs both of which are big physically and athletic enough to help out on passing downs. We need better pass protection for our QB and for the play calling in general to work. I’m not really sold on this guy Liam. To be fair the dinks and dunks are working , but they’re garbage plays.
White helps as a pass blocker and yes he’s the best 3rd down pass catching RB in the league maybe even. Great for screen passes and yes that’s why he gets on the field and that’s fine with me, he’s not too great of a fit for us as a RB he’s not a great runner and he isn’t running through guys like playoff Lenny was. He’s not that guy. He can hold his own out there though for now.
We are wasting our time and money on a QB and two pro bowl WRs probably both HOF WRs by throwing scat passes? It just don’t add up and tbh it boils down to the new OC and the OL. They both have work to do and the GM has to be looking into this matter soon I think.
October 3rd, 2024 at 3:39 pm
Dinks and Dunks aren’t garbage plays. They’re Positive yards – however you get them. 49ers under Walsh made a living off of it as a substitute for a running game.
I’d rather that than having Mayfield wait for a long developing play to materialize, and getting sacked because the pass pro on his right side can’t hold up more than 2.5 seconds.
October 3rd, 2024 at 3:48 pm
ThatAintRight. I believe that our 2025 draft ought to be about defense. Draft 2 tight ends? Won’t happen. Shouldn’t happen. We should draft inside linebackers and edge rushers.