The Buccaneers lost for the first time in three games on Sunday. The trek to Atlanta has mostly been kind to the Bucs under Dirk Koetter, but this time the coach struggled against his former team.
Julio Jones absolutely torched the Buccaneers secondary, who knew he was such a good player? Ryan Smith didn’t stand a chance (quite literally, he was falling all over the place) and Mohamed Sanu improved his stats to 6-for-6 passing with three touchdowns. The inconsistency of the defense was once again on full display as they struggled in the run fits and stopping one of the most dominant receivers of the last decade. You would think the Bucs would know better than to leave Jones one on one the whole game, but no, the Bucs continued to allow him to beat corner backs time and time again.
The Offense
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Individually, some guys on the offense had decent days, but the offense as a whole continues to struggle. They did however manage to put up twenty points, not their worst performance of the season.
Ryan Fitzpatrick continues to perform admirably in Jameis Winston‘s absence. His stats since Jameis Winston went down with the shoulder injury aren’t the worst. 813-yards, four touchdowns and one pick.
Bryan Anger and Patrick Murray continue to perform consistently. Anger even had a 53.3 average on Sunday.
The Good
What good can I pull out? Only twenty points 4-for-11 on third down. 2-for-5 in the red zone, and not even one 100-yard rusher or receiver. Folks, Dirk Koetter is holding this team back with his play calling and needs to give it up to Todd Monken or anyone else for that matter, soon.
The Bad
We just went over this, everything was bad.
The Defense
The defense allowed Jones to put his name in the Top-30 single game receiving yard record book for a third time. The Falcons great is the first to reach this milestone.
Look, there was no question going in Jones was one of their top players.
Missing Devonta Freeman, you had to assume they were going to come out and throw the ball. With playoffs right around the corner and Jones having a pedestrian year so far, you had to assume the Falcons would look to get the ball to him early and often, and so they did.
Not only did the Buccaneers let him expose them, they also allowed the Falcons to have a 78% third down conversion rate. Yeah, you read that right.
The Good
Not even going to try to pull it out here. It was even worse than the offense. Statistically dominated in Every. Single. Category.
I tried to find the good, I’m a positive person, I really am. We did nothing well on Sunday, I honestly have no idea how the Bucs even scored twenty points.
The Bad: 78%
Everything, multiple statistics show that Bucs weren’t even decent, they were atrocious.
If the nearly 80% conversion rate on third down for the Falcons didn’t prove it, how about zero sacks, nearly 150-yards rushing, and Matt Ryan’s 74% completion rate.
A wide receiver threw a touchdown. And we already know what Jones did. All those stats were bad, but the worst one was the third down conversion percentage the Bucs allowed.
The NFL’s worst third down defense all season somehow got worse. The Bucs have allowed a 49% conversion rate this year going from first place last year to last this year. The regression has been tremendous and the argument quickly becomes, how long can Mike Smith keep his job?
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