Tom Brady and the Buccaneers defense were able to put together a great game against the Saints. The rest of the offense left plenty to be desired.
Tom Brady and the Buccaneers just escaped New Orleans with their first win in what feels like years. The 20-10 win wasn’t always pretty, but the Bucs are 2-0, and there are a lot of bright spots to take away on that defense.
The offensive side of the ball is a different story.
In a weird turn of events, the Buccaneer offense, which has been one of the best in the NFL for the better half of the last decade, has only scored two touchdowns on the season.
Being on track to only score 17 touchdowns over 17 games is far from comforting information in the modern NFL that prioritizes the pass and scoring above all else.
Part of this is obviously due to injuries. Brady is playing with an entirely new left side of his defense, and the Bucs finished the game without all three of their starting wide receivers from Week 1 (Mike Evans was ejected from the game).
However, injuries don’t paint the whole picture. More than anything else, the offensive play calling and the passing offense as a whole has been lacking. The run-pass split that Bruce Arians brought to Tampa has disappeared as the Bucs run the ball more, and these runs do little to help the offense overall.
The Buccaneers ended the game with 30 rushes (against 34 passing attempts) that only went for a combined 72 yards (2.4 yards per rush). This is gross, and not even close to what the Bucs put on the field in Week 1 with their rushing attack.
Again, the Bucs fan entirely too much on first down, and the results were terrible.
On the other hand, while the passing attack was abysmal at times due to a historic day of drops for the Bucs and some miscommunication, Brady finished the game 18/34 for 190 yards.
Averaging 5.6 yards per passing attempt is way better than the paltry 2.4 yards per rush the Bucs got on the ground. And, before anyone says anything, an average that low on the ground isn’t even good enough to control the clock.
The Buccaneers just won’t commit to the pass under Todd Bowles, and that is a major issue if this team has goals of going beyond an early exit in the playoffs.
If the Buccaneers are going to get back to the Super Bowl success they found a few years back, they are going to need to find a way to get Brady and the rest of his offense on the same page with another dominant passing attack, and that will come from a scheme change if injuries aren’t going anywhere.
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