The Buccaneers have obviously struggled on offense through the first few weeks of the season, but there is a way of fixing this going forward.
One of the largest surprises of the season so far has been the overall performance of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense. Up until their game against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4, the Bucs offense only managed to scrap together three touchdowns.
For a team that has had one of the best offenses the last two seasons with Tom Brady as QB, this massive lack of production shouldn’t be occurring. Generally, you only see that type of production decrease when a QB change or if you lose a major player, neither of which apply to the Bucs this season who have returned nearly all of their top players, save some offensive lineman.
And, obviously, the team has had injury trouble with their receivers, however they did not in the first game of the year against a bad Dallas Cowboys team and still couldn’t find the end zone consistently.
Thankfully, the Bucs’ most recent game against the Chiefs diagnosed the team’s ailment and gave them the perfect prescription for finding the endzone again. The team needs to stop running the ball.
For whatever reason, Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich seems to think they need to run the ball the same number of times they throw the ball. If that wasn’t already an absurd thing to do in the modern NFL, Leftwich loves to run the ball on first downs, which is fine occasionally, but not nearly every single time.
Brady is the GOAT for a reason; the ball needs to be in his hands as much as possible. What is the point of paying him so much money and signing a bunch of great receivers for him to throw to if you just want to run the ball half of your plays?
When the Bucs fell behind big against the Chiefs early, they were forced to throw the ball, and what do you know, four touchdowns and the team’s highest scoring game by far.
Hopefully the Bucs and Leftwich and recognize this and bring the same pass-first offensive style to their game this Sunday otherwise fans should prepare for another low scorer.
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