The adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is not indicative of this Tampa Bay Buccaneers team losing their second-straight game to a team that only had one win on the season before playing the Buccaneers. It is broken and is in dire need of fixing.
The theme of yesterday’s postgame press conference between Tom Brady and Todd Bowles was that these are “dark days” for the Buccaneers. Truthfully, out of the seven games we’ve seen the Bucs play, there has been one game that we could consider a complete game – dating back to Week 1 against the Dallas Cowboys.
While Buccaneers fans are searching high and low for answers, the coaching staff and players continue to tell fans that they will figure it out but have left empty promises and unfulfilled notions as the team is now 3-4 on the season, with a schedule that isn’t going to get any easier. This team is capable of much more than what we see being produced on the field. You don’t come into a season with the Buccaneers’ roster and expect anything less than to be a Super Bowl contender.
Maybe we had our expectations too high for this team. Maybe father time has finally caught up to Brady. Something isn’t right, and this team appears broken.
A dominant defensive effort in Weeks 1-3, namely in run stopping, only allowed 79.3 yards per game to some of the league’s best running back duos- then the wheels fell off. The duo of D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard rushed for just five yards less than Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, Mark Ingram, Aaron Jones, and A.J. Dillion; combined. Where did the Buccaneers rushing defense go? Sure, fans are clamoring for Ndamukong Suh to be re-signed, but is he the answer to the question? If was base Suh’s run-stop grade last season of 57.1, he would currently be third on the team, behind Deadrin Senat (76.8) and Rakeem Nunez-Roches (64.3). The Buccaneers need Suh more than he needs them, and having just under $3.6M in cap space isn’t enough money to entice Suh to come out of retirement to play for a team that doesn’t currently look like a playoff contender, let alone a Super Bowl team.
…And those are just the defensive woes of the team. To summarize the Buccaneers offensive struggles, we can compare the scoring and yardage to the 2013 Mike Glennon-led offense under Greg Schiano. The 17.7 points per game the team is averaging are the lowest since 2013, when the team averaged 14.3 points. With the personnel, and skill position players on this team, there shouldn’t even need to be a comparison to the real dark days in the recent memory of the Buccaneers franchise. Leonard Fournette has struggled to get anything going on the ground, outside of the first game of the season against the Cowboys. While the offensive line is underperforming, Fournette has been very poor in certain areas that he has a direct impact on. Fournette is one-of-9 backs in the NFL to have more than 100 carries on the season and has only forced eight missed tackles, compared to Dameon Pierce of the Houston Texans, who has 30 more on just three more carries. A low amount of forced missed tackles is a direct correlation with having only 2.33 yards after contact.
Missed tackles forced: ⤵️
Leonard Fournette – 8 on 103 carriesDameon Pierce – 38 on 106 carries pic.twitter.com/az0KfwmCXW
— Channelside Buccaneers (@channelsidebucs) October 24, 2022
Being ineffective on the ground negatively impacts the Buccaneers passing offense, especially in the red zone, where they sit tied for 26th in the NFL, only converting 47.37% of their trips inside the 20 into a touchdown. For all of the struggles, and question marks surrounding Brady, he is still in the Top 10 for yards, passer rating, and completion percentage- drives are stalling as the opposing defense can sit back at the marker knowing that the Buccaneers cannot run the ball.
The Buccaneers need to shake things up, make a splash before the trade deadline, and at the very least, duct-tape this team back together to finish out the season strong. A 3-5 record looms as the run-heavy Baltimore Ravens are in town on Thursday night. The Bucs defense allowed the Atlanta Falcons – without Cordarrelle Patterson – to rush for 151 yards. There is no more significant threat at the quarterback position to run the ball than Lamar Jackson, the league’s fifth-leading rusher.
How many more times will the vocal leaders of this team tell us that the leaders need to lead? How often can our coaching staff tell us they need to coach better? These are all phrases you hear during press conferences of losing teams; we should not be hearing this from coaches and players of the Buccaneers. From the coaching staff, all the way down, yes, Brady included, this team is broken and needs to be fixed; before it’s too late.
