Bucs at Panthers: Atwal’s 3 Observations

This is a disaster. This era of Bucs have looked down and out before, most notably in their 2020 Super Bowl season when they slid from 6-2 to 7-5, or when they were down 17-0 at halftime to the 4-9 Falcons.

But this?

Losing in consecutive weeks to two of the worst teams in the league – Pittsburgh and Carolina, who each had one win?

This is different. 

Three things stood out in this mess of a loss to the Carolina Panthers.

Bucs Penalties

By overall team statistics, Tampa Bay isn’t notably bad in terms of penalties. But they certainly aren’t sharp, either. And it’s particularly jarring to see a team with this much talent, let alone a team with Tom Brady, be so undisciplined. 

Rookie tight end Cade Otton committed a crucial illegal formation penalty on third-and-3 late in the first quarter from the Carolina 42-yard line and wiped out what would’ve been an 18-yard completion to Chris Godwin. Instead of a chunk gain, the Bucs lined up again on third-and-8 and failed to convert due to a Mike Evans and Brady miscommunication. 

And then there were two false starts by veteran left tackle Donovan Smith. One was on a first-and-10 and ended up being inconsequential as the Bucs converted on that series, anyway. But another was a backbreaker on third-and-2, midway through the fourth quarter on the Carolina 23-yard line. That series ended in a turnover on downs, giving the ball back to the Panthers up 21-3. 

Execution Mistakes On Both Sides Of The Ball

Execution was an issue immediately. Evans dropped an easy would-be touchdown on a downfield bomb on the Bucs’ opening possession. 

On the Bucs’ second possession, Brady completed an 18-yard pass to Ko Kieft despite left guard Luke Goedeke getting pancaked. 

Late in the second quarter, Brady missed high on a chunk play opportunity to Evans on an in-breaker off of play action. That drive stalled out. 

Another obvious mistake came early in the fourth quarter in a goal-to-go situation. Brady wanted to hit Russell Gage Jr. on a quick out route, but Gage failed to accelerate out of his cut! That’s too fundamental of a failure. 

Defensively, rookie cornerback Zyon McCollum had a rough day. The tape will tell the full story, but he was beaten badly at least twice as a deep third player in Cover 3. The first time was on Carolina’s first offensive snap, but it was ruled an incompletion after a challenge.

The second time that I saw it was on the fourth quarter touchdown to Tommy Tremble on third-and-11. The Panthers ran a basic smash concept, and McCollum hesitated on the hitch route, thus allowing himself to be beaten by the corner route behind him. 

Questionable Bucs Coaching Decisions

There’s tons to talk about here, and there will be a lot more to talk about once the tape is out. But a handful of decisions stood out from the TV copy. 

At this point in the season, teams have to be aware of their own tendencies. Carolina’s scouting got them the advantage on third-and-11 on the Bucs’ opening drive. As he often does in key medium-to-long distance situations, offensive play-caller Byron Leftwich dialed up a middle read (“Delta Read” in Arians’s terminology) variation. 

Essentially, Godwin has an option route from the slot. He can run a post against split safety coverage, he can sit over the middle (“Buc”) against Tampa 2, or he can run a crosser against single high – hoping to cross the middle field safety’s face. 

With the Panthers in Cover 1, Godwin made the correct decision to run a crosser. However, Carolina made a smart tweak: their free safety was already sitting on the weak side, ready for exactly that route. Incompletion. Punt. 

With just over six minutes remaining in the third quarter, Leftwich needed a “gotta have it” play on fourth-and-1 from Carolina’s 25-yard line. The problem was that he called almost an identical “gotta have it” play last week in Pittsburgh on a fourth quarter fourth-and-1 — a pitch to Fournette along the right side. The Panthers were ready. No gain. Turnover on downs. 

Earlier in the game, Todd Bowles and company made another horrendous fourth call decision, one that went seemingly unnoticed. It was early in the third quarter on fourth-and-2 from around midfield. Down 7-0, Bowles elected to punt instead of going for it. 

I’m not one to harp on marginal decisions where popular models have one decision as a one percentage point favorite over another. However, you will not find a model that thinks this decision is anything less than a clear “go.” These situations seem innocuous and are easy to miss, but the rest of the NFL is catching up, and the Bucs are at a competitive disadvantage by not being more aggressive.

Ben Baldwin’s bot has a fourth down attempt as being 6.7 percentage points better than punting. That’s not close! There is no amount of “but the way our line is playing…; but the momentum…; but the position of the moon and the sun…” that can hand-wave away an egregious decision like this. 

Then there was the decision to rotate Nick Leverett and Goedeke at left guard. Goedeke has been a train wreck all season, and this game was no different. In the first half, the Bucs finally pulled the trigger and subbed Goedeke for Leverett. Early returns looked good (proper tape review pending)! Yet, inexplicably, the coaches brought Goedeke back in. Then they brought Leverett back. Then they brought Goedeke back… 

I can’t possibly imagine what they saw from the two of them that would justify a rotation. 

And finally, there’s the personnel decisions. For whatever reason, the Bucs keep trotting out heavy personnel packages. They want extra tight ends to create more gaps in the run game, and they want to get cute with overly-complicated fake reverse play action screen passes. 

Why!? 

Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo tried finding answers. 

“I don’t know if we had success in 11 (personnel) either,” Bowles said. “We only scored three points. I can’t sit here and say we had success in 11 personnel. We try to mix things up as much as we can and try to move some things around and do some things and I don’t think any of it worked.”

Through the first six weeks, the Bucs rushing offense is averaging 3.2 yards/attempt out of 12 personnel. The extra bodies aren’t helping! I should note that the Bucs aren’t good at running out of 11, either. But if neither is working, put your best weapons out there and let Brady do Brady things! The Bucs have had some success designing shot plays from 12, but not nearly enough to justify its usage rate. 

It’s painfully obvious that this team is at its best when dropping back out of 11 personnel. Yet, so often this season, they’re unwilling to revert to 11 personnel, spread, shotgun looks until it’s close to too late. And when they do, there’s a night and day difference in the offense’s rhythm. Sure, they didn’t score a touchdown today, but the offense had a much easier time moving the ball out of those looks. Give them a full game of embracing this strategy. 

It’s just one head-scratching decision after another. It’s like this coaching staff is infatuated with an idea of what this offense should look like, and they’re determined to make that “ideal” — under center, heavy personnel, offset-I formation, power running — work instead of leaning into this team’s obvious strengths. 

I don’t think it’s quite over, yet. This offense has shown more flashes than you’d think from the stat sheet, especially in the dropback game. But until this team becomes mentally sharper, and until this coaching staff finds the right identity on offense, things are looking grim.

And with John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson coming to town on Thursday night, it might be about to look even worse.