2-Point Conversion: Bucs Now Have 3-Headed Monster At Running Back

It’s time for PewterReport.com’s 2-Point Conversion post-game column, which features two statements, two questions and two predictions based on the latest Bucs game. Tampa Bay had to overcome a heartbreaking overtime loss in Atlanta and being supplanted by Hurricane Milton to triumph in New Orleans, 51-27. In a wild game that saw the Bucs lose a 17-0 lead and trail at halftime, Tampa Bay battled back and outscored the Saints 27-0 in the second half.

The Bucs defense attacked rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler, sacking him five times and picking him off twice, while the ground game exploded for 277 yards rushing led by Sean Tucker and Bucky Irving. Quarterback Baker Mayfield overcame three first-half interceptions to throw a season-high four touchdowns, including two to Chris Godwin, as the Bucs improved to 4-2 and got their first NFC South win of the season.

2 BIG STATEMENTS

STATEMENT 1. Sean Tucker Bursts Onto The Scene For Bucs, Who Now Have A 3-Headed Monster At RB

Tampa Bay’s Buck & Tuck Show debuted in New Orleans, and it looks like a hit, doesn’t it?

I’m excited to see what’s in store for episode No. 2, aren’t you?

With Rachaad White out due to an ankle sprain, rookie Bucky Irving got his first start at running back and had a career-high 81 yards and scored another touchdown while averaging 5.8 yards per carry. Irving ripped off his third run of 30 yards or more this season in New Orleans. And he topped 100 total yards for the first time in his young, promising career thanks to a pair of catches for 24 yards, including a nifty, 18-yard reception that picked up a first down on third-and-16 in the second half.

Yet as great as Irving was, backup Sean Tucker was even better. After starting the season as RB3 behind White and Irving, Tucker moved up the depth chart to RB2 on Sunday. But after rushing for a game-high and career-best 136 yards on 14 carries (9.7 avg.) and his first rushing touchdown, and adding three catches for 56 yards, including a dazzling 36-yard TD, Tucker should be in the mix for the role as RB1.

As I wrote in my Bucs Mailbag column, the Bucs can’t put the genie back in the bottle now. We’ve seen how just explosive and productive Sean Tucker is.

He’s the fastest running back on the team, and Tucker has plenty of power as he’s compactly built at 5-foot-10, 205 pounds. In one game alone, he produced seven explosive plays, which offensive coordinator Liam Coen defines as runs of 10 yards or more and receptions of 15 yards or longer. That’s more than White has produced in the first five games he’s played in this season.

If Tucker is somehow relegated to RB3 status once White returns from injury, that’s coaching malpractice. We need to see more. No one is expecting him to continue to rush for nine yards per carry, but we need to see if Tucker is capable of producing another 100-yard game and if he should be the guy to split carries with Irving rather than White, who is averaging just 3.7 yards per carry this season.

Isn’t that what competition is all about? Doesn’t iron sharpen iron? Even if it’s a three-headed monster at running back when White gets healthy, Coen cannot make Tucker the forgotten man in the Bucs’ backfield.

The real test of a running back’s consistency comes when you take out the top two longest runs of the season, as they can really skew an average. Irving’s top two runs are a 32-yarder against the Broncos and a 31-yarder, which he’s had against both the Commanders and the Saints. So if you take away 63 yards from his total, Irving still rushes for 4.7 yards per carry, which is quite good.

Take away Tucker’s 36-yard jaunt and an 18-yard dash at New Orleans and he’s left with 89 yards this season on 14 carries. Tucker still averages 6.3 yards per carry – even better.

White had a 56-yard run at Atlanta and a 17-yarder versus Philadelphia. Remove 73 yards from his total of 187 yards rushing and he’s left with 114 yards on 49 carries. That’s a 2.3-yard average and that tells you all you need to know.

It’s not like White doesn’t have a place in this offense and shouldn’t have a role. It just shouldn’t be as the starting running back of this team. He’s very effective in pass protection and he’s one of the better receivers in the league. But in Tampa Bay he’s not the best runner taking hand-offs. That’s Irving – and it might even be Tucker once we see a larger sample size from No. 44.

The Saints couldn’t stop Tucker from amassing 192 yards of total offense and two touchdowns on Sunday. He was absolutely electric.

The only ones who might be able to stop Tucker are Coen and head coach Todd Bowles if they decide to cancel the Tuck & Buck Show after just one episode.

And it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen.

“It’s definitely worthy of him making it a three-headed monster,” Bowles said in his Monday press conference. “He took advantage of his opportunities. He ran away from some tackles, some linebackers. He ran through the hole, he cut back, he made some great plays, he caught the ball well out of the backfield. So that gives us a three-headed monster.”

STATEMENT 2. Bucs Defense Rattled Spencer Rattler

While the Bucs offense stole the show in New Orleans, scoring 44 of the team’s 51 points with a franchise-best 594 yards of total yards, Tampa Bay’s defense came to play – and played well. There were plenty of fans fretting the thought of Todd Bowles and his defense allowing another rookie quarterback to beat the Bucs the way that Denver’s Bo Nix did in Week 3 this year and Houston’s C.J. Stroud did last season. I even did a Pewter Pulse video for our PewterReportTV YouTube channel prior to the game on this premise.

It looked grim after the Bucs blew a 17-0 lead in the first quarter and trailed at halftime, 27-24. But one of the Saints’ three touchdowns came on a punt return score by Rashid Shaheed, and then Tampa Bay surrendered 10 points while having to defend short fields due to a pair of Baker Mayfield interceptions. The Bucs only allowed one scoring drive longer than 56 yards, which ended in a touchdown after the Saints gained 70 yards on seven plays.

Bowles’ unit hunkered down like most of the Tampa Bay area residents did during Hurricane Milton and showed plenty of resolve in the second half. Not only did the Bucs shut out the Saints offense in the second half, but the defense sacked Rattler five times and picked him off twice. And Tampa Bay’s defense even got its first touchdown of the season on a 58-yard scoop-and-score by Antoine Winfield Jr. in the first quarter to give the team an early 14-0 lead.

Rattler completed just 22-of-40 passes (55%) for 243 yards with one touchdown and two picks. Tampa Bay bottled up Alvin Kamara, holding him to just 40 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries (3.1 avg.) and five catches for 24 yards. Chris Olave, the Saints’ No. 1 receiver, was knocked out of the game in the first quarter after a big hit from cornerback Zyon McCollum. Rookie nickelback Tykee Smith punched the ball out before he hit the ground and that led to Winfield’s TD.

McCollum and Smith each had big second half interceptions and Rashid Shaheed, New Orleans’ deep threat, was limited to just one catch for 11 yards on seven targets. Outside of his punt return for a touchdown, Shaheed wasn’t a factor.

Mission accomplished for Bowles, who is now 4-1 against the Saints as Tampa Bay’s head coach, including winning three straight in New Orleans. His defense only allowed 20 points and made Rattler look like the rookie he is. Bowles and the Bucs are now 4-2 against rookie quarterbacks over the past two seasons.

2 PROBING QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1. At 4-2, Are The Bucs Finding Their Identity On Offense And Defense?

Yes, and Hurricane Milton gets an assist, unfortunately. After escaping the Tampa Bay area for New Orleans on Tuesday prior to the hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast of Florida on late Wednesday evening, the Bucs found plenty of resolve at kickoff. The team came out fast and focused, and raced out to an early 17-0 lead.

Then adversity struck with a slew of self-inflicted penalties, surrendering a punt return for a touchdown to speedster Rashid Shaheed, and a trio of untimely Baker Mayfield interceptions – only two were the quarterback’s fault – that led to 10 more Saints points. All of a sudden, the Bucs trailed at halftime, 27-24, and what looked like an easy win early was in serious jeopardy.

But unlike the previous game at Atlanta, a 36-30 loss in overtime, the Bucs didn’t fold after surrendering the lead. Instead, they showed a lot of resiliency.

“Right now it’s just resiliency,” Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said. “Us coming back and forming toughness in the second half and learning off our mistakes. If we can eliminate penalties and eliminate us shooting ourselves in the foot, which we are cutting down more and more, I think we have a chance to be a very good team.”

Tampa Bay showed plenty of resiliency in the second half, outscoring New Orleans 27-0. The Bucs identity on offense is one that features a quarterback playing at or near an MVP level in Baker Mayfield, who has 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. Tampa Bay’s offensive line is becoming a pretty dominant group and the offense is becoming more balanced, evidenced by the league’s eighth-best rushing attack.

That’s right. It’s not a typo.

Under offensive coordinator Liam Coen, the Bucs are averaging 136.8 yards per game. On the ground.

Defensively, the team’s identity is one that is getting better at stopping the run and getting after the quarterback. Tampa Bay’s run defense ranks tied for 11th, allowing 113.3 yards per game. But over the last three games, Bowles’ unit is allowing an average of just 89 yards per contest.

With five more sacks on Sunday in New Orleans, the Bucs now have 15 sacks in the last three games, as the pass rush is coming to life. A big part of that is having an offense that can light up the scoreboard and give Bowles a lead to work with. Then he can  dial up even more exotic looks and pressure packages and disguised coverages that can create sacks and interceptions.

“It definitely helps,” Bowles said. “If you can get a lead and make a team one-dimensional, the gym bag is open. You can kind of reach in and pull out anything you want to pull out. Guys start flying around and making plays and you can see the results.”

QUESTION 2. Where Are Yaya Diaby’s Sacks This Year?

They’re coming. While Yaya Diaby, last year’s leading sacker with 7.5, only has one sack this year, he’s been the top pressure producer in Tampa Bay – by a mile.

Diaby had two more pressures in New Orleans and has 26 on the season, which ranks in the Top 10 across the NFL. In fact, he’s tied for seventh with Houston’s Will Anderson Jr., Cleveland’s Myles Garrett, and Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson. And Diaby has 13 more pressures than the nearest Bucs defender – defensive tackle Vita Vea, who has 13 along with three sacks.

It didn’t help that Diaby was being held on just about every other snap – with no calls coming from the blind officiating crew that worked Sunday’s game.

It’s interesting to note that most of the damage is coming from the interior where Vea and fellow defensive tackle Logan Hall lead the team with three sacks along with inside linebacker Lavonte David. Of the Bucs’ 17 sacks this year, eight of them have come from defensive tackles with Will Gholston and Calijah Kancey each getting their first sacks of the season against the Saints on Sunday.

The outside linebackers have only totaled 4.5 sacks this season, with Anthony Nelson’s two leading the way. But remember that Diaby didn’t record his first NFL sack until Week 8 last year versus Buffalo’s Josh Allen. Then he racked up 6.5 more down the stretch. Diaby is actually ahead of last year’s pace as the Bucs enter their seventh game of the season next Monday night against Baltimore.

Lamar Jackson is one of the most mobile, elusive quarterbacks in the NFL. He’s only been sacked seven times, so it will be a big challenge for Diaby to get his second sack of the season and for the Bucs’ sack train to keep churning down the tracks. I’d be more worried about Diaby if he wasn’t piling up the pressures, but he is. The sacks will come.

2 BOLD PREDICTIONS

PREDICTION 1. Ravens Might Prove To Be Too Much For The Bucs – Right Now

I’m not ready to say that the Bucs will lose to the Ravens at home on Monday Night Football just yet. I need to dive deeper into my Ravens research before I can make that kind of prediction. It’s not just Pro Bowl quarterback Lamar Jackson and Pro Bowl running back Derrick Henry whoare scary. Or the fact that with wide receiver Zay Flowers and tight end Isaiah Likely helping out, the Ravens are averaging 29.5 points per game – just behind the Bucs, who are averaging 29.7 points per game.

And of course the Ravens have the league’s top-ranked rushing attack, averaging 205 yards per game. I’m just not sure that the Bucs have enough speed at inside linebacker to effectively contain and corral Jackson from getting to the second level and doing some damage scrambling.

But Baltimore has the league’s top run defense in the league, holding opponents to just 59 yards rushing per game. The Bucs have operated better offensively when the team has balance aided by its resurgent ground game. Perhaps Baker Mayfield and wide receivers Chris Godwin and Mike Evans can take advantage of Baltimore’s passing defense, which is the second-worst in the league, surrendering 275.7 yards per game through the air.

This game will be decided in the trenches, and right now I’d give the Ravens the edge. They are a more veteran, experienced team and I think the Bucs need a bit more seasoning this year before they can beat Baltimore.

PREDICTION 2. The Bucs Will Finish The Season Averaging 30 Points Per Game (Or More)

I’m sold. I’m convinced. Liam Coen’s offense is legit. It’s for real.

The Bucs have scored 30 points or more in four of the team’s six games this season. I look for this trend to continue and Tampa Bay will finish the season averaging 30 points per game under the first year of Coen when it’s all said and done.

Baker Mayfield has an enviable 3:1 TD-to-INT ratio. Chris Godwin is a man on a mission in a contract year, and both he and Mike Evans are tied for the league lead in touchdown catches with five this season. No matter whether it’s Justin Skule at right tackle or Robert Hainsey at center, the Bucs’ rebuilt offensive line under O-line coaches Kevin Carberry and Brian Picucci is getting the job done.

And now the Bucs have a three-headed monster to contend with at running back. All three can run it. All three can catch it. All three can make big plays and find the end zone. Tampa Bay’s offense is back.

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