The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost in Week 7. This in itself would not be cause for panic.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost to the formerly 1-5 Carolina Panthers in Week 7, a team without a permanent head coach, its star running back, or either of the top two quarterbacks on its depth chart entering the preseason. And they lost by 18 points without scoring a single touchdown.
This is a blaring klaxon for a Tampa team that’s suddenly 3-4 and sharing the same record with the Washington Commanders. The Bucs came into the season as a potential Super Bowl contender. Instead, Brady’s team is under .500 seven weeks into the regular season for the first time since 2002.
There’s no one thing wrong with Tampa Bay. In consecutive weeks the Buccaneers have been undone by compounding failure at multiple levels. But if we had to boil it down to three broad categories it would look something like this:
The offensive line can't create space for the running game
The Buccaneers ran the ball 16 times for 46 yards against the Carolina Panthers and their 19th-ranked rushing defense. This was not surprising or an outlier. Tampa Bay’s run offense has been hot garbage in 2022.
Simple stats paint the Bucs as the league’s worst rushing unit in terms of both yards per game (67.5 coming into Week 7) and yards per carry (3.1). Advanced stats are slightly more optimistic, placing a Leonard Fournette-led unit 30th out of 32 teams when it comes to ground efficiency.
Fournette averaged a career-best 4.5 yards per carry last season thanks to the blocking that gave him a career-best 2.2 yards before contact. This year he’s down to 3.4 YPC and 1.9 yards before contact — the latter ranking 44th among 51 qualified tailbacks this fall. Per Tej Seth of Pro Football Focus, he’s the least valuable running back in football so far:
Fournette has run against some stacked boxes thanks to an offense whose inability to stretch the field has hardly convinced opponents to keep two high safeties backpedaling with each snap. Still, that’s only been on 21 percent of his carries. Eagles’ tailback Miles Sanders has dealt with similar disadvantages in 2022 and is averaging more than a full yard per carry more than Tampa’s lead back, per NFL’s Next Gen Stats. In fact, seven other players face stuffed boxes between 20 and 23 percent of the time. All of them are significantly better than Fournette.
This is, obviously, a problem. It’s not the only thing wrong with the Tampa offense.
Tom Brady isn't cooked, but he's not TOM BRADY right now
Brady’s been hindered by a balky offensive line that’s suffered departures and injuries from last year’s unit. His average time in the pocket has dropped (from 2.3 seconds to 2.1 seconds) and his pressure rate has climbed (11 percent to 12.5).
This has affected the quality of his looks downfield, but he’s also been reticent to make those throws. Brady averaged 4.9 deep throws — at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage — per game his first two seasons as a Buccaneer. That’s was down to 3.5 coming into Sunday. He made five such throws vs. Carolina and completed three, though one was a ridiculous Mike Evans drop and the majority were the function of increased desperation while playing from behind against a weak opponent.
Mike Evans drop pic.twitter.com/zSlGlGuPp4
— Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) October 23, 2022
Brady’s average target distance was tops in the NFL in 2020 at 9.1 yards downfield. That number has slipped to 7.5 in 2022 — tied for 19th alongside Jimmy Garoppolo (uh…). Tampa’s 5.3 percent drop rate is up from last year’s 4.4 percent and isn’t great, but it’s also roughly league average. He’s not throwing interceptions – one in seven games — but his 2.7 percent touchdown pass rate is by far a career worst.
Another function we’re not talking about is his ability to avoid pressure by scrambling. The 45-year-old has never been particularly mobile, but he’s generally been able to avoid pressure by stepping up in the pocket and running vertically upfield. That’s not happening when the interior of his line is crumbling, redirecting his pressure from the edges to right in front of him. Brady’s third quarter, one-yard scramble was his first of the season. He has -6 rushing yards in 2022 to date.
All these powers combined create a quarterback who is throwing a ton of passes with nothing to show for it. Brady’s dropped back to pass a league-high 296 times in seven games because his running game isn’t carrying the load. But because he’s been neutered downfield he can’t even crack the top five when it comes to passing yards.
But even this could be overcome with a potent defense. Alas …
The defense is prone to baffling breakdowns
Last week, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers allowed Mitchell Trubisky to throw for 12 yards per attempt and a 142.4 passer rating. This week, Tampa allowed PJ Walker, a player with a career 2:8 touchdown:interception ratio to efficiently throw for 177 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Failures abounded. The Buccaneers’ pass rush couldn’t get to a quarterback who’d been sacked on 15 percent of his dropbacks in two games this season en route to just one sack and three quarterback hits. A secondary with one objective — stop DJ Moore, the only name-brand skill player left on the roster — found a way to give up seven catches, 69 yards and a touchdown to a player who should have been bracketed all afternoon. Walker, whose prior success had been contained mostly to the XFL, was roughly nine points more valuable than Brady in Week 7.
A rushing offense without Christian McCaffrey gained 181 yards on 24 carries between McCaffrey understudies Chuba Hubbard and D’Onta Foreman.
This is a stunning turnaround for the unit that bullied the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1 and held the Green Bay Packers scoreless in their last nine drives of Week 3. Tampa isn’t generating pressure up front despite a top six blitz rate. In its last two weeks against decidedly underwhelming quarterbacks the Bucs have recorded only three sacks.
That’s shifted the pressure to a secondary that’s been, amazingly, unable to stop Mitch Trubisky or PJ Walker. This is a top 10 unit on paper that’s so much worse than the numbers suggest.
Is there time to fix this?
Well, yes. This is the NFC, where the Philadelphia Eagles are very good and the New York Giants may be the second best team. This is a wide open playoff race and 3-4 doesn’t disqualify anyone, especially a team with Touchdown Tom at the helm. Hell, the Bucs are still in first place and atop the pile of diapers the rest of the NFC South would like you to believe is a mountain.
But Brady is finally beginning to age, and while he looks in no way, shape or form like a 45-year-old quarterback he’s beginning to play like a 38-year-old. He’s being let down by the players around him on both sides of the ball. His blocking is a problem, his run game offers no support and his defense has found ways to make Trubisky and Walker look like viable starting quarterbacks in consecutive weeks.
There’s no quick fix here. Signing a free agent or dealing a first round pick for a veteran isn’t going to patch the screen down at the bottom of his submarine. While getting to the playoffs still seems possible, making a return trip to the Super Bowl feels like a distant dream.
But hey, it’s Tom Brady. Let’s not rule anything out.
