TAMPA, Fla. — Here’s the playbook. There’s the trash can. You know what to do.
By virtue of the woeful NFC South, the Buccaneers have new life in the postseason. We can spend the entire offseason arguing whether they deserved it, but that’s not important today.
What matters now is taking advantage of this heaven-sent gift. And that means dumping the plodding game plan responsible for this eyesore of an offense.
You want to win in the playoffs?
Use the no-huddle offense. Use it in the first quarter. Use it in the middle of drives. Use it enough to keep defenses off-balance.
You want to win in the playoffs?
Stop worrying about establishing the run. Let Tom Brady do his thing, and the running game will evolve organically once opponents stop stacking the box.
You want to win in the playoffs?
Toss the let’s-keep-the-score-close mentality. You might be able to count on Brady for comebacks against the Panthers, Saints and Cardinals of the world, but it’s not a formula for winning in January.
There is a long-shot opportunity here, and the Bucs cannot afford to waste it by playing scared.
Yes, it’s risky to use the hurry-up offense too much. But not as risky as expecting to win in the postseason with 18 points a game.
And, yes, it’s risky to have Brady dropping back 50 times a game. But when you have a historically bad ground game, the alternative is not pretty.
We saw a blueprint of what’s possible in Tampa Bay’s 30-24 victory against Carolina on Sunday. Brady held on to the ball longer, looked deeper downfield than normal and broke out the no-huddle offense in the second quarter. The result was the most entertaining game of the season.
Maybe that’s because Carolina is not a very good team, and maybe its defense offered exactly the kind of formations the Bucs needed.
But the point is, Tampa Bay finally took advantage.
Four months into the season, it’s no coincidence that all three of Mike Evans’ long touchdown receptions came while the Bucs were in a no-huddle offense on Sunday. It’s been that way for a while.
Tampa Bay has scored 15 offensive touchdowns in the first three quarters of games, and 14 touchdowns in the fourth quarter. That’s about triple the production in the final 15 minutes, and that’s because of the hurry-up offense.
The Bucs didn’t stay in the no-huddle the entire game on Sunday, but they used it strategically to keep Carolina off-balance. There were 28 seconds left on the 40-second play clock on Evans’ first touchdown. There were 23 seconds left on his second.
The Bucs were lined up at 27 seconds before the third touchdown, but Brady spent almost 10 seconds making sure linemen understood their blocking assignments.
The point is, the Panthers did not have time to substitute or ponder play calls or catch their breath on defense. The Bucs were in attack mode, and the results were obvious.
If you go back and look at Carolina’s defense throughout the game, it was flooding the box with bodies. It knew the bulk of Tampa Bay’s offense comes from the short-passing game, and it typically had nine defenders within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.
So the Bucs took advantage of single coverage on Evans on the perimeter and threw over the corner’s head. Brady finished 3 of 4 for 150 yards on balls thrown 20-plus yards. Now, to be fair, it won’t always work that way. According to the NFL’s Next Gen stats, Brady was 2 of 19 for 58 yards on deep balls in the previous five games.
The difference might have been Brady’s commitment to holding on to the ball a tick longer. He knew it was virtually a playoffs-or-bust game, and he was willing to take the hits and the sacks on Sunday.
Will it work that successfully against better teams?
Not as well as it did on Sunday. But just the threat of a deep pass could benefit the rest of the offense. Carolina was not the first team to recognize that Brady gets rid of the ball quickly and that most of Tampa Bay’s passing game is within a few yards of the line of scrimmage.
If defenses have legitimate worries of Brady connecting with Evans deep, there won’t be so many linebackers and defensive backs crammed in the middle of the field.
I’m not saying the Bucs haven’t had legitimate excuses to struggle on the scoreboard. The offensive line has been a mess, the loss of tight end Rob Gronkowski has hurt, and Brady’s insistence on getting rid of the ball quickly has limited what they could do.
The Bucs initially had reason to be tentative, but then it became part of their DNA.
That needs to end. The playoffs will soon be here, and the Bucs cannot afford to play it safe. They may no longer be a great offense, but they can at least act like one.
