We hear it every year from coaches and players alike, the importance of creating “manageable third-down” situations.
Well, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, despite all of their offensive struggles this season, were one of the NFL’s best teams at making sure they didn’t have far to go on third down.
The only problem?
It didn’t help. Like, at all.
Despite having one of the league’s lowest “average distance to go on third down” marks in 2022, the Bucs were still one of the NFL’s worst teams when it came to moving the chains on third down (via Fox Sports’ Greg Auman, Pro Football Focus’ Arjon Menon):
Bucs had second-lowest average yards needed on third down and still struggled to move the chains: https://t.co/AojJ2OvFYo
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) January 21, 2023
When you see numbers like this, it’s easy to understand why head coach Todd Bowles wanted to make the sweeping changes to his coaching staff that we saw earlier this week.
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