How Tampa Bay and Jacksonville compare in advanced stats

Here’s how the Bucs and the Jaguars stack up in some deeper metrics ahead of their Christmas Eve showdown.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Jacksonville Jaguars are are very close in record, yet their trajectories couldn’t be more different.

Bucs have won three games in a row to move up to 7-7, while the Jags have lost three in a row to drop to 8-6 on the year. The Bucs are very healthy, with no player being ruled out for Sunday, but the Jaguars are facing a number of injuries that have hindered them for a bit. With one team trending up and the other trending down, the two teams’ advanced analytics have some interesting things to say.

Interestingly enough, the Bucs offense does better on advanced metrics than Jacksonville — Tampa Bay leads the Jags in EPA (Expected Points Added) per play, EPA per pass and EPA per rush, with Jacksonville’s -0.18 EPA/rush good for the 28th worst in football. The Bucs also boast a top 10 EPA/pass in the NFL at 0.06, but they strangely do worse than the Jaguars when it comes to success rate at 40.8% to Jacksonville’s 42.9%.

The defense is where it gets worse for Tampa Bay.

Tampa Bay’s success rate allowed, EPA/pass allowed and explosive plays allowed are all abysmal, grading in the bottom five of the NFL in all of those categories. The Jaguars, meanwhile, are in the top half or better in those categories, with their best defensive stat being their pass defense at -0.05 EPA/pass allowed.

Should Trevor Lawrence not be able to play for the Jaguars, that Bucs defense could be under far less stress than anticipated. As it stands, Tampa Bay’s offense stands superior to the Jaguars, but their defensive unit could keep things close on Christmas Eve.

[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=1364]