The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had an up-and-down season on a number of fronts, and their advanced metrics seem to reflect that.
We’ve already taken a look at how the Bucs stacked up statistically for 2023, but we figured to go a bit deeper and look at some advanced analytics. We took a look at a number of advanced metrics from rbsdm.com, and the finds vary between expected and intriguing.
The offense for Tampa Bay is ranked 12th in EPA per play, or Expected Points Added, at 0.008. This is somewhat impressive given the disparity of the team’s offensive attack — the Bucs have a pretty decent dropback EPA of 0.110 but a dreadful rushing attack at -0.166, good for the fourth worst in the league. Their rush success rate, defined by the percentage of yards for a specific set of downs, is also an incredibly low 32%.
The Bucs’ defense doesn’t fare as well, ranking 18th in the league in EPA per play with -0.018. While the Bucs have among the worst statistical passing defenses in the league with yards allowed, they actually do decently well in that area with dropback EPA, coming in at 0.065 — far better than some other teams. Tampa Bay’s EPA is also likely influenced by how well it’s able to keep some teams out of the red zone, as the Bucs rank ninth statically in points allowed.
Finally, we’ll take a look a quarterback Baker Mayfield. If you combine Mayfield’s EPA per play with his completions above expected (a metric to measure a quarterback completing difficult throws), he ranks 12th in the NFL. This is a testament to his EPA per play of 0.137 — that’s one of the best in the league, but he’s dragged down by his CPOE of 0.2, meaning he doesn’t usually complete difficult throws.
All in all, the numbers here don’t indicate that the Bucs will go particularly far in the playoffs. The game isn’t played on paper, though, and Tampa Bay will have a good first shot at advancing when they play the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night at 8 p.m.
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