Inside The Bucs’ Success On Third Down In 2024

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It’s been a bit over a week since the first look at the Bucs’ third down offense from last year. That was a dive into how Tampa Bay attacked the Commanders’ man-heavy scheme in week one. Now let’s fast forward to the middle of the season to see how they approached a defense with a more balanced coverage approach with a varied rush scheme.

Week 8 – Bucs vs. Falcons

Prep

In Week 8 the Bucs faced the Falcons for the second time in a month. In its previous meeting Tampa Bay was able to run on third down almost half the time thanks to an efficient early down offense that had them in third-and-short often. As such, they only passed six times on the money down in those situations.

Not a ton of information to be gleaned there. So, Liam Coen and Josh Grizzard would need to rely on a larger sample of data looking at how Atlanta defended third down over the entire season to that point.

The Falcons were a bit more balanced than the Commanders to that point in the season. Per Sports Information Solutions, the Falcons ran Cover 1 on third down 34% of the time, two-high (Cover 2, 2 man or Cover 4) 37%, and other coverages the other 29%. Tampa Bay would need to have packages ready for just about the entire spectrum of possibilities. On top of that the Falcons’ blitz rate went from the low 21-23% on early downs to a full third of the time on third down.

Tampa Bay would need to have multiple options available based on the safety shell pre-snap with their best hot options built in to handle the additional runners.

Execution

The Bucs were 9-of-14 on third down in Week 8. They averaged 9.5 yards/play and 0.81 EPA/play. Tampa Bay ran twice and threw the ball 12 times. Baker Mayfield completed nine of his 12 pass attempts for 118 yards and a touchdown, averaging 9.8 yards per attempt. The Bucs converted on seven of those 12 third downs.

First Quarter 10:08 – Third-and-8

Liam Coen and Josh Grizzard started by giving Baker Mayfield and the offense a Cover 2 beater to match up against the Falcons’ pre-snap two-high shell. Mayfield tests the shell by having Cade Otton run a short return motion to see if he draws any movement from the defense. With little change from the opposition Baker is hoping to stress the expected flat corner to his right with an out from #2 so he can hit Sterling Shepherd with a hole shot deep to his right.

The Falcons throw a surprise that forces Mayfield to move to option “B”.  Despite the lack of movement to match Otton, the Falcons rotate to a single-high look and run cover-1. Shepherd’s fade plays right into the corner’s cushion and Jessie Bates III crashes down on Otton’s out. Baker Mayfield tries to make it work by throwing to Otton with leverage, but Bates is able to make the tackle short of the sticks.

Second Quarter 14:24 – Third-and-8

On the Bucs’ next third down outside of the red zone they faced another third and medium-to-long. Coen and Grizzard went to a staple of their third down offense that they had previously relied on Chris Godwin to execute. This play works against almost every coverage because of its optionality. But with Godwin out for the season they needed a new reliable set of hands to fill in.

Once again, the Bucs try to get a pre-snap tell by putting Otton in motion and once again the Falcons opt to not tip their hand, sticking with their two-high shell. And with a six-man surface they look to be coming with extra rushers. But post-snap they hope a complete picture change confuses Mayfield into a mistake.

They do come with a blitz, but it’s a slot blitz behind a Cover 3 look while dropping a third of their surface. From Tampa Bay’s side, the goal of this option play is to stretch the defense with two vertical routes from bunch, isolating one underneath defender. From there the primary target, in this case Otton, simply has to choose between an out, an in, or a sit working against the defender’s leverage. When executed correctly, it makes the defender wrong 100% of the time.

The good news is Otton and Mayfield execute it perfectly. Otton reads the safety gathering speed as he rolls down and widens to the flat. Otton correctly surmises that an in-break will be hard for Richie Grant to adjust to. That combined with the vacated space from the slot blitz presents an easy conversion for Mayfield.

One underrated part of the Bucs’ third down offense last year was how they dealt with blitz pickups, and this was on full display on this play. The offensive line has to quickly read and react to multiple players dropping and coming. Graham Barton makes a great decision to strike Grady Jarrett and pass him right to Cody Mauch in an effort to deploy more protection assets to the play side. He then doubles the 3-technique.

Rachaad White is able to quickly scan and come across the pocket to pick up the blitz and the entire operation gives Mayfield the time he needs to make an on-time throw for a 29-yard catch and run. Otton finishes it picking up tons of yards after catch and forcing a missed tackle.

Bucs Te Cade Otton

Bucs TE Cade Otton – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Second Quarter 5:40 – Third-and-7

A bit later in the game the Bucs came back to their bread-and-butter third down option play. And remaining consistent in their pre-snap look, the Falcons once again showed blitz up front with a two-high shell behind it. Post-snap, Atlanta now keeps both safeties deep as a part of Cover-4 with the boundary-side safety, Jessie Bates, working back to the field to pick up Sterling Shepherd’s crossing route. Behind that cross Jalen McMillan is running a seam and the coverage busts letting him run screaming open.

Two things are at play that contributed to that bust. The first is the structure of the coverage that is designed to try and combat the very option play that beat them earlier in the game. Working inside out, Bates comes over from the opposite side to cover the crosser which should mean that the field-side safety, Grant, would pick up McMillan’s vertical from No. 2.

That would leave the outside corner to stay with Otton whether he goes vertical – unlikely – or keep outside leverage if he stays short. It also puts the slot corner, responsible for an underneath zone, to maintain inside leverage and effectively double cover the primary read.

The second issue is the obvious misread by Grant that popped McMillan. But even if Grant had picked up his assignment that left J-Mac one-on-one with an average-at-best coverage safety. Advantage Bucs. The timing between McMillan and Mayfield was off here. They didn’t really start to find it until a month later, but the schematic design here was doing some real work.

In general, the Bucs found success against the Falcons by stressing their communication rules with bunch formations. It led to a 29-yarder to Trey Palmer because Dee Alford and Kevin King couldn’t get on the same page in Cover-1.

Third Quarter 3:13 – Third-and-3

On 3rd and short the Bucs bet that Atlanta would go back to man coverage, giving them the best opportunity to cover short and deep. So Grizzard and Coen broke out a staple Cover-1 beater – mesh – with a rail from the backfield in hopes that they might get Rachaad White in a favorable matchup. That’s exactly what they got.

Matthew Judon covering Rachaad White on a vertical is not a matchup the Falcons want, and you can see as soon as Mayfield reads it, he commits. Otton throws an effective pick, but while the design and execution of the leadup to the pass are what the Bucs are looking for, sometimes a guy just makes a play. Judon uses his length well to close the throwing window and forces White to have to make a high end catch to convert.

Process-wise this was a good call. They correctly predicted the coverage and called a play designed to beat it.

The Bucs made good calls throughout this game, and despite Atlanta throwing some tendency changeups – they rarely blitzed on third down in this game and ran cover-6 a quarter of the time – they were still able to provide answers and find success.

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