Offense Coming Together
June 9th, 2023
Assessment of offense.
Teams can do little in underwear football since they cannot hit in any way.
And while that greatly limits things, earlier this week Bucs coach Todd Bowles said he is starting to see elements of the new offense coming together under first-year offensive coordinator Dave Canales.
“They’re adding something every day,” Bowles said. “It’s all 11, plus new coaches. You’ve got to add something every day – it’s a progression.
“Everybody is starting to understand what to do and how to do it. We’re piecing it together.
“They’re adding nuances daily and it’s a good practice and I think the guys are on the same page.”
So what is this offense looking like in the embryonic stages? Well, if Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians’ offense attacked vertically down the field, well, Canales has more of a horizontal attack.
If Arians’ offense was north and south, Canales’ is more east-and-west.
It appears Canales is trying to get the defense to cover every blade of grass between the sidelines. This, Joe guesses, is meant to spread the defense out and the Bucs are to then take advantage of holes or getting a defender out of position.
Sort of like spacing in basketball.
Joe can only think of a few times the Bucs spread out defenses in different ways under Arians (you know, like Godwin taking a pitch for a first down to send the Bucs to the Super Bowl).
June 9th, 2023 at 8:05 am
Man, I have nightmares of lots of 3rd down balls being thrown a yard short of the sticks. Hope the lateral movement opens up the 11yd pass.
June 9th, 2023 at 8:18 am
Bingo! It is exactly like basketball, give and goes, picks , look at how the Rams and Seahawks use the stacked receivers to “pick” defenders and free receivers ,or run when the defense is forced to spread , it is a very innovative system!
June 9th, 2023 at 8:22 am
The nightmare happened last year with Leftwich, level 9 on Richter scale, induced shaking which saw the offense crumble. We might have some after shocks this year but Buc fans have already lived through the big one.
June 9th, 2023 at 8:26 am
This is the teaching phase, which is pretty important when you’re installing a new anything in any phase of the game for your team. Can’t wait to see more of the offense, some stretch runs, looking forward to seeing us line up in 12/13 personnel and how our OL takes to blocking in space opposed to man to man blocking under the previous offensive philosophy.
June 9th, 2023 at 8:35 am
Byron just never knew how to attack a D once they adjusted to the scheme
Let’s hope the new OC is much more like BA that actually understands what the D is trying to do and exploits them
June 9th, 2023 at 8:43 am
VATom … ‘Man, I have nightmares of lots of 3rd down balls being thrown a yard short of the sticks’.
You mean like all last year Tom?
June 9th, 2023 at 8:44 am
“So what is this offense looking like in the embryonic stages?” Seems like last years offense was perpetually in the embryonic stage.
June 9th, 2023 at 9:05 am
I’m sorry folks, but I just don’t trust Todd Bowles with his opinions on anything to do with the offense….
My suspicion is that he royally screw ours up last year……either he messed with Lefwitch or he didn’t mess with Leftwich……either way, it’s on the HC.
June 9th, 2023 at 9:09 am
The new offense looks promising so far. An important key will be play sequencing. We have no idea yet if Canales will be successful in this regard. But it certainly can’t be worse than the sequencing we saw last season.
June 9th, 2023 at 10:16 am
Arians offense was vertical… last season’s offense was the very definition of east-west… all smoke screens and checkdowns… there were very few deep shots and even less intermediate 15-20 yard throws…. Brady pretty much refused to throw anything downfield and either audibled to a smoke screen or checked it down immediately. You guys can blame last year’s offense on Arians or Leftwich all you want but I guarantee Leftwich didn’t call 10 smoke screens a game (they aren’t usually called, they are audibled to) and didn’t ask Brady to not throw the ball down the field.
June 9th, 2023 at 10:41 am
East West does not gain yards. The goal line is thataway. I hope we do not end up with a two yards and a cloud of dust.
June 9th, 2023 at 11:04 am
Pretty hard to throw the ball down the field when the quarterback is running for his life due to a non-functioning offensive line.
Also pretty hard to run the ball effectively due to a non-functioning offensive line.
The difference between the 2020 and 2021 teams with the 2022 teams was the offensive line. It was great the two prior years, and sucked last year.
No offense can overcome a sucky offensive line, period. No quarterback, no running back, no receivers no tight ends can overcome a sucky offensive line.
JBF refuses to accept that. But given that beginning with week 1 we’d already lost three of the starters on the O line from the two prior seasons … and the left tackle greatly regressed (due to injury or effort, some combination) such that he was the worst left tackle in the entire league, with the highest number of sacks allowed of any starting LT and was the most penalized player (not just LT) in the league. Then our one true remaining star on the OL was injured for nearly half of the season, and did not even play in 4 of our 17 regular season games.
It just boggles the mind that JBF refuses to acknowledge these undeniable totally proven facts, and instead wants to blame it on the OC .. and other commenters here either want to blame that on the OC or on the departed GOAT, as if he was supposed to just hang on the ball long enough to get killed.
June 9th, 2023 at 11:53 am
Geez Duane…. Take a deep breath… It’s gonna be ok ✌️👍
June 9th, 2023 at 12:21 pm
Canales has a great vibe that sponge Bob just never had.
June 9th, 2023 at 12:27 pm
All plans change after you get punched in the mouth. How the plan changes is the big deal.
If Canales can make adjustments to open running lanes and get receivers open we will be way ahead of last season.
I think we will be. Last season we were given some hope every once in a while, just to watch it come off the rails.
June 9th, 2023 at 12:56 pm
Rankings
TOTAL YARDS
Seattle – 11th
Tampa – 13th
TOTAL POINTS
Seattle – 9th
Tampa – 25th
I’m not worried about a horizontal offense as it seems to score more points.
June 9th, 2023 at 1:10 pm
According to the trend here the question will soon be how much we beat every team on the way to the Super Bowl.
June 9th, 2023 at 2:47 pm
Canales was not the offensive coordinator for Seattle so really not fair to suggest that he has the goods until we see him in action. Hope so.
We do know that Arians had the goods for us.
We know that it was him in charge of the offense and not BL those 1st three years.
A good offensive mind in charge of the whole thing makes a huge difference.
Frankly, hoping that Canales is closer to Arians than Leftwich.
Frankly do not expect him to be as good as Arians at scoring points.
June 9th, 2023 at 2:52 pm
You guys should go watch the 25 minute highlight reel for Payne Durham.
Similar offense and terrible looking QB but the scheme Purdue ran is similar.
This dude is good at finding holes and appears to be wide open on a ton of misdirection plays.
He turns and faces and has a huge catch radius. Those mitts scoop up everything and his YAC are amazing.
This offense has plenty of talent and if Baker can just stay composed I see it working brilliantly.
Might score on first drives way more from scripted fast play.
If the defense can adjust there might be a lull but then first drive off of Halftime again time for a script potentially.
These plays might not be scripted with personnel and everything, but sections of the field etc. Making sure they are running a lot to cover is important.
Something Sponge Bob couldn’t even comprehend.
June 9th, 2023 at 2:53 pm
@Duane You’re making too much sense for people who have a narrative about the offense from last year and refuse to engage in any nuance. We literally had two new interior people on the OL! Shaq Mason was a veteran, but he was still new to the offense. So that’s three new guys on the OL. You lose two pro bowl OL and expect the offense to be functional?
It seems like some of you forget how the Chiefs’ and Mahomes looked in the SB against us when we shut them down. Mahomes was missing two starting tackles and was running for his life and had no success against us. Mahomes is one of the greatest QBs and playmakers of all time and he couldn’t do squat without his two starting tackles. We expect a 45 year old to do better with two new interior OL. Get real.
Leftwich failed to adapt to the current personnel. It should’ve been more of quick game concepts with more creativity. Doug Farrar, a film expert, said our route combinations were awful. Leftwich was a big part of those high scoring offenses, but he also bears some responsibility for the anemic offense. Ask yourself: If Leftwich wasn’t a problem, and it was just the washed up QB, why doesn’t he have a job now?
BA’s Don Coryell offense has been phased out of the game. There are very few vertical based offense. It’s about scheming people open and getting YAC.
June 10th, 2023 at 2:05 am
I’m hoping that it is as simple and easily executable as people are saying.
Learning and mastering this offense for the entire offensive roster is no small thing. History tells me it takes more than one pre-season in an offense to master it. Just going from a BoB to a zone blocking scheme is a challenge.
Because of these stupid no contact rules we have a very small window to find our starters and let them come together as a unit while actually playing football.
Go Bucs
June 10th, 2023 at 3:05 am
“It appears Canales is trying to get the defense to cover every blade of grass between the sidelines. This, Joe guesses, is meant to spread the defense out and the Bucs are to then take advantage of holes or getting a defender out of position.”
NO NEED FOR GUESSWORK. Go look at Seahawks game film going all the way back to their Super Bowl seasons. That’s what Canales is trying to install, with some personal variations on top of it.