Ugly, But Pretty When Needed

December 10th, 2023

Leads offensive comeback.

Man, the way the Bucs played offensively in the first half, the way many Bucs fans reacted on Twitter, they would have been happy if the NFL brought back television blackouts. For road games.

The Bucs were miserable in the first half with the ball. It sure seemed as if they were perfectly happy going down with the ship running Rachaad White between the tackles on first downs.

Time after time after time after time.

Later in the second half, someone with the Bucs had an epiphany. “Let’s try to run Rachaad White outside the tackles?”

Boom, White runs outside Tristan Wirfs for 12 yards.

Then, another brainstorm. “Let’s throw to White. You know, he is third in the NFL for receiving yards among running backs?”

Boom, White catches a short pass on the left side and runs it in for 31 yards and six points.

This is what is so frustrating about the Bucs offense. The Bucs think White is Mike Alstott. But when someone has a bright idea to get White the ball in open space, he’s lethal.

Once the Bucs started using White in ways outside of pounding him inside, the offense flourished. The Bucs had an embarrassing 85 yards of offense in the first half. In the second half? Try 205 yards.

Will the Bucs learn? Probably not. But hey, they are in 6-7 and in first place. It could be worse.

37 Responses to “Ugly, But Pretty When Needed”

  1. Oxycondomns Says:

    Seems like white runs better out of shotgun maybe little less predictable

  2. orlbucfan Says:

    Bowles needs to kick Canales’ azz. Atlanta lost their 3 veteran OLinemen. Canales never really adapted to those breaks. You have a bunch of receivers including the RBs. This clown hasn’t figured that out yet??!! I am frustrated!! I’ve been through it with shitty ownership, coaches, and players. Why did it come down to this? All the D injuries, and Canales still pulls run-run-run. He can’t get creative? Why not?

  3. BucsLife Says:

    RW1 is a stud and glad they are using him correctly and reminds me of a smaller Laveon Bell, but keep feeding him. The next coach is going to love having him in the backfield and like how the line looked today as well

  4. B Says:

    Well the inside stuff sets up the outside stuff/ screens. Obviously.

  5. HC Grover Says:

    Our replacements were better than the starters.

  6. Georgia Redneck Says:

    They have run better the last few games. They cannot seem to get Evans and Godwin equal targets. It’s either one or the other.

  7. realistic-optimistic Says:

    the Bucs offense flourished

    Joe. Come on. Flourished?

  8. Beeej Says:

    White also seems to run better when there isn’t 2 unblocked 300 pound dudes grabbing him

  9. EternalSon Says:

    Good win. Let’s stack good on top of good.

    Go Bucs!!!

  10. AtlBuc Says:

    Now’s the time to bench Mayfield and start Trask!!

  11. realistic-optimistic Says:

    Of the 85 yards of offense in the first half, only 49 came from the passing game. That means the Bucs had 36 yards on the ground. That’s not awful for one half of ball. What is awful for one half of ball is 49 passing yards.

  12. Kidfloflo Says:

    He still didn’t get over 3.5 receptions to cover my bet!!$ but I’ll take the win baby

  13. orlbucfan Says:

    Hope Bowles pops Canales over the head with a baseball bat. That OC still doesn’t get the talent on his offense!!!!!! Still don’t get it how they are in first place at 6-7.

  14. Beeej Says:

    “realistic-optimistic Says:
    December 10th, 2023 at 5:03 pm
    Of the 85 yards of offense in the first half, only 49 came from the passing game. That means the Bucs had 36 yards on the ground. That’s not awful for one half of ball. What is awful for one half of ball is 49 passing yards.”

    By my calculations we ran 14 times for those 36 yards

  15. Jack Clark Says:

    “Later in the second half, someone with the Bucs had an epiphany. “Let’s try to run Rachaad White outside the tackles?” Then, another brainstorm. “Let’s throw to White. You know, he is third in the NFL for receiving yards in the NFL for runnign backs?””

    That’s what we’ve been saying they should do for the last few weeks. Dave Canales needs to start reading the comment section more and stop running the ball between the tackles on first and second down just to setup another third and long. Build an offensive scheme around passing the ball to Mike Evans (deep routes), Chris Godwin (mid range routes), Rachaad White (short routes and screen passes) , and Cade Otton (red zone) and use draw plays to run the ball when the defense is focused on stopping the pass.

  16. Pewter power Says:

    This was a Todd Bowles type of game. Keep it boring until the 4th quarter and open it up when we’re desperate

  17. TonySoprano Says:

    This coaching staff is like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. Everything that proved to be successful this week will be completely forgotten and dismissed next week.

  18. Old School Bucs Says:

    Ok, fine. The Oline looked better today on the run and pass. The defense gave up some big big plays, but the O rebounded. If this Oline can continue to improve, lets see if we can get over 500.

  19. Tbbucs3 Says:

    Trask stans, y’all can officially give up that pipe dream of Mayfield getting benched. If you think Bowels is benching a guy who literally just saved his job your DELUSIONAL.

  20. Tampabaybucfan Says:

    Not sure road games were ever blacked out…..but it’s a thought.

    Our offense is purely impotent……..we run too much on early downs leaving 3rd down too often…….
    Need to use our TEs more in the passing game….

  21. realistic-optimistic Says:

    @beej, no disagreement from me about the poor YPC. I blame Canales for the repeated inside runs to nowhere. Even still, 36 yards on 14 carries is a better return than 49 passing yards on 12 attempts.

  22. Joe Says:

    Not sure road games were ever blacked out…..

    They weren’t.

  23. Alanbucsfan Says:

    That catch by Evans in the end zone was beautiful-too bad he was out of bounds by an inch

  24. Mediocre Mayfield Says:

    Start trask

  25. 1#bucsfan Says:

    JOE I’ve bin preaching this. Play to our guy’s strength yet we still don’t. This is why I want these coaches gone. With exception of canales like leftwich csnsles has to form an offense that Bowles wants. How is it we have 2 diff OC yet have the same results. I’ll tell you it’s the head coach.

  26. Alvin Scissors Harper Says:

    Saying there was anything pretty about that game is like saying Roseanne and Rosie are pretty.

  27. WyomingJoe Says:

    Looks like the Cult of Kyle will be handing out Kool-Aid again this week! Some of you haters should try some! The offense and defense were clutch when it counted. Licht was right. Baker Mayfield is the Dude! Keep winning Baker.

    My thanks to Tony Marks for creating “The Cult of Kyle” tag.

  28. Beeej Says:

    “realistic-optimistic Says:
    December 10th, 2023 at 5:17 pm
    @beej, no disagreement from me about the poor YPC. I blame Canales for the repeated inside runs to nowhere. Even still, 36 yards on 14 carries is a better return than 49 passing yards on 12 attempts.”

    Well, 2.25 yards per attempt vs 4.1….admittedly neither is bragging material

  29. optimisticbucsfan Says:

    a win is a win is a win

    Victory – 1st place

    Enjoy it

  30. Buc4evr Says:

    JTS whiffing against Ridder. Had the angle and everything and still missed him. Why is JTS in the game?

  31. DavidBigBucsFan99 Says:

    Looks like the Baker’s Strap Club will be handing out his game cups to wear under their masks. It’s crazy these goils pant so hard and heavy over a mediocre qb who barely edged out a 3rd year “rookie ” because he was the vet. If that ain’t a color I don’t know what is!

  32. DavidBigBucsFan99 Says:

    The Baker’s Strap Cult

  33. Bucsmarley Says:

    Don’t get your hopes up. Baker was garbage again. I was at the game and saw it first hand. Cant throw a deep ball if his life depended on it. Almost embarrassing. Dink and dunk. The entire game was hoping for Trask or wolford. Baker is not the answer. Average average

  34. Larrd Says:

    Bakers passes to Godwin and Otton at the end were sure pretty. Winners, in crunch time. White’s longer runs were pretty, too. The student body sweep on fourth and one wasn’t pretty, but it reminded me of John McKay.

  35. adam from ny Says:

    this game definitely raised my blood pressure..

    and now all my fingernails are nibbled up…

    for a moment as they marched down the field at the end, i wondered if they were going to pull a houston texans on our defense

  36. Bucslife Says:

    Can we see our 2nd round qb play already, I’ve seen enough of mayfield struggling week to week to get 200 yards passing. Evans and Godwin deserve better at qb and oc

  37. BucU Says:

    The Buc game WAS blacked out for the Orlando viewing area yesterday.