Air Tampa
June 30th, 2025
Buried behind a paywall was an unsurprising but not-so-obvious factoid about the Buccaneers offense.
“Since [Todd Bowles] took over as head coach in 2022, the Bucs have attempted more passes than any team in the league,” noted John Romano in a TampaBay.com column about Bowles allegedly being underappreciated by fans.
Joe knows the Bucs have been airing out it out since Bucco Bruce Arians arrived in 2019, but the context of most throws in the NFL over the past three years with Bowles at the helm made Joe take pause.
The “passing league” has its prototype on Dale Mabry Highway (one mile south of Bill Currie Ford).
No wonder the Bucs drafted a receiver in the first round!
Bowles, to his credit, seems hungry to keep throwing. He surely had input into the Bucs’ offseason, one that handed its most expensive contract to a receiver, and invested its greatest draft asset at receiver, as well.
Baker Mayfield ranked fifth in passes attempted last season at 33.5 per game. Patrick Mahomes was the only QB to reach the playoffs with more attemps than Mayfield.
The Bucs expect to keep on throwin’ this season — with Bowles cracking a few smiles along the way.
June 30th, 2025 at 11:19 pm
We need to find a great name for the Bucs offense this year. I like the McDill Air Raid!!! Or, McDill Air Force!!
June 30th, 2025 at 11:34 pm
It’s spelled MacDill, and… no.
June 30th, 2025 at 11:51 pm
Piraters?
July 1st, 2025 at 1:05 am
“most throws in the NFL over the past three years with Bowles at the helm”
1/3 of that total was from ’22 when the run game was basically non-existent and Brady led the league in passes thrown….
Bucs now have a good OLine and had a top 5 rushing attack last year.
Sure we have the best WR group in the league and a QB who can sling it – but we also have one of the best RB stables in the league as well.
Best to utilize both strengths somewhat equally (60/40 pass/run) which keeps defenses guessing, creates more passing mismatches on 1st and 2nd down and increases the offense’s time of possession.
Bucky should be averaging about 15 carries per game and the team should be averaging about 25 rushes per game.
July 1st, 2025 at 1:11 am
Well Leftwich had nothing to do with Arians who basically left that side of the ball untouched, so I wouldn’t really count anything on offense to Bowles until Canales was hired — which to be clear is a credit to Bowles, who couldn’t have believed that Leftwich was going to be so incompetent and stupid that he’d decide to ‘improve’ on Arians offense by dumbing it down and making it a billion times more predictable.