Passing game needs work.

The Bucs are getting better. But will it be soon enough?

Hey, who didn’t like the way the Bucs’ offense pounded the Stinking Panthers last week in Carolina. Just pummeled them on the ground.

And yeah, Baker Mayfield was nuetered with his bum thumb, Joe gets it.

Still, as impressive as the run game was, sooner or later the Bucs are going to run into a run defense where the run game is going to go nowhere.

So the Bucs’ passing game has to get out of its funk.

Given how much Bucs offensive coordinator Zac Robinson loves for his quarterbacks to throw to targets behind the line of scrimmage, the following shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Bucs are garbage with explosive plays in the passing game. But they’ve improved!

The Bucs, through the first three games of the NFL season were dead-last in the league in passing explosive plays. In the past four games? The Bucs have gotten better.

While overall the Bucs are No. 32 in passing explosive plays, the past four games the Bucs have spiked to No. 31!

Progress!

Different sources have slightly differnt definitions of an explosive play. It’s not an official NFL stat. Even NFL coaches have different measurements.

In the chart below, Ben Hoppen, an NFL data scientist for theScore Bet defines an explosive play as a 10-yard run or a 20-yard pass. (Former Bucs coach Dirk Koetter’s defined an explosive play as a run of 12 yards or more and a pass of 18 yards or more.)

Overall, the Bucs are an average team (No. 16) in explosive plays because the run game is so productive (No. 9 in explosive plays).

In the past four games, the Bucs’ run game’s rate of explosive plays is No. 6, which raised the overall explosive play rate for the past four games to No. 31.

With a win on Sunday, the Bucs are back in the playoff chase. But they will not get very far unless the passing game improves, and probably needs to improve significantly.

Joe read once that an explosive play rate is like a slugging percentage in baseball. One thing is clear: the best offenses and the best scoring offenses have no problems producing explosive plays, on the ground or in the air.

Chart from @SamHoppen.