Great News; Troubling News About Bucs Offense
September 15th, 2025
Red zone offense.
“This Joe” usually turns the page on a game after a couple of days. But these stats from Week 1 jumped out so significantly this morning, Joe had to share.
There is good news — no, fantastic news — about the Bucs offense. At the same time, there is troubling data.
Since it comes from Week 1, Joe can’t tell if there is any sort of trend or reason to celebrate. Or reason to panic.
The good news first: last week when the Bucs entered the red zone, thet scored a touchdown. The bad news: The Bucs only reached the red zone once. So Joe isn’t sure if the Bucs red zone offense is that efficient or the offense is that bad in not moving the ball.
To be fair, the Bucs did score two touchdowns from outside the red zone last week.
An interesting angle for tonight’s game: Houston had just as few red zone trips as the Bucs in Week 1. The difference? The Bucs scored a touchdown. Houston did not.
Offensive Drive Efficiency
(Weeks 1-2, pre-MNF)• The colts have reached the RedZone on 12/17 (71%) drives
• The Texans (1 game) have reached the RedZone 1/9 (11%) drives and didn’t score a TD on that drive pic.twitter.com/DzfM86NFXn— Doug Analytics (@Doug_Analytics) September 15, 2025
September 15th, 2025 at 10:30 am
2-0!!!
GO BUCS!!!!
September 15th, 2025 at 10:31 am
Yeah, you really can’t say too much about this data yet. By the end of the season maybe the colts and Bucs switch places, lol.
September 15th, 2025 at 10:35 am
Week 1 data is about as important as bye week data.
September 15th, 2025 at 10:45 am
Meaningless article. It’s only one game, game one, no less. Nothing else to write about??
September 15th, 2025 at 10:49 am
If Stroud gets to the Bucs red zone 9 times this game will be a blowout. Bucs fans are under the false impression that Houston can’t protect Stroud. They will, because the Bucs defensive scheme is trash and is not designed around the strengths of the players.
September 15th, 2025 at 10:50 am
Look where El Serpiente is with the Jags on this chart.
September 15th, 2025 at 10:53 am
Will be interesting to see this chart over time.
Week 1 – you’re never as good or as bad as you looked
September 15th, 2025 at 11:27 am
Week 1, 1-0, mission accomplished, not worried.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:28 am
Joe always types about what interests Joe, and always will. If you don’t like the topic of a story, you don’t have to read it. There are quite literally tens of thousands of other stories in Joe’s (free) archives to choose from and read.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:33 am
A touchdown is a touchdown. Whether it’s a bomb or tush push.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:39 am
Pray for Jeff as he battles his mental illnes$ issues
September 15th, 2025 at 11:43 am
Nobody’s solidly in the 1st quadrant yet.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:56 am
Let’s wait till long about Halloween to talk about trends.
September 15th, 2025 at 11:56 am
“So Joe isn’t sure if the Bucs red zone offense is that efficient or the offense is that bad in not moving the ball.“
It was the latter for us, no need to dance around it or sugarcoat it. We had 1 drive > 10 plays that ended in a FG and punted on 3 of our 5 first drives. Cohesion and a higher level of execution no matter what the playcall is, will be an improvement tonight if we can make it happen.
I’d rather this offense take time(not too much) to ramp up and start getting its feet under it, so we can run these jokers out of their own stadium because, why not us?
September 15th, 2025 at 11:58 am
Knowing that the Falcons won yesterday SHOULD motivate the Bucs a little more tonight to pull out a win. Starting off 2-0 would be awesome. I don’t see any real pushover games in our next 6 games until the BYE (Jets, Eagles, Seahawks, 49ers, Lions, Saints). I’m confident we could be any of them, but just as confident that we could just as easily beat ourselves if we don’t bring our A-game.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:00 pm
I hope we score all our TD’s from outside the red zone.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:05 pm
I would like to see a lot of no huddle plays ran tonight, just get up there and don’t give the defense a chance to game plan. More drop offs to the backs and tight ends, and slots then hit the big ones to ME and EE. Run their butts off their home field. I am expecting better than what was done last night.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:05 pm
last week not last night.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:06 pm
Kayla, if you don’t like the writing here, have you tried maybe NOT entering “joebucsfan.com” in your browser? See if that helps.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:13 pm
Show me the chart once it’s all oranges. Oranges & apples when four teams have only 1 week of data. That’s a big difference with only two weeks of data…
September 15th, 2025 at 12:24 pm
I think last night’s game showed the Falcons defense is probably better than we thought, so hopefully that’s what accounted for us not hitting the red zone as frequently.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:26 pm
Not panicking yet. For sure there are positives and negatives with this data, but overall we won the first game. Can’t get any better than that. Thinking positive vibes. Hope the Bucs get in the red zone and score so many times that it is a blow-out. Turning the page from prime time into Buc time!
September 15th, 2025 at 12:29 pm
Ballwin Bucs Fan
Right !
LMAO 😂
September 15th, 2025 at 12:38 pm
Grizzard has a tough row to hoe coming right out of the gate and being saddled with a makeshift offensive line. Trying to get any sort of handle on how good his offense is going to be might take some time. But the season has started and the enemy is firing live bullets. Meaning they have to put points on the board and posses the ball while trying to buy some time to get the line healthy and develop some consistency. So he might need to lean on the defense for a while. Can Bowles and his defense carry the load if needed? History suggests not. It’s always been the other way around. Time for Bowles to step up or risk being further exposed.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:47 pm
DR
I get that McCarthy is no TB12… but I hope our D took note of the way ATL defense was playing last night. Fast, physical and intense.
We need that, too.
September 15th, 2025 at 12:51 pm
I’m more concerned about our lack of running game.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:05 pm
eh…. week 1 is mostly meaningless. Just get the win. The makeshift O-Line needs to step it up against Houston and the O needs to get MIKE the ball!!
The D-Line needs to feast tonight. I want 4 sacks!
September 15th, 2025 at 1:09 pm
Cant watch but may listen on radio. This is getting too difficult….Might njust go to bed an chek it in the morning. NFL is over the edge.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:12 pm
Week 1 is almost always ugly. This week should be more telling. Houston has a good D. Will we come to play or will Mr 3 and out show up again?
September 15th, 2025 at 1:13 pm
Let’s just get the W tonight. I don’t care how we do it.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Joe, you assume Atlanta is a bad team. They are not. They handled Minnesota with ease. This a tough game.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:23 pm
Where is the game day open thread? It is clear that some readers are already drinking.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:27 pm
View from 132. And some haven’t quit drinking since that 2021 season ending Rams playoff game. Like Aqualung.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:37 pm
It is one game!
September 15th, 2025 at 1:37 pm
Missing an all-world LT on a team will do all sorts of damage to an offense. Next to Baker Mayfield no other player on the team affects the bottom line as much as Wirfs.
Without him, the Bucs aren’t remotely the 2024 juggernaut scoring machine they were. At best they have to be content to take what they can get in the passing game, and hope things hold together until Wirfs returns.
The defense has to create opportunities to win games right now. If they don’t, each game turns into a coin flip against most of their opponents.
September 15th, 2025 at 1:48 pm
NFC North (aside NYG’s success rate) looks pretty good in this obscure stat. Inside, outside, why does it matter if the result is a W. Im guessing Arians would likely reside on the left side of that chart. It’s duplicitous to bemoan dink and dunk while yearning for the red zone
September 15th, 2025 at 2:02 pm
Jmarkbuc … Atlanta’s defense played like that … ‘Fast, physical and intense’ … throughout most of our game with them also. They’ll be a force to be reckoned with by the time the season is halfway over (like our 2019 Bucs’ defense was?). Their offense has a boatload of potential (especially their running game & TEs), but they still need a couple of top-tier WRs to round it out.
I thought that our Bucs’ defense was doing a pretty credible job itself of playing fast & physical throughout most of the game, and especially doing a great job shutting down Atlanta’s running game, and especially our containment of their outside runs (Falcons ran left end & right end 8 times … for a TOTAL of 18 yards). Bucs’ defense also did a fantastic job taking away their deep passing game (Penix was 0-for-5 deep in that game).
So lots of good stuff came outta the game from the Bucs’ perspective, but there are obviously several things we need to clean up. Falcons 3rd play of the game … that friggin 50 short SHORT PASS to Robinson for a TD … was inexcusable (we looked like a high school team trying to tackle him). There were also a couple of dropped INTs that coulda made a huge difference in the score; gotta hold onto those (and no, it wasn’t Dean’s fault).
September 15th, 2025 at 2:33 pm
I’d be fine with a fairly non-existent Red Zone scoring offense if we keep scoring consistently more than once a game from 30 and 40 yards out. Red zone stats won’t count for much until 4 or 5 games are in the bank.