The Disappearing Deep Ball Pass
December 3rd, 2025
Passing chart.
Josh Grizzard really has morphed into Liam Coen. Well, at least in one way.
The usage of the deep ball pass has vanished from the Bucs’ offense.
Joe figures it has a lot to do with injuries, both to Baker Mayfield and three of his top-four receivers (Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan).
With rookie Emeka Egbuka hounded by defenses more than Alix Earle at a Vegas day club, and apparently Sterling Shepard and Tez Johnson are unable to spring free deep, the deep balls have pretty much gone the way of the Bucs tackling by wrapping up.
Poof!
Tony Holzman-Escareno, a senior researcher for the NFL, pumped out very telling stats concerning Mayfield and passes traveling 20 yards or more downfield.
Mayfield was dominant throwing deep touchdown passes in the first six weeks of the season. Since? The deep passing attack has been packed in ice.
So let’s look at what was going on in Week 7 for the Bucs:
Week 7 was the Lions game. The Bucs had Evans returning but early in the game he broke his clavicle when Detroit corner Rock Ya-Sin sinned by riding Evans like he was a rodeo bronco, resulting in Evans’ injury.
The next week against the slimy Saints, Mayfield was clearly hurt (after a beating in Detroit) and was a shell of himself. Of course, the Bucs didn’t have Bucky Irving or Godwin, either.
Not so coincidentally, the Bucs’ November nightmare happened without Evans and Godwin and with Mayfield banged up.
The reason Joe finds this interesting is that when Grizzard was hired, he made it a point (several times) to let folks know that while the base offense was not changing, he wanted to take more deep shots.
That plan, for the time being, has gone out the window.
Godwin finally returned to the lineup and this past Sunday looked like the old Chris Godwin. Thank goodness! McMillan is expected to practice this week and Evans might as well. Until they return, defenses are now under the impression if they take Egbuka out, the Bucs have no deep passing game.
Baker Mayfield led the NFL with 7 deep pass TD (20+ air yds) from Weeks 1-6. No other QB had more than 3. Mayfield has 1 deep completion since Week 7.
Weeks 1-6
10-25, 418 yds, 7 TD, 0 INT, 127.1 passer rtgSince Week 7
1-13, 24 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 7.5 passer rtg@NextGenStats— NFL Researcher (@FrontOfficeNFL) December 2, 2025
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:05 am
Between the loss of WRs, loss of OL and loss of RB Irving, it’s no wonder.
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:07 am
Lose all your receivers and this is what you get.
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:15 am
8 of 18 completions behind the LOS, yuck
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:19 am
It sure feels like the base O has changed. Gone are the motions, match-up and mismatches…all replaced by what feels like guys just running routes or trying to get to a spot. There’s no set-up. Even with guys out, Liam did a phenomenal job getting the most out of who was on the field. There’s none of that this year.
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:25 am
Most of the complete passes are 10 yds or less. Smh…
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:38 am
You have to be able to hold the ball long enough for them to get open
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:47 am
I see this more of a sign they knew he was hurt. He probably couldnt comfortably throw the ball deep, so they werent calling deep shots.
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:47 am
What happened to the motion and misdirection? Run up the middle on 1st down followed by a pass behind the line of scrimmage is not going to get it done.
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:48 am
WBL
Grizz loves his screens lol….
i wouldnt have a problem with the lack of deep throws IF Grizz committed to the run game…
with Luke back and baker not 100%, we should have 25+ carries per game
with that said, one week at a time!!!!
GO BUCS!!!!
December 3rd, 2025 at 9:57 am
Not to mention, and I may be wrong, but seems like we push the ball downfield on 3rd and 2 or 3rd and short. Leaving 4 and short and we don’t have a short yardage play in the playbook somehow this year, which leads to a turn over on downs or punt at best.
December 3rd, 2025 at 10:12 am
It’s not mysterious.
Cross reference when the deep ball disappeared. Game 7+ and when Emeka was injured.
Emeka got a hamstring and hasn’t run routes well since. Tez still runs questionable deep routes.
Compound that with offensive line issues and getting the ball out quicker, it’s a unit issue, not a QB issue.
As I’ve been pointing out since week 6.
December 3rd, 2025 at 10:17 am
grizzisnt cuttingitperiod/ let him go
December 3rd, 2025 at 10:41 am
lol you can’t throw a deep ball if you don’t have a solid O line.
December 3rd, 2025 at 11:29 am
baker was in pain throwing deep vs rams. against lions and other teams he didn’t run for first downs against i think it was a lower body problem not a strong enough base. shoulder may still be an issue on deep ball
December 3rd, 2025 at 12:52 pm
Poor line play.
December 3rd, 2025 at 12:53 pm
Pass protection is poor and that’s a majority of the time…and I didn’t see much improvement in pass protection with 4 of 5 starting offensive lineman back. No one Mauch is the lynch pin holding it all together. It’s a problem.
Just to give you an idea, Brady would struggle throwing behind this offensive line.
December 3rd, 2025 at 1:07 pm
See what you need in times like these that struck our Offense so Severely, is the Defense to Step Up. And guess what? THEY DID! For two games.. Maybe 3, the Defense Handled Business! The point is, They Did Step Up! But then……
And then something happened that took the wind Completely Out of their sails…. I have no idea “exactly” what it was BUT I will say the “timing” might give us ALL the answer.
When did the Implosion of our Defense commence? Well it was DIRECTLY RELATED “TIME WISE” to……… the Trade Deadline. THAT IS WHEN it All started to fall apart for the defense. What does that mean? Well I nor any of the commenter’s have spoken up to why it affected the “defense” so deeply. Perhaps it actually affected the whole team but with all the injuries on offense, that’s hard to tell.
But the “mister my dog just died” sadness, and the loss of the FIERY Give a d@m that the Defense WAS PLAYING WITH just went away. Literally the D started “playing around” instead of “playing hard”. Somebody reading these blogs KNOWS the Real, Actual, and Factual truth of What Happened. But they’re NOT sharing….
One thing about this team that’s maddening is the absolute ZERO, “government style”, no info that doesn’t come out. It leads to just Tons of speculation and A Lot of bad press but I’m pretty sure that this organization is of the notion that “Any News good or bad” is keeping eyes on the team so therefore a good thing.
Perhaps if the general and overall feeling wasn’t SO BAD, well that might be true but one thing that is unfortunately obvious is that “some” of the players are wearing it on their sleeves, via their Extremely Lack Luster performances and locker room conversations..
And THAT goes ESPECIALLY FOR THE Head coach/DC and the OC because they can’t seem to scheme straight. Is it a undisclosed distraction at the heart of it All? Well we can think Anything we want because they certainly won’t tell us. BUT the “timing” of it All, they failed to hide.
December 3rd, 2025 at 1:19 pm
Even without their main deep threats in the lineup, I think Grizzard should have at least tried the occasional deep pattern to keep the defense honest. As pointed out, the deep threat has been hampered by lack of good pass protection so there has been no way to consistently throw deep. If anybody wants to see good pass protection, just replay any Rams game this year and you will see that Stafford routinely has plenty of time to let receivers run long routes. With our best receivers coming back and with the Oline getting healthy it should also open things up for Otton, who was great last year.
December 3rd, 2025 at 2:01 pm
When Mike is back the deep ball will return.
GO BUCS