It Helps To Have Explosive Plays
June 10th, 2026
Need a return to explosion.
Want to win? You’ve got to score points.
The best way to score? Have explosive plays.
Former handicapper turned stathead Warren Sharp shared interesting stats last night. Simply put, good teams have explosive plays on offense, generally, and bad teams don’t.
An explosive play is not an official NFL stat. So definitions very. Former Bucs coach Dirk Koetter measured an explosive play as a run play gained at least 12 yards or a pass play that gained at least 16 yards. Sharp measures an explosive play as any offensive play that gains at least 15 yards.
So what does this have to do with the Bucs? Well, this may come as a shock, but Joe found (thanks to Sharp) that the Bucs ranked 23rd last year in explosive plays. Seven of the top-10 teams with explosive playsm ade the playoffs.
Joe is sure a combination of injuries to everyone on offense not named “Graham Barton,” truly pathetic guard play from Bucs backups and Bucky Irving having a nightmare season all contributed to the lack of explosive plays.
Bucky’s backslide was bad. As a rookie in 2024, Bucky had the 10th-highest explosive rate of all running backs. Last year? He was 45th.
June 10th, 2026 at 3:57 am
Bucky was 45th in explosive plays, and White was 36th.
Bucky came back from injury and was struggling. White played well while Bucky was out. But, coming down the home stretch, with the division title and the playoffs slipping away, suddenly it was time to force feed the ball to Bucky and have White cooling his heels.
It had to be about personalities because it sure wasn’t football.