Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Offense Continues To Remain Stagnant In Loss To Green Bay Packers

It may be only Week 3, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a lot of issues to fix on offense.

The Buccaneers fell to the Green Bay Packers by a score of 14-12 in Tampa for their first loss of the season. And while the offense certainly has some excuses considering Tampa Bay was missing their top three receivers — Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Julio Jones — there’s no excuse for the 12-point output.

Outside of their final drive in which they drove 89 yards down the field, the Buccaneers were stagnant all game long. In fact, Tampa Bay averaged just 4.8 yards per play versus the Packers. Prior to their last drive, the Bucs averaged just 4.0 yards per play.

Through the first three games, the previously high-powered Buccaneers are only averaging 17 points per game. That is a stark decline from the 2021 Buccaneers squad that averaged 30.1 points per game. For comparison purposes, the 2021 Seattle Seahawks ranked 16th in the league in scoring and averaged 23.2 points per game. The Buccaneers’ 17.0 point-per-game average would have ranked 29th in the league last season.

Outside of the lack of healthy receivers, the departures of Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown are clearly having an effect on the firepower of this offensive unit. Secondly, the offensive line continues to be in shambles as Tampa Bay attempted to replace four of their five starting offensive linemen from last season entering this game.

The Buccaneers committed six penalties — three by the offensive line — including a killer offensive holding call against second-year left tackle Brandon Walton during Tom Brady’s 18-yard scramble on third down with Tampa Bay trailing 14-6 late in the third quarter.

That’s not even mentioning the final penalty against the Buccaneers, a delay of game call on a two-point conversion that pushed Tampa Bay from the 2-yard-line to the 7-yard-line. The Buccaneers would go on to fail the conversion on an incomplete pass to Russell Gage.

“It was just bad execution,” said Brady following the game. “That’s really what it is. Bad execution at a time on offense when we needed good execution and we didn’t get it. There were a lot of other times where we had a lot of other bad execution. I think the reality is, when you do that you don’t have the opportunity to score points.

Brady converted on his first 12 pass attempts of the game and the Buccaneers still only scored just three points through the end of the first half.

The Buccaneers also faltered on third down, going 2-for-11 in the process. For the season, Tampa Bay is just 12-of-42 (28.6%) on third-down conversions. During the 2021 season, the Buccaneers converted on 44.8% of their money downs, ranking fifth in the league.

“There were too many plays where we were behind the sticks and not good on third down, and penalties, turnovers, missed opportunities,” Brady said. “The defense played great; we’ve got to play a lot better on offense.”

There were too many plays where we were behind the sticks and not good on third down, and penalties, turnovers, missed opportunities. The defense played great; we’ve got to play a lot better on offense.”

As stout and impressive as the defense has been over the first three weeks of the season — they’ve allowed just nine points per game, with two of the teams being NFC playoff squads from last season — it’s not going to cover up the flaws of the offense against the better teams in the NFL.

Again, this is early in the season. The Buccaneers have 14 more games to get this rectified. And considering Tampa Bay has largely operated without three of its top receivers in the lineup at the same time during the early portion of this season, maybe the Buccaneers’ offense will be fine after all.

But the shoddy offensive line play — Tampa Bay produced just a 59.4 pass-blocking grade during the first two games of the season (according to Pro Football Focus), 22nd in the NFL — is a cause for major concern moving forward.

The Buccaneers have plenty of time to get the offense going. But with an upcoming matchup versus the Kansas City Chiefs and the high-powered Los Angeles Rams coming into town in Week 9, Tampa Bay doesn’t have that much time.

If the Buccaneers want to give Brady a proper farewell in what is likely his final season, they have a lot of work to do.