Bucs Report Card: How we graded Tampa Bay’s win over New Orleans in Week 4
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Week 4 matchup against the New Orleans Saints was a test for the team, and head coach Todd Bowles and his unit certainly studied.
The Bucs beat the Saints 26-9 in an absolute drubbing on Sunday, winning their first NFC South contest of the season before heading to their early bye week at 3-1. The win saw Tampa Bay rise to the top of the NFC South division and saw the Saints fall all the way down to third with a 2-2 record. While there were a few missteps here and there, this was overall a dominant game that deserves flowers on just about every side.
Here is how we graded Tampa Bay’s offense, defense, special teams and coaching:
Offense: A-
This is the first “A” grade we’ve given to the offense all year, and I think it’s well deserved.
The Bucs put up 26 points on offense, and the last three of that came off a field goal that could have feasibly been a touchdown if the team wasn’t simply trying to burn some clock. Quarterback Baker Mayfield had his best game as a Buccaneer with three passing touchdowns and 246 yards in the air with a 78% completion percentage. On top of that, Bucs wideout Chris Godwin caught eight passes for 114 yards, and he was one of three Bucs wideouts with 40 or more yards receiving.
Even the run game post game stats will deceive, as Tampa Bay was largely trying to burn clock at the end of the game and thus brought the average down. It was a good day on the ground for the Bucs, and it allowed the rest of the offense and its unique playcalling to breathe. All in all, the offense fired on all cylinders, and it took care of most of its chances to put the game out of reach for New Orleans.
The “minus” here is partly because of a rough Baker Mayfield pick that wasn’t too bad due to a defensive turnover the next play and for the staggering amount of penalties committed on both sides of the ball. From intentional grounding to false starts and holding, the Bucs racked up penalties of every kind and that won’t be acceptable.
Defense: A-
Those penalties are also the only reason that this grade gets a “minus”, because otherwise, it would be hard to have as good a day as the Bucs defense had on Sunday.
Tampa Bay held New Orleans under 200 yards across the entire game, and on top of that, it never gave up a play longer than 14 yards. The Saints offense was utterly stifled, and while their poor scheme was a big part of that, the Bucs defense didn’t make it easy — the team also had three turnovers on the day, wreaking havoc across the board. Any time the Saints did happen to reach the red zone, their efforts were deftly snuffed out and they were forced to kick.
Did Alvin Kamara have 4.6 yards per carry on the ground? Sure, but the team did a great job of recognizing that he was the only threat on the offense (more on that later).
Special Teams: C+
Chase McLaughlin did his part, as he always does, and he’s largely the reason this grade isn’t worse. The major gripe with special teams comes from the punt unit.
Punter Jake Camarda has done well during his opening tenure, but his explosive long kicks don’t have a lot of hang time on them. That doesn’t help out the punt team, which is already not well-schemed and lacking in explosiveness themselves. This cocktail is what allowed Saints punt return Rashid Shaheed to average 22.5 yards per return during punts, which is eventually going to lead to problems down the line. This is a big area that needs fixing if the Bucs want to secure that foothold on the NFC South.
Coaching: A-
So, the Saints offense is pretty bad. And so far, no one has been able to scheme to their exact weaknesses quite like head coach Todd Bowles did on Sunday.
New Orleans’ offense under Pete Carmichael is a measure of extremes — he likes to take deep shots and he likes to check down, so he doesn’t work the middle of the field as much as he should. Bowles made sure to drop two safeties deep for a good majority of the game and let his linebackers spy on the running backs, and that combo was able to both take away New Orleans’ deep shots and limit chunk yards from passes and screens in the flat that the team also frequently tried to employ. The result saw the Saints irreparably stifled, and a huge part of that was Bowles’ scheme and defensive prowess. Bowles has always been a top defensive mind in football, and he flexed on New Orleans in the best way on Sunday.
Offensive coordinator Dave Canales, on the other hand, used a varied and interesting playbook that showed excellent variety and scheming against a talented Saints defensive unit. Canales’ philosophy is still improving as he calls plays for the very first time in his career, but the results have been in before the bye week — he runs a fun, unique offense that schemes players open and can get the ball in the endzone. This unit has improved leaps and bounds from last year, and he’s almost certainly the biggest reason why.
