The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' offense in 2023 was very good on third downs. In Baker Mayfield's first season as the team's starting quarterback, the Buccaneers' passing attack ranked ninth in success rate (43.7%), seventh in total Expected Points Added, or EPA (17.7) and 10th in passer rating (97.7). That allowed the offense to succeed in most games despite much lower rankings in those categories on first down, but that is a difficult form of success to sustain.
Mayfield and the Buccaneers will try to take the offense to another level in 2024, and that's quite possible if it can perform better on first downs. And the key to doing that is running the ball better. Tampa Bay's passing numbers on first downs were a little lower than on third downs – counterintuitively – but its rushing numbers on first downs were last in the league in both success rate (24.2%) and yards per carry (3.2) and 28th in total EPA (-47.7).
New Offensive Coordinator Liam Coen made it his top priority to get the Bucs' ground game back in gear after two straight 32nd-place finishes in the league rankings, and the results during the preseason were encouraging. Coen has expanded the scope of the types of running plays the Bucs are prepared to employ and will also be giving Mayfield more power in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage to get into more favorable looks. In addition, the Buccaneers think they have strengthened their interior offensive line significantly, starting with the use of a first-round draft pick on center Graham Barton. Veteran addition Ben Bredeson is the new starter in the left guard spot and second-year player Cody Mauch, the right guard, used the offseason to add some needed size and strength.
Mayfield only directed one drive during the preseason, a 70-yard touchdown march against Miami that included Rachaad White runs of four, five, three and four yards. Since that three-yard run came on third-and-one, that meant White had a success rate of 100% on the drive. Mayfield had a front-row seat for the rest of the preseason and has seen how the run game operates in practice, and he believes it will be much improved in 2024.
"I'm extremely confident – extremely confident in the guys we have doing it, but obviously the new schemes [too], just the new stuff that they brought in," he said. "I think Coach [Kevin] Carberry has done a great job of detailing all that work up for them, and Brian Picucci in that room also is hoping those guys out. And then Liam just brings that focus to it. He demands excellence on the tracks and everything that the backs are doing, too. He's extremely critical on their footwork and whatnot, but that's what it takes to be a great running team. So it's been good to see that it's transferred not just to the first group when we're out there but the second and third groups are really translating it from the practice field to the game field. So for us, [there's] a lot of confidence and I'm expecting that, and I know the guys are too."
Mayfield set career highs in his first Bucs season with 4,044 passing yards and 28 touchdown passes. The Bucs not only have all their prominent pass-catchers from last season back in the fold but they added wide receivers Jalen McMillan and Kam Johnson during and immediately after the draft, and both were very impressive in training camp. If they can contribute alongside Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Cade Otton, and if the interior offensive line really is significantly better, there's no reason to expect a decline in the Bucs' passing results. However, there could be reason to expect improvement if the ground game is in fact more efficient and effective.
"Every time the ground game's working, most of the time it means you've got guys running open," said Mayfield. "[It's] more free in the play-action because the safeties or somebody are biting on the play-action fake if we're more efficient on early downs. But with our guys that we have I expect to be efficient no matter what, no matter what are ground game looks like. We've got three studs [at receiver] that we expect to go out there and start, and then the guys that are going to come in, there's not really a dropoff. So I expect us to be extremely efficient as a whole offense."
