Through nine weeks of the 2024 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' offense has produced the league's best third-down success rate, converting on a remarkable 52.53% of their attempts overall. Meanwhile, their next opponent, the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs have played extremely good defense in a variety of categories and are ranked 12th in defensive third-down rate (34.94%).
Clearly, that looks like a strength-on-strength matchup on which the outcome could go a long way in determining the winner on Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium. But there's a battle within that battle. In order to get the upper hand on third downs against Kansas City, the Buccaneers need to be in the right kind of third downs.
As Buccaneers Offensive Coordinator Liam Coen pointed out on Friday, the Chiefs have done a good job of putting their opponents into tough third down situations. Of the 83 third downs that Kansas City's defense has faced so far this season, only 22 have need three or fewer yards to be converted. Opponents are 12 of 22 on those plays, for a conversion rate of 54.5%. On all other third downs, opponents are 17 of 61, or 27.9%. The Chiefs have forced opposing offenses into third downs of 10 or more yards 23 times, which is a rather large percentage of the 83 attempts overall. Only three of those have been converted.
"So that is a huge factor in what we're trying to obviously get accomplished and trying to be more efficient on your first and second downs, not living in those negative-yard runs, which we were living in a little bit more early in the year, which were putting us behind the chains and creating harder third down distances to go," said Coen. "This week more than ever, it's going to have to be a huge factor of trying to stay ahead of the chains and stay in manageable third-down situations, because they've been pretty salty so far."
It's obvious that NFL offenses should, in general, have better conversion rates on shorter third downs, and the Buccaneers' rate of 64.3% on those needing three or fewer yards is the eighth best in the NFL. But Coen doesn't necessarily mean every first and second down has to be a three or four-yard gain in order to get into a manageable third down situation. It's notable that the Buccaneers have been even better on third-down conversions needing four to six yards than from one to three; Tampa Bay leads the NFL with a sparkling 76.0% success rate in that range.
"I mean, I'd love to be able to stay under seven, eight [yards] or in that world if you can," said Coen. "You don't want to be in too many 10-pluses, but as much as you can stay in that third-and-one to about seven to eight, you feel a little bit better about your percentages of being able to throw and catch, giving them a couple different options to throw to. Then, obviously, [Baker Mayfield] being able to use his legs when he needs to."
A complicating factor in this effort is the record-setting decibel levels that the Arrowhead crowd is often capable of achieving. Any presnap penalties on the Bucs' offense are likely to severely limit their ability to get into manageable third downs. The Buccaneers have already logged wins this season in such extremely loud venues as Detroit and New Orleans, but they know they are in for another challenge on Monday night.
"Obviously, the run game is going to be huge, because it's going to be a loud environment, we're not going to want to be in third-and-long in Arrowhead with them screaming," said tackle Tristan Wirfs. "[We're] doing our best to stay in front of the chain. Staying out of third-and-long is going to be big so being efficient on first and second down, I think that's going to be huge for us."
