By the numbers: Bucs vs Jets

Final Score:  Bucs 17, Jets 18

Offensive Scoring Drives:  Bucs 3, Jets 5.  (Stats collected from ESPN.com)

Just looking at the Bucs’ scoring drive, there technically were only two scoring drives as the defense set up the offense with a first and goal from the five yard line.  That means the rest of the drives never got within striking distance of attempting a field goal.  There are two conclusions to be had here: 1) The Bucs’ offense is terrible or 2) The Jets’ defense is very good.

The defense did well in only allowing field goals, except for the last attempt, of course.  Also, the only touchdown the defense gave up had the Jets staring off in the Bucs’ side of the field after an interception.  But something in the back of my head has me wondering if the Bucs’ defense is really as good as we think it is considering the Jets were still able to score.  I have an answer for that, or actually, Sander Philipse has an answer for that here:  Bad Penalties.

Teamrankings.com collected the league’s stats on the number of plays for each team.  Click here for the link.  They do not count kneel downs as a play because they had the Bucs at 59 plays and ESPN had them at 60.  The average of plays for the first week of the NFL season was about 65 plays (65.03125 to be more precise if one is looking for accuracy).  As you can tell, the Bucs are below the average and the Jets are well above that average.

To continue the thought of league averages, the league average for scoring in the first week of the NFL was about 23 points (or 23.1875).  So both teams were kept below that average.  Defensively speaking, both teams should be satisfied with that effort of low scoring, but the Bucs’ penalties are disastrous.  Offensively, the Jets have an excuse for scoring so low because they have a rookie quarterback at the helm; the Bucs’ biggest excuses are they were missing their Pro Bowl guard as well as its road paving blocking back.

Although this is simply one game, an obviously small sample size, it is a continuation of the same philosophy from last season.  I look at it as game 17, as opposed to game 1.  Let us go back to the present…

If we were too look at this as game 17, then this Buccaneers’ offense seems to not have recovered after one full off-season.  Listening to this Saints’ podcast, the Bucs’ are now lacking that third receiving option since they did not re-sign TE Dallas Clark.  The run game too has also suffered in game 17 with only 65 yards worth of hard work.  I am upset that after a whole off-season of reflection and personnel changes to see the offense is still as unpredictable as last season and continued the ineptness of the six game slide closing out last season.

During the offseason we lost our best sack artist in Michael Bennett, but it seems as though our QB pressure has improved.  It looks as though we have improved greatly by dropping the points allowed by almost a touchdown.  Actually, it should only be 16 points because the safety was committed by the offense.  Then it should be down by 8.6 points.  Is this considered success?  I am not sure because we were facing rookie quarterback in Geno Smith and a Jets’ offense in disarray because of it.  The next game against the Saints will definitely show how improved our defense, especially our secondary, is against a veteran QB with Drew Brees and a well oiled offense.