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10 points was all the offense could muster up. Yet, those 10 points were all that it needed to secure a win for this particular game. It was an ugly game for the offense as it was the first time in six games that the offense has failed to generate total rushing offense over 100 yards. The defense kept the offense in the game long enough for the offense to have a come from behind, game winning scoring drive.
Dallas' Basic stats before the game
Defensive Passing: 10th (240 yards/game)
Defensive Rushing: 18th (111 yards/game)
Points Against: 21th (25.5 ppg)
Tampa Bay's Basic stats before the game
Offensive Passing: 25rd (225 yards/game)
Offensive Rushing: 7th (131 yards/game)
Points For: 18th (22.6 ppg)
Here is what transpired in the game for the offense:
| TB Offense vs Dallas Defense | ||||||
| Tampa Bay | Dallas | TB - Opp Differential | Differential % | |||
| Offense | Defense | |||||
| Game Stat | Pre-Game Stat | |||||
| Passing yds | 246 | 240 | 6 | 102.5% | ||
| Rushing yds | 84 | 111 | -27 | 75.7% | ||
| Points | 10.0 | 25.5 | -15.5 | 39.2% | ||
Looking at those stats from the chart and one would believe that this game should go down as a loss. A great many thanks for the defense showing up.
| TB Offense vs Dallas Defense | |||||||||||||
| Qtr | Drive | Plays | Yards | Result | RZ | Pts | 40 + yard Drives | 50 + yard Drives | 60 + yard Drives | 70 + Yard Drives | 80 + Yard Drives | Totals | |
| 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Punt | 0 | ||||||||
| 2 | 9 | 46 | FG | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 3 | 6 | 52 | Missed FG | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| 4 | 7 | 36 | INT | 0 | |||||||||
| 5 | 5 | 21 | End Half | 0 | |||||||||
| 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | Punt | 0 | ||||||||
| 7 | 8 | 34 | Punt | 0 | |||||||||
| 8 | 9 | 49 | Punt | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| 9 | 8 | 69 | INT | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| 10 | 10 | 56 | TD | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 11 | 1 | -1 | End Game | 0 | |||||||||
| Total | 11 | 69 | 365 | 1 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | ||
Although the team managed to put up only 10 points, the offense was still able to move the ball as shown by the long drives charts of 40 yards or more. Also, the offense was perfect in the Red Zone, going 1 for 1 when it counted most. There were three missed opportunities for the offense to score points adjacent to the Red Zone: Drive 3, Drive 4, and Drive 9.
Drive 3: Missed FG. Drive ended at: Dallas 28 yard line.
Kicker Connor Barth missed a 46 yard field goal, but what you do not see in the plain stats is that there was a penalty called on the offense near the end of the drive. On 2nd and 7 from the Dallas 29 yard line, LT Smith was called for a false start. That penalty cost the Bucs five yards to make it 2nd and 12 from the Dallas 34 yard line. That little penalty did a lot of harm on that drive despite Barth missing the FG attempt.
Drive 4: Interception. Drive ended at: Dallas 26 yard line.
It was 1st and 10 at the Dallas 26 yard line. Two incompletion passes later lead to the interception on third down.
Drive 9: Interception. Drive ended at: Dallas 23 yard line.
It was 2nd and 7 at the Dallas 23 yard line when the interception occurred.
After four consecutive games of being interception free for QB Jameis Winston, he gave up two for this game. To be fair, Winston was inaccurate for this game. Yet, the run game was also inconsistent.
| 2015 Bucs Rushing Stats (after 9 games) | |||||||||
| Without Longest Run | |||||||||
| Game | Team | Pass | Rush | Scoring | Long | w/o Long | Rush att | Yds/A | |
| 1 | Ten | 181 | 92 | 14 | 14 | 78 | 25 | 3.12 | |
| 2 | NO | 194 | 139 | 26 | 20 | 119 | 34 | 3.50 | |
| 3 | Hou | 261 | 57 | 9 | 17 | 40 | 19 | 2.11 | |
| 4 | Car | 270 | 141 | 23 | 26 | 115 | 29 | 3.97 | |
| 5 | Jax | 186 | 183 | 38 | 39 | 144 | 39 | 3.69 | |
| 6 | Wash | 289 | 190 | 30 | 49 | 141 | 29 | 4.86 | |
| 7 | Atl | 173 | 117 | 23 | 18 | 99 | 31 | 3.19 | |
| 8 | NYG | 247 | 136 | 18 | 59 | 77 | 22 | 3.50 | |
| 9 | Dal | 246 | 84 | 10 | 18 | 66 | 25 | 2.64 | |
I collected the rushing stats for the season. Then I removed the longest run in each game to try to achieve a more conservative total rush game, which is the "w/o Long" column. There is a negative trend in the rushing department, and it looks worse for the past two games as it is nowhere near the century mark. n this Dallas game, the running game overall gave a lack of support for Winston, to where the offense had to rely more on Winston for the offense to move. There were 39 pass attempts to 26 rush attempts.
If the team wants Winston to have a clean sheet in the interception stat, then it must do a better job protecting Winston by having a more effective running game. Winston has the will and heart to want to win every game, but he does not possess the mechanics to consistently support that eagerness.
Conclusion
Despite the lack of scoring and run game, the offense still moved the ball. That is a very positive note. During the week, OC Dirk Koetter mentioned from his Wednesday press conference that he will be looking at addressing the run blocking deficiency. Yet, I am worried about this offense. For the past two games the Bucs offense has put up a total of 28 points, for an average of 14 points per game. This is not a good trend. Maybe it is time for RT Dotson to make a return to the lineup and hope RG Marpet is healthy enough to start as well to help the run game return into an effective force, which will enable Winston to not be the man and avoid turnovers.
If it were not for the Herculean defensive effort, then this game would have been a massive loss. We should not be happy with the offensive production for these past two weeks.