Bucs Have to Win First Down

One area that has been an issue for the Bucs on both sides of the ball has been winning on first down. Bucs have to do a better job of being more efficient on first down to set them up in more favorable situations. If you are winning first down on both sides of the ball, your team is going to be successful most of the time. The Bucs defense has been winning first down at times but it needs to be more consistent so they can get opposing offenses into third down situations so this can happen more.

William Gholston is really improving with every game. He is a monster against the run but shows he can also get the edge here. pic.twitter.com/OeP0oBJJbX

— realbucstalk (@realbucstalk) October 4, 2016

This play was on second down but it allowed the defense to play in 3rd and long which allows the front four get after the qb and they almost got another sack on that following play. So forcing more passing situations will help the defense but they have to do better on first and second down. However, this post is more about the offense as they have been very ineffective on first down, and it must improve or else the offense will continue their inconsistent ways. Here is coach Koetter on the lack of production on first down via buccaneers.com.

“We talk about efficient plays, efficient plays on first down that’ll be four yards or more. When we say, ‘Staying ahead of the chains,’ we did a horrible job and I think somebody in here asked me, on the one good drive that we had, we had a lot of second-and-nines, but we did well on second-and-long. But the longer the down and distance, the more your percentages go down, if you’re playing percentage football. Whether we were running it or we were throwing it, we were not good enough on first down. We call those ‘run downs,’ first-and-10s and second-and-one-to-six and we’ve got to be more efficient.” 

It's all about execution and guys right now are not doing their job good enough and that's got to change this Monday. Short passing and variation of runs needs to come alive again in this offense as it something that is missing right now. Former Bucs head coach Jon Gruden used to use the short passing game very well as an extension of the running game which is something the Bucs need to get going. Runs of 3 to 4 yards needs to be more consistent, but passes of 4 to 6 yards needs to be more regular as well. Overall, the Bucs have to start winning first down if they want to start winning games.

Winning Teams Win at Home

In the past, I have compared Dirk Koetter to former Bucs coach Jon Gruden in terms of their aggressive nature, talking about juice,  and their overall passion for football. One thing that Koetter needs to do if he wants to win like Gruden did is win games at Raymond James Stadium. During his winning seasons, Gruden averaged 6 wins during those seasons and always made sure his teams knew the importance of playing well at home. Coach Koetter needs to do the same as this team needs to make Ray-Jay a winning stadium once again.

Over the last seven years, the Bucs have been putrid at home as they only have 17 wins combined, and is one of the reasons they have had only one winning season(2010) out of those seven years. Even during that 2010 season, the Bucs only won 4 games at home and if they could have won one more at home they probably make the playoffs that year. Dirk Koetter needs to start a winning streak at home beginning this Sunday vs the Rams. Koetter said today it needs to be a tough place to play for opposing teams like it used to be via Scott Smith.

HC Dirk Koetter says it's very important that the Bucs make Raymond James Stadium a tough place to play. Streak has to start with one win.

— Scott Smith (@ScottSBucs) September 22, 2016

As a Bucs fan who has been to tons of Bucs home games and has seen the stadium rocking before, it would be nice to see the team get that home dominance back. So why not this season, winning teams win at home, Bucs have to do it if they want to be an winning team.

How Important Is The Running Game?

Looking back at last years season we can take away a couple things, the defense was terrible and the bucs would win games when they would run the ball. Tampa was almost forced to run the ball because they had a rookie at QB but if you look at the game stats a lot can be seen.

Doug Martin rushed the ball 20 times in 6 games last year and the bucs won 5 of those games. Many will say we fell behind so fast so we had to pass the ball and abandon the run but I disagree. The best way to control a game is by controlling the clock. If you can chew time off the clock by running the ball that means less possessions for high powered offenses like the Saints, Falcons and Panthers. By abandoning the run so early and having 3 straight incompletions and punting the ball back to the opposition leads to more chances to get pummeled.

Koetter is a smart offensive mind and I'm sure he noticed the same thing. Martin was paid handsomely this offseason and deserves the 20+ carries a game. The offense will only run more efficiently with a strong running game as defenders will play in and give away the big gainer over the top. Let's take the old ball coaches advice (Gruden) and pound that rock!

Dirk Koetter Could Be an Better Version of Gruden

When the Buccaneers acquired Jon Gruden back in 2002 to be their new head coach, I was positive that he was going to lead us to multiple Super Bowls. Gruden didn't disappoint in year 1 as him and Gm Rich Mckay went out and acquire the necessary pieces on offense to put the team over the top leading to a Super Bowl win in his first year. However, things went downhill after that season as poor drafting and bad contracts on washed up free agents led the team into salary cap hell along with a lot of poor position depth throughout the roster. Ultimately it was Gruden's failure not drafting and developing a Qb, or not staying true to his word with players on the team plus the fact that he never had a true football guy as his Gm. Gruden still did great things for this franchise and is the winningest coach in team history for a reason.

Now fast forward to present time with new head coach Dirk Koetter who I think has the chance to be a better version of Gruden, and could finally be the guy this team has been searching for since Gruden left. Now Koetter is more experienced than Gruden was, and has been very successful as an offensive coordinator during his time in the league, but if you look closely both are very similar in a way. Koetter is very big on details, precise execution, and playing with tempo or as Gruden would call it "Juice", so in that way Gruden and Koetter are very alike. Now Koetter has some advantages that Gruden didn't have during his tenure, with that being a franchised Qb in Jameis Winston, and a great football mind Gm in Jason Licht. Now Koetter is great communicator and is great with Qb's which was Gruden's biggest issue, and which is why I believe Koetter could be the ultimate package when it comes to head coaches.

Not saying Koetter is perfect as he has a tendency to over think with his play calling as he did at times last year. There will be a learning curve for him, but I truly believe he could be the offensive aggressive type coach that provides leadership and balance that we were hoping to get with Gruden. Now I could be dead wrong about Koetter and could end up being terrible, but when he was hired I just felt it was a great decision. Unlike the past hires which none of them got me excited for the upcoming season, but with Koetter it just feels different, that we might finally have the right guy in place. Winning seasons are on the way, Bucs fans!

X-Factor?

When was the last time the Bucs had a player that could make you miss in space? Was it way back when Warrick Dunn was here. Thats way too long! Now it looks like they have that type of guy in Charles Sims. Sims had an injury plagued rookie season but really showed up in year 2. He is the definition of "Juice" as Jon Gruden used to say.

Standing 6 foot 215 Sims has the wiggle to make you whiff. Serving as backup to Pro Bowler Doug Martin, he still put up quite a stat line, racking up 529 yards rushing and 51 receptions for 561 yards and 4 touchdowns. Thats called getting your hands on the ball a lot. Sims may turn into the x-factor the Bucs have always needed and provide a miss match for any linebacker in the NFL. Here's a little taste of what Sims is capable of.