Buccaneers must be more disciplined on offense in 2025

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had an electric offense — but it could have been better if they didn't stop themselves.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles looks on before a game against the Carolina Panthers. | Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers played an electric brand of offense last year under offensive coordinator Liam Coen, fielding a top-five unit that saw quarterback Baker Mayfield throw 41 touchdowns and running back Bucky Irving break the 1,000-yard barrier in Tampa Bay for the first time since 2016. The offense was so powerful, in fact, that one of the only things that could stop it was itself.

Head coach Todd Bowles has always stressed fundamental football and discipline while in charge of Tampa Bay — the "little things", as he sometimes refers to it — and the Bucs' offense didn't do the best job of taking care of that during the season. NFL analyst Warren Sharp recently made a post on social media on every NFL team's offensive penalty yards from last year, and the Bucs didn't come out looking great.

Per Sharp, the Bucs had 466 total offensive penalty yards in 2024. That's the eighth-worst number in the NFL, but somehow, the third best in the NFC South — both the Atlanta Falcons (490) and the New Orleans Saints (495) had more.

total offensive penalty yards last year:

542 - CLE
517 - SEA
495 - NO
490 - ATL
485 - BUF
484 - NE
477 - DAL
466 - TB
465 - MIA
459 - BAL
455 - CHI
454 - NYG
447 - TEN
438 - PIT
427 - ARI
421 - MIN
419 - GB
416 - HOU
394 - SF
393 - NYJ
375 - WAS
375 - DET
369 - KC
355 - CAR
349…

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) June 26, 2025

Interestingly enough, Tampa Bay did decent in total penalty yards with 904. That's the 21st-most in the NFL, so it just goes to show the disparity between the defense and offense when it came to penalty yards. There could be a number of reasons for this — the Bucs had a rookie center in Graham Barton and the team was learning a new offense, so it's possible that penalties were on the rise in 2024.

Bowles probably hopes that won't be the case this year, however. The Bucs will have a new offensive coordinator in Josh Grizzard, but the terminology will be the same, so there will be continuity among the offense. That, combined with Barton entering his second year with more experience in the NFL, could see these sorts of problems cleaned up when 2025 rolls around.

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