Buccaneers' No-Huddle Offense May Be the Solution Toward Injury Woes
Tampa Bay dealt with numerous injuries to key players all year long, but things came to a head Sunday when All-Pro right tackle Tristan Wirfs suffered a game-ending ankle sprain.
As it currently stands, the Bucs do not know if they'll be with or without their stud right tackle when they face off against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon. To make matters worse, Tampa Bay probably won't have a concrete idea as to whether or not Wirfs plays until Friday.
And to make matters even more worse, the Bucs might be without their backup swing tackle in Josh Wells, too. The Bucs won't know what's going on with Wells in a realistic sense until probably Friday, as well.
"We’ll have to wait and see on that one [Wells] too," Bruce Arians told reporters Monday. "He had a pretty good quad problem, and we’ll just have to wait and see.”
If neither player is available, then the Bucs will likely start Alex Cappa at right tackle and Aaron Stinnie at guard. Cappa played tackle all throughout college and Stinnie is considered to be valuable depth after last year's playoff run, so it's not like the Bucs are fitting square pegs into round holes, here.
But at the same time, you can't replace All-Pro talent and skill. It's also a tall task to expect Cappa -who's played right guard all four years of his NFL career- to be anything more than average when it comes to playing a new position.
Help may be on the way, however. It's not in the form of a body or a player, though.
I mean, it's not like Forrest Gregg is going to be walking through the door anytime soon.
The kind of help I'm referring to is an alteration in offensive strategy - one that the Bucs have actually used a bit this year, already, and have had strong success when doing so.
But instead of using it as a change-of-pace, the current circumstances may call for it to become the norm.
And that's the no-huddle offense.
Going no-huddle would help the Bucs when it comes to forcing the defense into static looks and forcing defenders (primarily the defensive line) to tire themselves out. And per Arians, it helps get the Bucs into an offensive rhythm, as well.
Per Sports Info Solutions, the Bucs went no-huddle on 14 of Tom Brady's 41 dropbacks against the Eagles (34%). He completed 11 passes for 95 yards and was pressured just once. Excluding the Rams-Cardinals game, he's third among all Wild Card quarterbacks in ANY/A and the only reason Derek Carr is ahead of him is because Carr participated in just four no-huddle dropbacks against the Bengals. Ben Roethlisberger led Saturday and Sunday quarterbacks with 7.2 ANY/A on 23 no-huddle attempts.
Brady also had an extremely efficient mark of 0.28 EPA/attempt out of no-huddle. Carr finished with another playoff-high and insane mark of 0.70 EPA/attempt, but again, that's because he didn't have as near enough volume as Brady. Brady's 57.1% positive play rate led all weekend quarterbacks, as well.
"When you look back and do the self-scout, that’s when we’ve been at our best this year," Arians said in regard to the Bucs offense going no-huddle. "So why not do it more?”
Based off the numbers, Arians is correct. Take a look at Tom Brady's stats when the Bucs decide to huddle against when they decide to use a no-huddle approach:
| Statistical Categories | When Using Huddle (min. 204 attempts) | Rank (out of 32) | When Using No-Huddle (min. 28 attempts) | Rank (out of 32) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Attempts | 615 | 3rd | 104 | 4th |
Completion % | 67.2% | 11th | 69.2% | 8th |
EPA/attempt | 0.09 | 8th | 0.22 | 4th |
Positive Play % | 48.4% | 6th | 58.1 | 2nd |
ANY/A | 7.3 | t-3rd | 7.9 | 7th |
Pressure Rate | 21.6% | 32nd | 11.1% | 32nd |
Sack % | 3.3% | 5th | 0.9% | 6th |
Touchdowns | 40 | 1st | 3 | t-4th |
Interceptions | 11 | t-15th | 1 | t-7th |
Yards Per Game | 264.9 | 4th | 54.1 | 7th |
Total Air Yards | 2,192 | 5th | 463 | 4th |
All of those numbers look great, but the key numbers are the pressure and sack rates, which see some pretty dramatic drops when it comes to the two strategies. This will come in handy against the Rams, who are coming off a two-sack performance against the Cardinals and had 50.0 sacks to go along with the seventh-best adjusted sack rate and sixth-highest pressure rate during the regular season.
The receivers have benefitted when the Bucs go no-huddle, as well:
| Statistical Categories | When Using Huddle | Rank (out of 32) | When Using No-Huddle | Rank (out of 32) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Routes Ran | 2,820 | 4th | 496 | 4th |
Yards Per Route Run | 1.6 | t-7th | 1.6 | 6th |
EPA/target | 0.18 | t-6th | 0.25 | t-8th |
Positive Play % | 51.4% | 12th | 59.8% | 5th |
Yards Per Game | 268.9 | 3rd | 58.0 | 4th |
ADoC | 5.3 | t-20th | 6.4 | 12th |
Even the running game benefits from the Bucs' no-huddle experience:
| Statistical Categories | When Using Huddle | Rank (out of 32) | When Using No-Huddle | Rank (out of 32) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Attempts | 358 | 30th | 27 | 15th |
EPA/attempt | 0.00 | t-6th | 0.16 | 10th |
Positive Play % | 42.7% | 12th | 66.7% | t-1st |
Yards/attempt | 4.3 | t-15th | 4.8 | t-8th |
Yards Per Game | 90.6 | 26th | 16.3 | 7th |
First Down % | 26.0% | 10th | 51.9% | 4th |
As it turns out, the Rams defense is still pretty good when teams decide to go no-huddle against them. But, Tampa Bay can have success if it picks and chooses its spots correctly:
| Statistical Categories | When Facing Huddle | Rank (out of 32) | When Facing No-Huddle | Rank (out of 32) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Attempts | 508 | 11th | 115 | 1st |
Completion % | 67.1% | 26th | 65.2% | 18th |
EPA/play | -0.04 | t-14th | 0.04 | t-15th |
Positive Play % | 46.5% | 22nd | 50.0% | t-18th |
Passing Touchdowns Allowed | 14 | 31st | 3 | t-23rd |
Interceptions | 16 | t-5th | 3 | t-2nd |
Yards Per Game Allowed | 213.2 | 19th | 55.7 | 3rd |
Pressure Rate | 45.3% | 5th | 38.4% | 7th |
Sack % | 24.9% | 4th | 5.4% | t-9th |
When it comes to the Rams run defense, it's actually much more stout when opposing offenses decide to hand the ball off out of no-huddle, however:
| Statistical Categories | When Facing Huddle | Rank (out of 32) | When Facing No-Huddle | Rank (out of 32) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Attempts Against | 389 | 21st | 54 | 2nd |
EPA/attempt | -0.03 | t-19th | -0.29 | 2nd |
Positive Play % | 42.4% | 22nd | 31.5% | 4th |
Yards/attempt | 4.1 | 8th | 2.9 | 3rd |
Yards Per Game | 93.9 | t-6th | 12.1 | 13th |
First Down % | 25.4% | t-21st | 24.1% | 8th |
Touchdowns Allowed | 17 | t-8th | 1 | t-9th |
The main takeaway from all of the numbers is the pressure rate and the sack rate. Both numbers drop dramatically when teams go no-huddle against the Rams pass defense both numbers increase in the Bucs' favor when their offense goes no-huddle. The key to this game will be keeping Brady upright for as much as possible, so based off the numbers, it seems like deploying more no-huddle tactics is the best way to avoid Brady eating turf.
For instance, per SIS, NFL quarterbacks were pressured on 27% of no-huddle dropbacks compared to 33% of dropbacks produced out of a huddle during Super Wild Card Weekend.
Deciding to huddle up versus running a no-huddle offense can be installed ahead of Sunday's game, but it's usually an in-game decision that's based off how effectively the offense is producing (or not producing), what type of defense the Bucs are playing, etc., which makes sense.
Based off this matchup coming in, it looks like it's a safe bet that the Bucs will be deploying their no-huddle ways this weekend against the Rams. Bumping up the percentage would give the offense a better chance to produce and it would also help help curtail the Rams' pass rush and their ability to disguise pressure on a more-often-than-not basis.
"We’ll have to wait and see," Arians said in regard to running more no-huddle if Wirfs and Wells can't play. "If they’re both out, it will be a different type of gameplan that’s for sure. There are two tremendous outside pass rushers that we’re going to be facing on either team. We’ll just have to gameplan for them.”
It will be interesting to see what the Bucs do this weekend. The hope is that either Wirfs and/or Wells can go. That would be huge because it would mean that making adjustments would be less necessary and the Bucs can just go out and play their game.
But it just so happens to be that the no-huddle offense is a part of their game.
And a good one, at that.
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