One of the crucial fascinating developments of this season for the Bucs has been their burgeoning area of interest personnel bundle of two working backs and one tight finish. This “Pony bundle,” or 21 personnel, as it’s extra generally referred to, has been one of the vital explosive and environment friendly offenses in all the NFL.
I’ve loved documenting the evolution of this bundle all through this season. And this previous week Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen introduced new wrinkles to additional degree up this revolutionary portion of his offense.
Bucs Pony Bundle – Effectivity And Explosiveness
Bucs RB Rachaad White – Photograph by: USA Right this moment
Liam Coen known as for the Pony bundle six occasions on Sunday. The Bucs offense put up 83 yards on these performs. That’s 13.8 yards per play.
That they had a 100% success price and a 17% explosive price in 21 personnel whereas producing a brand new first down half the time. The Bucs’ epa/play on this grouping was an unbelievable 0.92! That’s 4.5 occasions extra environment friendly than the Buffalo Payments, who’re the perfect offense within the NFL proper now.
Their lowest yardage complete of the six performs was 5. Three of the performs went for 10 yards or extra, together with a 34-yard run that finally led to the Bucs placing the sport out of hand.
That run, a Sean Tucker run to the Raiders’ 3-yard line that arrange a landing on the following play, was a counter run. Counter is the commonest name that Coen goes to with two backs on the sphere. Of the 54 performs they’ve run in Pony this yr, 14 have been a counter run. That represents 47% of their 30 run performs and simply over 1 / 4 of their complete calls. And true to this tendency, Coen known as counter on three of the six calls on Sunday.
Setting Up Sean Tucker’s Run
Bucs RB Sean Tucker – Photograph by: Cliff Welch/PR
The Sean Tucker run was a counter run with left sort out Tristan Wirfs and heart Graham Barton wrapping to the suitable facet. Graham Barton sealed center linebacker Robert Spillane and Wirfs was capable of lead Tucker to the third degree as he barreled down on a security on the third degree. However that play was arrange two quarters earlier when the Bucs ran a guard-tackle counter with Wirfs and proper guard Ben Bredeson pulling.
On the earlier run, Wirfs was slowed on his wrap as a result of tight finish Cade Otton peeled off of his double crew to climb to Spillane. Otton did so as a result of proper sort out Luke Goedeke didn’t want the assistance, and Otton was looking for work. However, it threw off the timing of the play and finally slowed Tucker down for merely a 9-yard achieve. Moreover, Raiders defensive finish Maxx Crosby almost chased Tucker down from behind for a loss due to the double pull from Wirfs and Ben Bredeson gave Crosby sufficient room to circulation to the play.
So, on the fourth quarter run, Coen made small changes to his counter name to account for what the Raiders had been doing. As an alternative of pulling each finish males on the offensive line he stored Bredeson on a down block to condense the out there house for Crosby to make use of to chase. He additionally adjusted his name to ask Otton to base block the Raiders’ play facet edge defender and have Goedeke solo block the defensive finish.
This freed up Barton to merely need to verify Otton to verify he sealed the sting, which Otton did properly. That meant Barton may proceed to wrap to Spillane and gave Wirfs the chance to climb to not the second, however the third degree with Tucker in tow.
Small changes equal massive beneficial properties for Coen and firm.
Creativity Leads To A Huge Run By Baker Mayfield
Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photograph by: Cliff Welch/PR
At this level Liam Coen has gone full mad wizard. Absolutely the most depraved play that he broke out from this distinctive grouping resulted in one of the vital reasonable beneficial properties – simply seven yards. However the design was close to unstoppable on account of simply what number of choices it afforded the offense. To steer off the second quarter, Coen broke out a triple possibility RPO with one of many latest developments in soccer in-built.
Out of an offset pistol formation the Bucs ran a run-pass possibility with Bucky Irving from the pistol as the primary name on an inside zone run. Quarterback Baker Mayfield opted to maintain the ball seeking to discover a throw on a three-level flood idea to his proper. The swing flat possibility in that idea was Rachaad White behind tight finish Payne Durham on an escort movement designed to provide White a display screen blocker to spring him for an enormous yards-after-catch achieve.
To the credit score of the Raiders, they foiled the escort movement by widening their edge rusher into the flat and coated up the remainder of the flood properly.
It ought to have blown the play, proper?
Nicely, we’ve solely coated two thirds of the triple possibility!
The ultimate tag on the play was a quarterback possibility for Mayfield to name his personal quantity as he rolled away from the pocket in the direction of the escort. If it was coated up, because it was, he may simply simply run the ball into the void created by the flood. And Baker did simply that for yet one more profitable play.
Take a look at the BUCS ALL-22 BREAKDOWN video within the Bucs Movie Room on our PewterReport TV YouTube Channel right here for this positively bananas play.
