The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 21-16, in Munich on Sunday, and they did it with an offense that generated three touchdown drives of 80-plus yards, as many as they’ve had in any game since at least 2000.
The Buccaneers were able to sustain drives because they converted 10 of their 15 third downs for a season-high success rate of 66.7%. And they were able to make all those conversions because they used a balanced attack to create short third downs. The Bucs faced seven third downs that need three or fewer yards to be converted, and were successful on all seven. Tampa Bay started the afternoon with third-down failures on their first two drives, needing 10 and 14 yards respectively. After that, they were 10 for 13, and that included two kneel-downs to end the two halves. In other words, after the first two drives, the Bucs converted 10 of the 11 third downs they were trying to convert.
Tom Brady was noticeably sharp, as he has been throughout his career in games played abroad, throwing for 258 yards, two touchdowns and one interception on 22-of-29 passing. On the nine occasions he was asked to pass on third down, he moved the chains six times; that success rate of 66.7% was his best of the season.
NFL Next Gen Stats offers a clue as why Brady was able to have so much success against the Seahawks, even on obvious passing downs: He had time to throw. Brady was hit just one time in the game and, according to NGS, had an average Time to Throw (TTT) of 2.78 seconds. That was by far the longest time that Brady has taken to get rid of the ball on average in a game this season. He had time to let plays develop and get the ball downfield, as he completed passes of 20-plus yards to four different players – Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Cade Otton and Chris Godwin. Brady even had more than four seconds to throw on 6.9% of his passes, the Bucs’ highest percentage of the year. The previous high was 4.5%.
That downfield passing shows up in Brady’s average air yards per attempt, as provided by NGS. That mark was 8.8, his second-highest in a game after a 10.7-yard average in the team’s Week One win at Dallas. Notably, the Dallas and Seattle games are the only ones in which the Buccaneers have had any kind of notable rushing success. They ran for 152 yards in Dallas and 161 yards in Munich. They average 4.6 yards per carry against the Cowboys and, if one removes Tom Brady’s six kneel-downs to end the two halves, averaged 4.3 yards per carry against the…
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