Pewter Report's Mark Cook offers his analysis on how the Buccaneers
offense played and dishes out his game grades for the offensive units in
Tampa Bay's 42-32 win at Oakland.

QUARTERBACK
Josh Freeman continued his growth and development with another solid outing in an extremely tough environment, winning another road game, the Buccaneers second in a row away from the friendly confines of home.

Freeman wasn’t perfect, losing a fumble on a sack, and also failing to get the ball into running back LeGarrette Blount’s breadbasket in the second half that resulted in a turnover, but overall the Bucs signal caller made several big plays through the course of Sunday’s 42-32 road victory.

In particular, Freeman’s touchdown passes were two of his better throws of the season. On the first, a 20-yarder to Vincent Jackson Freeman dropped it in over the cornerback in the back corner of the end zone where it was either going to be incomplete or a TD. On Freeman’s second TD No. 5 executed a beautiful play action fake that froze the secondary and made another throw just out of the reach of the defender and where only Mike Williams could get it.

For the game Freeman finished 18-of-30 for 247 yards with two touchdowns, no interceptions and a QB rating of 108.6.
GRADE = A

RUNNING BACKS
Doug Martin was the star of the game and maybe the entire day in the NFL, rushing for 251 yards on 25 carries and scoring four times. In the process of breaking James Wilder’s franchise record for most rushing yards in a game (219), Martin became the first running back in NFL history to have three touchdowns over 45 yards in one game.

Fullback Erik Lorig deserves part of the credit for Martin’s 251 yards as the former defensive lineman turned fullback had another impressive outing opening holes ing game.

LeGarrette Blount had five yards on two carries but lost a fumble in the second half that appeared to be on Freeman as opposed to Blount.
GRADE = A+

WIDE RECEIVERS
Tampa Bay’s receiving duo of Mike Williams and Vincent Jackson once again were impressive, and each were on the receiving end of Freeman TD passes.

Jackson was the offense of Tampa Bay’s first touchdown of the afternoon catching two passes for 84 yards with a long of 64.

Williams nabbed four Freeman tosses for 64 yards with a long of 37 and finished a second half touchdown drive with a four-yard TD catch.

Tiquan Underwood had one catch on the afternoon for 12 yards.
GRADE = B+

OFFENSIVE LINE
The Buccaneers offensive line turned in perhaps the grittiest performance in franchise history allowing just one sack, but more importantly helped pave the way for Martin’s record-breaking afternoon.

The most impressive part of the performance was the fact most felt there would be a huge drop off in production after losing Carl Nicks for the season with a foot injury earlier in the week. Those who wondered how the Bucs would respond – including Pewter Report – were shocked with how well the unit played.

And the Buccaneers accomplished the record-setting day with center Jeremy Zuttah moving to guard and backup Ted Larsen moving to center for the first time this season.
GRADE = A+

TIGHT ENDS
The Buccaneers obviously didn’t need to target the tight ends very often in Sunday’s 42-32 win, but when they did, the unit responded.

Veteran Dallas Clark had the only drop of the afternoon, and finished with two receptions for 22 yards and first-year Buccaneer Nate Byham added two more receptions for 15 yards. Even seldom thrown to Luke Stocker had a catch for two yards on Sunday.

The tight ends also were a big part of pass protection and in the running game, helping to seal the edges for Martin’s inside the tackle runs, and getting to the second level at times.
GRADE = B