Last week I openly wondered how much Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen would lean into his two-back personnel grouping coming out of a game where he matched a season-high six snaps in the “pony package”. Well in week 13, went to Rachaad White and Bucky Irving on the field together on five of their 80 snaps. This represented 6.25% of their overall offensive plays on Sunday and marked a small increase over their season-long 5.4% usage rate. Tampa Bay didn’t explode with pony the way they have in previous games, but it still proved to be a useful tool within their belt.

Bucs RB Rachaad White Photo by: USA Today

Bucs’ Tendencies In Pony

The Bucs ran on three of their five pony plays against the Panthers, marking a 60% run rate that was very close to the season-long rate of 57%. And this makes sense for multiple reasons. First off, it is a personnel grouping heavy in running backs so it stands to reason that it would feature more run calls than not. Additionally, offensive coordinator Liam Coen favors this look on early downs. He used it three times on first down and twice on second down in this game. On the season he has used it 30 times on first down and 18 times on second down.

And Coen is more inclined to call a run on early neutral downs than he is to call a pass. The Bucs are now 23rd in the NFL in neutral first down pass rate at 42.2%, showing an almost identical split to their 21p run/pass divide. His ability to match this to his overall play-calling tendencies reduces the chances that opposing teams can key in on any specific tells and helps keep the package fresh and difficult to defend.

Motion rate increases when the Bucs move into the pony package. 77% of the team’s snaps in 21p have used motion, most of it coming from one of the two backs. Compare that to the 61% motion rate Coen uses overall and you can see he is trying to confuse the defense by getting his backs into non-traditional alignments and often on the move at the snap. Some of the most common motions that Coen has employed are orbits and jets forcing opposing defenses to scrape or follow in one direction. He will often work off of this with counter runs. As a matter of fact, Coen uuses counter more often than any other run design when he has two or more backs on the field.

Bucs most successful running concept last year was counter. Super creative way to get to it out of 21p. Love this design by Coen.

OL blocks it up well and Bucky does a great job downfield feeling the best path forward. pic.twitter.com/UNh4Mq5OJ2

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) September 23, 2024

And while he is still getting to counter, against the Panthers Coen varied the pony run scheme more than he previously had.

Coen is still trying to get to counter more often than not when running out of 21p, but the variations overall keep growing. On Sunday there was an OZ rep and then counter on an end around off of an initial motion to the counter side creating two directional pivots. https://t.co/Uhz3mlaTWV pic.twitter.com/SlvIKlppLJ

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) December 6, 2024

Pony Passing Game

What is particularly interesting with how Coen has set up his passing attack in 21 personnel is that it’s not a very complicated design. It’s the motion and presentation that gives the illusion of sophisticated. Throughout this year the common themes of the passing attack have been staple concepts like post-wheel, four verts and all curls. The all curls made an appearance in week 13 and almost allowed the Bucs to steal easy yards on first down.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

pic.twitter.com/bnPqINaohk

— Joshua Queipo (@josh_queipo) December 6, 2024

Between the off coverage over receiver Mike Evans and Bucky Irving drawing the safety down and wide on the backfield motion, the quick stop route opens easily for quarterback Baker Mayfield to fire off to.

Coen is still using 21p as an easy button because of the unique skills of the playmakers involved. This past week they were successful on 60% of their pony plays, averaging almost six yards per play on the four that were not called back due to penalty. They created new first downs on 40% of those plays as well. This continues to be an effective changeup for Coen and the Bucs offense that works well off of their 11p fastball. And I bet Coen still has more up his sleeve.