There are many moments that you can turn to for why the Bucs lost as a lopsided favorite to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 20-18, on Sunday. If you were to put Tampa Bay’s defeat into a nutshell, the elevator pitch on the reason the Bucs lost was because of situational football. 

Under that umbrella of situational football sees three things that really hurt them. That was inefficiency in the red zone, short yardage success and inexplicable third-and-long conversions given up by the defense.

Red Zone Woes For Bucs Continue

The Bucs made four trips to the red zone on Sunday. And while they got points on each of those entries, only one resulted in a touchdown. That’s not going to cut in today’s NFL, and it’s been a trending theme for Tampa Bay all season. This was the fourth game of the season in which all the offense could produce is one touchdown. Even when they got down to the one-yard line, the Bucs couldn’t punch it in and had to kick a field goal.

Bucs RB Rachaad White – Photo by: USA Today

“I think we take them one at a time,” head coach Todd Bowles said on Monday. “Red zone, we get down there and we had the ball down there several times and either we get a false start or we get a penalty that pushes us back, or we miss a route here and there or we miss a block here and there. Like I said, it’s different guys. It’s the freakiest thing. That’s all we do in practice, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t carry over into Sunday.”

Bucs Can’t Get A Yard

All of the issues in short yardage compounded throughout the game, including when Leonard Fournette was tackled for a three-yard loss on second-and-goal from the 1 in the second quarter. Abysmally, the Bucs were four of 14 on third down. It included two third-and-1s in the fourth quarter that were stuffed by the Steelers. 

The most frightening of them all was when Brady was stopped on his coveted quarterback  sneak that many have been clamoring for. Brady is the best there is at the QB sneak, and that one never had a chance. If you want further details on how the play calling didn’t help the Bucs either, Scott Reynolds highlighted that in his 2-Point Conversion column.

“Short yardage is another topic we got to get better at offensively,” Bowles said. “Especially, we got to find a way to get one yard. We got to understand what we’re doing to get one yard. Then it becomes a toughness thing to get the yard.

Third And … How Long?

The problems on defense may have hurt Bowles the most. Their defense may be Top 10 in multiple categories, such as yards per game, sacks and turnovers. But none of that mattered when they played rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett and backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky. 

Tampa Bay allowed third downs later in the game – third-and-13, third-and-15 and third-and-11. They never could get the ball back to the Bucs offense despite only being down two points with all the struggles. If it occurred one time, okay, mistakes happen. But multiple times when the game was on the line? Can’t have it. 

Bucs ILB Lavonte David – Photo by: USA Today

Defensively, third-and-longs have got to stop because we know where the ball is going,” Bowles said. “We understand what’s coming and we did not make plays to get off the field to give the offense a chance to get the ball back and win the ball game. These are things we practice every day, we’ll continue to practice, we harp on them, we stress them.”

What shocked Bowles the most over the loss was how well they practiced during the week. He alluded though that changes need to be made and no one can be too big to admit that what they’ve done across the board hasn’t been working much.

“We actually did well during the week, we did not do well during the games,” Bowles said. “It’s got to transfer over. I think we need to change as coaches, we have to change and not be big headed enough to change defensively, offensively or special teams. Player-wise they have to understand that, they have to get better at it and execute.”