Bucs offense coming up short in red zone
“Definitely red zone,’’ Bucs rookie quarterback Jameis Winston said Wednesday when asked where the offense needs to improve the most as it heads into the second half of the season and Sunday’s home game against Dallas.THE ASSOCIATED PRESSBy Roy Cummings | Tribune Staff Published: November 11, 2015 TAMPA — Like the 11 General Orders given to a military sentry guarding a post — guidelines for doing the job properly — there are some basic goals Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter lays out before each game that never change.The team’s red-zone objective is one of them.“He doesn’t even have to mention it, because it’s one of his No. 1 goals and we all know it,’’ center Joe Hawley said. “We want to (score a touchdown on) 55 percent or more of our red-zone opportunities.’’It’s an objective the Bucs have fallen well short of this year.Only twice — against Carolina and Jacksonville — did they achieved that goal in a game. And for the season, they’ve scored only 12 touchdowns in 28 possessions inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, good for 42.9 percent.“Definitely red zone,’’ Bucs rookie quarterback Jameis Winston said Wednesday when asked where the offense needs to improve the most as it heads into the second half of the season and Sunday’s home game against Dallas.“Earlier in the season we wanted to work on third downs, and for four weeks in a row now we’ve met our goal for third downs. So, now we have to start working on red zone.’’To hear Koetter tell it, a lot of work has to be done, because the Bucs’ red-zone problems are not the result of just one player or position group breaking down.During the 32-18 loss to the Giants on Sunday, a game in which their only red-zone touchdown in four tries came via a 10-yard leaping scramble by Winston, several factors forced the Bucs to settle three times for field goals.“We had a couple of (plays) where we just didn’t block the runs right,’’ Koetter said. “And then there were a couple of plays where they just covered (the pass) well. So, you have to give them some credit, too. But then there were a couple of times where Jameis, either he needs to make a better throw or he’s not (throwing to) the right guy, or I just have to give him a better play. So it’s a combination of things.’’The right scoring combination is often difficult to find inside an opponent’s 20-yard-line. The field naturally gets shorter there, and defenses have a tendency to tighten up in that area.Further compromising the Bucs, meanwhile, is the absence the past two weeks of what they consider two of their best red-zone weapons, injured wide receiver Vincent Jackson (knee) and injured tight end Austin-Seferian-Jenkins (shoulder).“I’m not giving away any defense secrets when I tell you that you try to get the ball to your best players,’’ Koetter said of attacking in the red zone. “And when your best players aren’t there, you have to do something else. That’s game planning.”Game-planning around a rookie quarterback can also hinder a team’s success inside the red zone, Koetter said, because the fear of turning the ball over affects a play caller.“You don’t necessarily say, ‘Well, we’ll just take the field goal,’” Koetter said. “But sometimes you are more conservative because you know you have a field goal in the bag, absolutely.”All of those factors have contributed to the red-zone struggles of the Bucs, who have scored just three touchdowns in their past 10 red-zone trips. But Koetter is confident those problems will be short-lived, in part because those that are largely the result of mistakes made by the offensive line, he said, are “uncharacteristic’’ of that unit.“And on the ones that fall on Jameis, I would say that that is characteristic of inexperience,’’ Koetter said. “Everybody, including myself, is expecting him to play like a five-year vet. But he’s an eight-game vet.’’Inside the red-zone, at least, there is a substitute for inexperience. It’s called decisiveness, and Koetter said Winston is starting to develop a better grasp of that critical concept. The two touchdowns Winston ran for the past two games — a 4-yarder against the Falcons and the 10-yarder against the Giants — were examples of Winston being adequately determined and assertive.“He has to make a decision and stick with it,’’ Koetter said. “It’s like a pro golfer. They visualize their shot and commit to it. You can’t change your mind mid-stream because that never works out.’’Winston thinks he’s developing a good grasp of what Koetter wants from him in the red zone and is starting to recognize plays he can and can’t make more quickly. The trick now, he said, is to improve his willingness to quickly pull the trigger on those plays, particularly the passing plays.“I have to keep working on my eye progression and the things I see in the red zone, because, obviously, Coach Koetter doesn’t want me to (run) it all the time,’’ he said. “But (those runs), that was just a (result) of me just wanting to get the ball in the end zone however I can.’’Winston described that will as “sheer want-to’’ following the loss to the Giants. One look at Tampa Bay’s red-zone numbers from that game suggests the entire offense would benefit from that same degree of “want-to.’’“We were just one of four, 25 percent last week, and that’s a bad number,’’ Koetter said. “That number more than likely cost us the game, so we definitely have to do better there.’’[email protected]Twitter: @RCummingsTBO