While a lot of people always tell me that the preseason doesn't mean anything, I've found that the preseason IS a pretty good indicator of how a team ultimately plays. Last season, we saw the team struggle on both sides of the ball and it continued throughout the year as the Bucs never looked like a team that had much of a chance to win.This season, the Bucs had a couple of clunkers of games and one game where the offense and defense looked very good and it was against a pretty good team in the Bengals. I tend to discount the loss to the Browns as the Browns clearly game planned for the Bucs, but the Bucs had just played on Monday so they had less time to game plan for the Browns. So I honestly consider that to be a bit of an out-lier of a game, but still add in to the stats. However, wins and losses aside, looking Tennessee in the preseason, are there any trends that might give us a clue to how this game will come out?Here are Tennessee's preseason stat lines:Tennessee: 23/27 passing (286 yds), 85 yds rushing (3.0), gave up 2 sacks.Falcons: 21/28 passing (254 yds), 69 yds rushing (2.2), gave up 1 sack.Turnovers: 1/3 Falcons win turnover battle and game.St. Louis: 17/32 passing (290 yds), 113 yds rushing (4.7), gave up 1 sack.Tennessee: 20/27 passing (267 yds), 112 yds rushing (3.9), gave up 0 sacks. Turnovers: 1/0 Tennessee wins turnover battle and game. Int for TD.Tennessee: 12/25 passing (140 yds), 98 yds rushing (4.5), gave up 1 sack.Chiefs: 31/38 passing (317 yds), 115 yds rushing (6.8 ), gave up 0 sacks.Turnovers: 2/2 Chiefs win game.Minnesota: 27/41 passing (273 yds), 60 yds rushing (3.3), gave up 2 sacks.Tennessee: 16/25 passing (190 yds), 142 yds rushing (3.9), gave up 2 sacks.Turnovers: 0/2 Tennessee wins turnover battle and game. Tennessee turned over the ball 5 times, got it back 6 times.Tennessee gave up 5 sacks, but also only got 4 sacks.Mettenberger was Tennessee's best statistical quarterback.Tennessee ran for 437 yards, 109/3.8 yard average over the four games.Tennessee passed for 883 yards, 221 ypg / 71/104 for 68% average. Tennessee gave up 110 yards per game for a 4.2 yards rushing per game.Tennessee gave up 284 yards passing per game.Tennessee allowed 96/139 for 69% completion percentage.And here are Tampa's:Tampa: 20/39 passing (229 yds), 89 yds rushing (3.4), gave up 3 sacks.Minnesota: 27/33 passing (284 yds), 104 yds rushing (3.6), gave up 1 sack.Turnovers: 3/1 Tampa wins turnover battle, loses game.Bengals: 17/28 passing (110 yds), 42 yds rushing (2.8 ), gave up 4 sacks.Tampa: 21/31 passing (211 yds), 145 yds rushing (3.9), gave up 4 sacks.Turnovers: 4/0 Tampa wins turnover battle, wins game.Cleveland: 21/28 passing (181 yds), 119 yds rushing (3.5), gave up 1 sack.Tampa: 12/28 passing (104 yds), 73 yds rushing (3.7), gave up 6 sacks.Turnovers: 1/0 Cleveland wins turnover battle and game.Tampa: 13/26 passing (159 yds), 75 yds rushing (2.7), gave up 1 sack.Miami: 24/38 passing (278 yds), 184 yds rushing (4.7), gave up 2 sacks.Turnovers: 5/2 Tampa wins turnover battle, wins game.Tampa turned over the ball 4 times, got it back 12 times.Tampa gave up 14 sacks, got 8 sacks in return.Tampa ran for 382 yards, 95.5/3.4 average over 4 games.Tampa passed for 703 yards, 176 ypg / 76/124 for 61% average.Tampa gave up 112 yards per game for a 3.7 yards rushing per game.Tampa gave up 213 yards passing per game.Tampa allowed 89/127 for 70% completion percentage.My takeaways on this:Tenneessee's offense performed better, but that's because Mettenburger performed significantly better in the 4 games than Glennon did. Based upon preseason performance, it appears that the Tennessee offense is better than our offense, but not significantly so. Tennessee's offensive line also appears stronger both in clearing running lanes and protecting the passer.Our defense appears better than Tennessee's defense. Not only did we double the number of sacks from what Tennesse got in the preseason, our defense doubled the number of turnovers. Both defenses played the run about even, but the Bucs defense allowed significantly fewer passing yards on average. Opponents completion percent was nearly identical. This is looking like a close game, the Bucs IMO have a slight edge because of home field and the fact that they created more turnovers than Tennessee and also got more sacks than Tennessee. I was surprised that the Tennessee offense was able to run the ball as well as they did and I thought we had run the ball better than we ended up.Anyway, just throwning this out there, maybe someone else can see something else in the numbers.
