Is 'no huddle' the answer to the Bucs offensive woes?

Down by two scores with five minutes to play, the Bucs had no choice but to go with a 'no-huddle' offense. They ended up scoring their only two touchdowns of the night. It's a fast-tempo attack that works for Tom Brady.

"It's a great tool. I've done it quite a bit over my career," explained Brady. "Everyone likes to do it when it works, and sometimes we've tried it and it hasn't worked. Execution's really important to making it work. I think changing personnel groupings is good, I think the tempo is good. There are a lot of different aspects you can use to try to create some softness in the defense. Yeah, it's a good tool for us, for sure. We're trying to score every time we take the field. Whether we go fast or slow, we’ve just got to execute well. We've got to throw the ball well, we've got to catch it, we've got to block, and we’ve got to run. We've got to do all the things it takes to score points."

The Bucs have used it multiple times this season and like it as a change of pace.

"We’ve always been good at it when we need it – end of the game, end of half situations," said Leftwich. "We’ve always been really good at it. You don’t know how much you’ll need it week in and week out. But it’s good to have it there, it’s good to have it there. With the players we have, with the quarterback we have, it’s good any time you can go up-tempo and have opportunities to finish games the way we’ve had opportunities to finish games. It's good that it’s been good for us pretty much all year, especially end of half and end of games."

Tom Brady at Bucs practice.

The Bucs have used ‘no huddle’ more than most teams. In fact, they used it about 15% of the time, which ranks fifth in the league. Given their offensive struggles, could it be used for an entire game, like the Buffalo Bills of the '90's did?

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"It could," stated Leftwich. "It could. [I’m not] saying that we would do it, but it could. It could."

"That's tough," said Brady. "I think that's tough for a number of reasons. It's like, blitzing's good, but should you blitz every play? I don't know, not if they start to expect the blitz. I'm sure they'll [adjust]. You'd like to be able to do everything, and you would like to, when you use it, you'd like to do it well. When you change personnel groupings you'd like to do that well."

Tom Brady at Bucs practice. 

Going no-huddle doesn't allow opposing defenses to substitute their personal, which could wear them down. The Bucs believe overuse would be just as draining all of the three facets of their team.

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"Guys would get tired, said Bucs right guard Shaq Mason. "We'd have receivers running every route. It would be tough. If you're in shape and in condition for it, it might work. I don't think that's the recipe."

The Bucs have fallen from the best Red Zone team in 2021 to 21st in the league this season. Given their struggles inside the opponent’s 20-yard line could a no-huddle be a spark?

"We’ll run it anywhere," said Leftwich. "As you’ve seen, we’ve run it backed up, red zone – it [doesn’t] matter."

Going up against the #1 defense in the NFL this week... The Bucs might need to be ready to turn to the no-huddle again.