How Stafford and McVay Picked the Buccaneers Defense Apart
When the Rams offense wasn’t doing everything it could to hand the Buccaneers the game, fumbling 4 times and repeatedly breathing life into a near-dead Tampa offense, the passing game carved up the Buccaneers defense with ease. And while his play was somewhat overshadowed by all the unbelievable twists and turns throughout the afternoon (and the Chiefs-Bills shootout on Sunday night), Matthew Stafford delivered the biggest performance of his career.
The Buccaneers’ approach seemed to be centered around rushing 5 to get 1-on-1 match ups against a Rams offensive line that was missing its starting left tackle and has generally struggled against the better pass-rushing teams in the league. They played mostly zone behind it. However, Sean McVay was able to put his protection in position to succeed, allowing Stafford to comfortably attack the Buccaneers secondary with one zone-beating route concept after another.
This first play, a 17-yard gain on 1st down, came off of play-action. The Bucs rushed 5 out of their 5-man front and played 3-under 3-deep behind it. McVay had a good route concept called. Van Jefferson at the bottom of the screen knocked the top off the coverage to his side. Cooper Kupp ran his route from a tight split on the other side of the formation into that vacated area. With fewer underneath defenders and the deep third-cornerback to that side occupied, Kupp had lots of room to operate:
That’s a longer-developing route combination that requires time in the pocket. Stafford was able to get it from the play-action, which helped hold the pass rush. The Buccaneers sacrificing defenders in coverage for pressure but not hitting home would be a theme of the day.
Later on their first drive, the Rams again attacked Cover-3. This time, they did it with two middle-seam routes to put the free safety into conflict:
You can see that Stafford looked left initially in Cooper Kupp’s direction. He could see that Kupp was held up by his defender. However, looking in that direction got the safety to cheat towards Kupp. That created just enough of an opening for Stafford to drill the seam route to the other side:
Cover-3 wasn’t the only zone coverage L.A. was able to attack successfully. On this 3rd-and-20 in the 2nd quarter, the Buccaneers would spin out into Tampa-2 zone. Again, notice the tight splits utilized by the Rams (a staple of their offense). Kupp and Jefferson at the top of the screen each ran vertical routes, attacking the deep safety to their side of the field: