LA Rams vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday 4:05 EST

Buc’s Offense

The Bucs O-line has struggled so far to start. Thru 3 games they’ve given a total of 10 sacks and with starting center Ryan Jensen still hurt and questionable on the injury report it could only get worse going up against that strong Rams defense line. If the Rams take an early lead and the Bucs are forced to pass more than they’d like to I’d expect no less than five sacks for the Rams defense. The Bucs struggle on 3rd downs a lot. Last week against the Giants when they put up 31 points they were only 4 for 14. Their best game on their best game for third downs was week 1 against the Niners where they were 5 for 11 but lost the game by 14 and the game was never even that close. The Bucs rank 31 in red zone offense for the 2019 season. Thru three games they have had 11 trips to the red zone and have only converted 3 of the those trips into touchdowns.

Defense

1. The Bucs can stop the run very well. In their last two games the Panthers and the Giants ran for 111 yards combined. With Christian McCaffrey only carrying for 37 yards and Saquon Barkley only carrying for 10 yards. While Barkley did leave the game early with a high ankle sprain before the injury he only had the 10 yards on 8 carries for an abysmal 1.25 yards per carry.

2. Shaquil Barrett is leading the league in sacks with eight sacks and the Bucs as a team only have nine sacks. Shaquil will be coming off the left edge so he’ll have Whitworth to deal with, our best versus their best.

3. The Bucs scoring defense is not strong ranking 22nd in the league at 25.7 points per game, but they clamp down in the red zone. They have the 3rd strongest red zone defense only allowing touchdowns on 30% of opposing teams red zone trips.