Bill Polian Blames Bucs’ Offensive Line – JoeBucsFan.com – Tampa Bay Bucs Blog, Buccaneers News

If you want to know how explosive a passing offense is, its starting quarterback’s average yards per attempt number is a great indicator.

This season among starting quarterbacks, only rookie Kenny Pickett and Kyler Murray had less yards per attempt than Tom Brady.

The Goat averaged 6.4 yards per throw in 2022, a full yard less than in 2021. Back in 2019, Brady’s last year with the Belicheats, he was at 6.6 yards and some were calling him washed up because of it.

That was a bad evaluation, obviously. Brady struggled that year with a bunch of no-name targets and soon after blossomed in Tampa with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in the no-risk-it-no-biscuit offense.

Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian talked this week about Brady’s plummeting average yards per attempt this season and firmly blamed the Tampa Bay offensive line.

“I don’t think there’s any question that was the main problem,” Polian said. “… He had to get the ball out immediately or he’s going to get obliterated.”

Polian pointed to the Giants have poor receivers and good pass protection, and the Bucs being the opposite.

Joe will agree with Polian from the standpoint that there clearly was a fear factor with Brady in the pocket. There definitely was some self-preservation going on from Brady, the kind you wouldn’t see from a young quarterback. But overall Joe thinks the line wasn’t nearly as bad pass blocking as Polian paints.

What was horrendous was playcaller Bryon Leftwich’s inability to adjust and get the most out of his players, which is likely why Todd Bowles retained his offensive line coaches.

Joe recently gave the offensive line a B- grade and is sticking with that.