What We Saw: Week 12

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Indianapolis Colts

Final Score: Indianapolis 27, Tampa Bay 20

Writer: Michael James (@MikeoftheFF on Twitter)

Both teams come into this week still in the hunt for their respective division titles, Tampa Bay starts the game with a long, time-consuming drive to dictate the pace, and Indianapolis would answer with their own march down the field to answer back to tie the game 3-3. Then things began to get a little hectic with both teams driving for a touchdown, each off interceptions, before settling to go into halftime with the Colts leading 17-10. Tampa Bay would threaten by getting to the red zone in the fourth quarter but would end up taking two sacks after reaching first and goal, forcing them to settle for a field goal. The next drive Baker Mayfield would be sacked and fumble the ball over to the Colts, allowing them to run out the clock and pick up the win. The Colts remain in striking distance, only two games behind first place in the AFC South, while the Buccaneers fall to 1-6 after their bye week and somehow also remain one game back with a 4-7 record as there are no winners in the NFC South.

Three Up

Mike Evans – Now has over 90 career touchdowns with 70 yards and 2 TD on the day
Jonathan Taylor – Took over the fourth quarter en route to a 90 yard and 2 TD performance
Michael Pittman Jr – Was Minshew’s primary weapon today with 10 receptions and over 100 yards

Three Down

Chris Godwin – Now has two games in his last four of: 3 or fewer receptions bringing in less than half of his targets
Josh Downs – Had an off day bringing in only 5 of his 13 targets with some crucial balls going in and out of his hands today
Baker Mayfield – Less than 200 yards with two turnovers and sacked six times. Now has less than 15 fantasy points in back-to-back games

Buccaneers

Quarterback

Baker Mayfield: 20/30 for 199 yards, 2 Touchdowns, 1 Interception | 3 carries for 14 yards, 2 Fumbles (1 lost)

Started out the game utilizing play-action, even before the first actual rushing attempt of the game. After taking a couple of hits as he throws, he’s starting to throw the ball leaping off his back foot instead of stepping up through the pocket. He engineered a solid 15-play drive to open the game, eating up over seven minutes of the game clock. On the next drive right after the broadcast is praising Mayfield for settling down and throwing with his feet set and delivering a strike, he follows that up with an interception on an ill-advised throw out of play-action well short of a double-covered Evans.

There’s a lot of hot and cold this game where one throw Baker looks calm and collected and then another where he’s jumpy, holds on to the ball too long, and can’t decide where to move with it resulting in taking the sack. In the final couple of plays to end the third quarter and start the fourth he is gaining a much improved internal clock escaping the pocket and rushing for a first down. Baker starts to catch fire to start the fourth quarter where he steps up, plants, and delivers a strike to Godwin who doesn’t get his hands up. The pass was delivered on time and exactly where it needed to be. He comes right back on fourth down the next play to thread a dart between two defenders right to Godwin who easily snags it to convert the fourth and 10. Two plays later throws a 25-yard arc right into the hands of an open Mike Evans for the touchdown.

Notes

Slow start following up a long drive ending in a field goal with an interception and two three-and-out drives
Six consecutive sub-four-minute drives with four ending in a punt and a fifth ending in an interception
Three batted passes today
Only six attempts to the right side of the field, all of them completions
1 for 2 on the deep ball (1 touchdown)
4 of 9 on passes traveling more than 10 yards in the air, 1 touchdown 1 interception

Missed Opportunities

Would leave the game momentarily inside the five-yard line of the red zone with an ankle injury with QB Kyle Trask taking over for a couple of plays before he would return to action on the next drive

Running Back

Rachaad White: 15 carries for 100 yards, 2 receptions on 2 targets for 10 yards

Buccaneers left tackle Tristan Wirfs ended up playing in this game and was a boon to White’s rushing totals today. Found great success going behind the left side of the line to start the game and then switched to big runs up the middle to take advantage of the split pressure outside by the Colts’ front line. When the Colts did manage to bring an extra man straight up the middle unblocked, White had a great evasion in the backfield to avoid the tackle for a loss to cut out to the right and take it 38 yards upfield for his biggest gain on the day.

Notes

Had a red zone carry inside the five on the first drive
Three carries for double-digit yards

Missed Opportunities

Mayfield was credited with the fumble that White recovered, but it was White who dropped the pitch out to the side that went through his hands

Wide Receiver/Tight End

Mike Evans: 6 receptions on 9 targets for 70 yards and 2 Touchdowns

The 10-year veteran from Texas A&M is on pace for another 1000+ receiving yard season. He could become the second player in NFL history to have 10 straight 1k-yard seasons in a row (the first being Jerry Rice, who had 11 straight). Tampa Bay came out trying to get Evans going early on the first drive with two deep ball targets, bringing down the second one on the 1-yard line through double coverage with a reaching catch over the middle being hit as he caught it to bring it down. Evans was just too much for the Colts’ secondary in the second half beating them in both zone and man coverage in the fourth quarter alone going 3 for 46 yards and a touchdown. Evans now has a touchdown in five of his last six games.

Notes

Got wide open in busted coverage for an uncontested back-corner touchdown fade
Ran straight through the zone coverage to get open for the 25-yard touchdown reception
2nd most multi-.touchdown games among active receivers (19 games)
1 catch on 1 target on the right side of the field, the other 8 targets were all from lining up on the left
Both touchdowns came from lining up inside from the slot area

Missed Opportunities

Had a deep ball target on the goal line where Baker threw it outside and Evans turned inside
End zone target denied by penalty on the first drive
Was the intended target of Mayfield’s interception

Chris Godwin: 3 receptions on 7 targets for 45 yards

Tampa Bay came out early getting Godwin involved in a quick out screen pass but was abandoned after not finding much success. The broadcast noted we’re not hearing much from Godwin as the game went on as he finished with one of his quieter performances of the season today. Mayfield was unable to throw a lot of accurate balls his way in the first half. In the second half, Godwin failed to get both hands on the ball on 3rd and 10 but Baker came right back to him on the next down to thread the needle between two defenders dropping an absolute dime into Godwin’s hands to convert the 4th and 10.

Notes

1 reception for 5 yards at halftime
Three third-down targets and a fourth-down conversion
40 of his 45 yards came on two of his three second-half targets with two big 20-yard gains

Missed Opportunities

Back corner end zone target from Trask but could not get his second foot in bounds
Had a late reception for 7 yards called back on a penalty

Cade Otton: 4 receptions on 4 targets for 45 yards

Now has at least four receptions in 4 of his last 5 games. Had a huge completion on the third play of the game juking the tackler and rumbling upfield for a 24-yard catch-and-run to convert the third down

Notes

Caught every one of his targets including a 2nd and goal reception for seven yards to bring them inside the five

Trey Palmer: 4 receptions on 5 targets for 17 yards

The rookie wideout tied his season high today with four receptions. Operated a lot as Mayfield’s relief valve for short yard completions

Colts

Quarterback

Gardner Minshew: 24/41 for 251 yards and 1 Interception, 3 carries for 6 yards and 1 Touchdown, Fumble (recovered)

Encouraging start to the game producing a 10-play drive over four minutes going almost 50 yards down the field featuring six straight throws before handing the ball off for the first time. However, that drive would stall out with two inaccurate throws and a sack. Minshew would come back and continue attacking the Bucs with quick strikes out of the snap with quick releases. Any play that required additional time in the pocket usually crumbled and saw Minshew scrambling to avoid the sack resulting in multiple batted passes and other incompletions. A good summary of his experience in the pocket today was escaping the hold of one rusher to get out of the pocket and throw off a second tackler behind the line of scrimmage and then lob it 30 yards out of bounds as he was knocked down.

Coming out after half time they used a bunch of RPOs to get quick passes out which sets up the run to gash them up the middle of the field. While this seems like the obvious stat of the day where QBs prefer to not operate under pressure, the actual gap in the difference is worth mentioning here. He is 16 of 22 for 148 yards with time, 3 for 13 with 40 yards under pressure through 3 quarters of this game. To summarize the Minshew-coaster today, he started the day with 1 for 5 passing to go on a streak of 7 straight completions. He follows that up with a streak of five straight incompletions and an interception. Then goes on to the game-winning drive with five straight completions only to finish the game out with an incompletion followed by a sack.

Notes

Called his own number on 3rd and goal inside the two-yard line rolling out and running it in himself
Had another potential interception thrown directly to S Antoine Winfield who dropped it
Offense was 3 of 4 on fourth down conversions today which may be a by-product of the abysmal 2 for 11 third down conversion rate
1 attempt of more than 20 air yards, uncatchable out-of-bounds
1 for 6 on balls traveling more than 10 yards through the air

Missed Opportunities

Two goal-line passing attempts that were behind or too far ahead of his receivers in the first half
Miscommunication on the interception between him and the route Downs ran

Running Back

Jonathan Taylor: 15 carries for 91 yards and 2 Touchdowns

The quick start to the Colts’ passing game also had a slow start to the running game. Indianapolis would run it once on the entire first drive of the game which went 10 plays. Fortunately for owners, the second drive would see Taylor punch it into the end zone after back-to-back carries for a combined 21 yards. However, he would only see three rushing attempts for the entire first half of the game. The Colts balanced splitting carries for most of the game until the fourth quarter where Taylor took over the workload with 7 carries in their last 10 possessions of the game.

Notes

Showing power on his 17-yard burst breaking through multiple tacklers leaving the broadcast dumbfounded as to how he escaped being tackled for no gain
Took over at the end going 6 carries for 42 yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter alone

Missed Opportunities

Took a wild cat snap inside the 2-yard line but hesitated looking for a hole that never came and was tackled for no gain.

Zack Moss: 8 carries for 55 yards, 2 receptions on 3 targets for 15 yards

Didn’t see his first touch in the game until the second quarter, The first featured drive was the final drive before halftime with two straight carries followed up by two back-to-back targets. Moss technically out-touched Taylor in the first half and things would remain pretty even for three quarters, however, Moss would only see two touches in the fourth quarter.

Wide Receiver/Tight End

Michael Pittman Jr: 10 receptions on 13 targets for 107 yards

On the first drive of the game was thrown four times (one called off for a penalty) to start the game with two receptions and 20 yards on the first drive. This would be the trend for the Colts in the first half with Pittman getting 9 of his 13 targets in the first half of the game. Pittman would end up going off today with his first game of the season with double-digit receptions. It’s the second time the target monster for the Colts has eclipsed 100 yards this season despite not being a favorite in the red zone with only one of his three touchdowns this season coming inside the red zone.

Notes

Had a deep ball target on the first drive of the game over the middle incomplete but picked up the holding call against the Buccaneers
Big 4th down conversion getting wide-open on an RPO in the second quarter
4 of his 13 targets came in the fourth quarter, all completions
While he had multiple receptions go for 15+ yards, all of them were caught at most 10 yards out from the line of scrimmage which was good for 51 YAC for today

Missed Opportunities

Goal line target in double coverage on the first drive but was thrown behind him
Had the first offensive penalty for the Colts in the fourth quarter which negated a big Moss run

Josh Downs: 5 receptions on 13 targets for 43 yards

A good summary of the Minshew-Downs connection today came with just under two minutes left in the third quarter where a low snap hit the ground at Minshew’s feet in shotgun where he picked it up and hastily lobbed up the wobbliest duck you’ve seen to Downs who had it bounce off of the palms of both hands to fall incomplete. The next play on fourth down, Downs runs a shallow crossing route out of the slot and the ball zips right between his hands to fall incomplete. A lot of his routes today were short crossing routes including a few that were so shallow they were actually behind the line of scrimmage after the ball was snapped. While I did see some catchable incompletions, he was also the target of a lot of well-overthrown balls.

Notes

The first play of the game was a quick pass out to the primary read, Downs, for a 9-yard pick

Missed Opportunities

His biggest play of the game was a short catch and run out of the slot evading defenders but coming up just short of the goal line in the first half
Followed that up with a goal-line target on an RPO that was just out of his reach
Was the intended target on the interception. He sat down on an out-route that Minshew expected him to keep running to the sideline
Back-to-back targets where the ball goes through his hands on 3rd and 4th down

Alec Pierce: 4 receptions on 6 targets for 27 yards

Pierce would see most of his work in the first half not seeing another target after the midway point of the third quarter for the rest of the game. His four receptions were good for a season-high for Pierce.

Notes