If you’re reading this Tampa Bay Buccaneers Hoodie , then it’s safe to assume that not only are you a Bucs fan, but a football fan in general. Therefore, I don’t need to get into excruciating - and repetitive - detail about how football is the ultimate team sport, nor explain how important it is for a team to click. But when it comes to the Bucs, things are a bit different. There isn’t any other team in the league that plans to start off the season - barring injury - without their starting quarterback. Even Carson Wentz is looking like he’ll be ready to suit up on September 6th, after participating in team contact drills on Saturday and avoiding the PUP list during training camp.Winston’s suspension isn’t the only issue. If this team falls flat like they did in 2017 then you can bet that the entire staff, front office, and a lot of players will be looking for new homes next season. Several key areas of the team are in dire need of drastic improvement and if they don’t develop properly then it will be another long season. So where do the players find the inspiration and motivation to come out on top in 2018?It’s easy, within themselves and with each other. And that’s exactly what has shown up more consistently than any other theme so far in training camp - these players like each other and they want each other to succeed. We’ve seen the evidence from star players like Gerald McCoy lugging around pads and working with teammates after practice. We’ve seen it from Jameis Winston staying late after practice and working with the younger receivers. Gerald McCoy coaching rookie Vita Vea - credit Evan Winter, Bucs NationNow, we’re starting to hear about it too. “I thought I had seen and been through it all, but another year, another different situation. I think the biggest thing in all of this is just we’re all professionals and we’re just communicating as well,” quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said after Thursday’s practice, later adding, “I think leaning on plenty of that past experience not just on the field, but in how you treat guys or how you deal with guys whether it’s up front or receivers or the different personalities, that’s some of the good experience I have and why I still love playing the game.”For Fitzpatrick, it’s another season during a 13-year career that has seen multiple stops throughout the NFL, some successful and some not. Other players - like McCoy - haven’t tasted much success at all and he knows the onus is on not only the team, but himself to get better. Fortunately for McCoy and the Bucs Youth Customized Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jerseys , they have plenty of help in the form of new teammates.“Well we brought in four new guys that have all played in a Super Bowl, and three of them have won it. That’s a lot of experience. Guys who know what to do and how to do it; do it the right way,” McCoy said at the podium. “We have a new D-line coach who played in three I believe, and had numerous opportunities to go back as a coach. Just the room overall is different, a lot of experience, and a lot of knowledge. Guys bouncing ideas off of each other, things you’ve never heard before, I’m helping him, they’re helping me. Its only just going to make us great in the long run. But we’ve got a lot of work to do.”McCoy has always held the reputation as a great teammate and leader, but this year he seems to be taking it up a notch. Then you have players like running back Peyton Barber, who finished last season as the team’s no. 1 back just to watch the Bucs draft Ronald Jones II in the second round out of USC. He’ll also have competition in veterans Jacquizz Rodgers and Charles Sims. That doesn’t phase Barber, however, he looks at it as a positive. “I get the best of both worlds,” he told me after practice as we walked off the field. “I get a vet to teach me everything and I get a rookie who I can teach things. But at the same time, both of them are going to push me.”This team-first, work-together attitude was something that was missing last season. This became clear with players such as Chris Baker. After kicking him out of the Bay, it’s safe to say that this year’s crop of free agents have a much different thought process.“It’s been great. We just keep creating chemistry out there. Everybody pass rushes differently; everybody plays the run different,” new defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said. “As veterans on the team, we’re teaching the young guys how to come up and how to do things correctly. We were all once in their position, so we are having great chemistry together. That’s a great start for us.”Without a doubt, this mindset is becoming a contagious attitude seen on both sides of the ball and it’s an attitude that is developing more and more every day. The more this team bonds and develops their chemistry www.buccaneersauthorizedshops.com , the better they will get and that could be the key to not only surviving - but succeeding in 2018.Buccaneers 2017 Routes Snapshot, Part 1 Football Outsiders (FBO) recently published some of their results on 2017 wide receiver routes by defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA), which is simply an attempt to value a player on a per-down basis, and is expressed as a percentage above or below average.What FBO has done is take a receiver’s (a few RBs and TEs show up) per-down (DVOA) and total (DYAR - defense-adjusted yards above replacement) value for the twelve most common routes in the NFL: curl, out, dig, slant, drag, go/fly, WR screen, post, comeback, broken play, fade, and seam. In this article we will look at the first six and tackle the last six in Part 2. Because that’s an insane amount of information, FBO only focused on the roughly 20-30 or so receivers that ran these routes the most.From this information, we can see who was good at what route, who was bad, and perhaps even where a team might be using routes they probably shouldn’t as much or routes they could use more. Patterns can also emerge that tell us about the scheme. Because receiver numbers are to a small extent inherently derivative from a quarterback, it also gives us a little bit of a peek into their performance as well. Let’s go down the list:CURLThe curl is a big play in the Buccaneer’s offense. Only one Buc makes the list here though and it’s Mike Evans, who was targeted on the curl route 30 times Tampa Bay Buccaneers Womens T-Shirt , the second-most in the NFL. Unfortunately, out of the 21 receivers who caught curls the most, Evans was the third-worst in value. Also, Evans’ 1.2 YAC average was the 3rd worst behind T.Y. Hilton and the ancient Jason Witten. Looking back to 2016, not much has changed. Evans is still the only Buc that shows up, and his YAC and average depth of target is about the same. But, his value on curls was 8th best - it appears his catch percentage fell from 69.2 percent in 2016 to 56.7 percent in 2017. The reason is probably a mix between ball placement and Evans needing to do a better job using his frame to shield defenders from the ball. It’s also important to keep in mind as we go down this list that Evans’ frame prevents him from being as good of a route runner as other players ( and that’s ok). Routes that allow him to use his frame should be his bread and butter.QUICK OUTOf the 26 players who were targeted on quick out routes the most, none were Buccaneers. The Bucs did not have any players on the 2016 list either.DIGThe dig is a staple of Dirk Koetter’s offense. It is a play that often nets a big reward but can lead to quarterbacks taking more hits as it is a long and slow-developing route, usually paired with a seven step drop or a similarly timed but shortened drop from shotgun. Koetter often runs it iso, meaning it is not packaged with another route to form a concept, like Mills, though he sometimes does that too. When run iso it is just the receiver running a deep dig or crossing route by themselves and up to him to get to his spot on time and the quarterback to beat the coverages of the cornerback and safety with his eye manipulation and throw. Because of this, the dig also comes with one of if not the highest rate of interceptions in the league. Big risk, big reward.Again, Evans is the only Tampa Bay player to make the list, with 14 such passes in 2017. Of the 24 players, Evans ranked 14th in value and had a 53.8 percent catch rate. His average depth of target was 12.9, third highest, but his 0.4 YAC average was easily the worst. Clearly Evans struggles to gain separation, which isn’t all that surprising. And the NFL is a contested catch league, after all. But he could also do a much better job being more physical at the catch point which might allow him to break tackles. Because the Bucs like to run their routes deeper than most teams it’s possible safeties are also often in the area Tampa Bay Buccaneers Hats , but that also means Evans is just a broken tackle or two from gaining huge yards with no one else between him and the end zone. It’s one of the few remaining holes in his game.In 2016 Evans had the worst dig value out of all listed receivers, with a 43.5 percent catch rate, 12.5 average target depth, and 1.1 YAC. SLANTThe slant is a play with good value and a pretty good completion rate. Evans is again the only Buccaneer to get enough targets to qualify. His value was below average, but his catch rate and target depth were average. A theme is emerging, as Evans’ YAC was 5th fewest out of the 30 players listed, ahead of players like Zach Ertz, Kelvin Benjamin, and Roger Lewis. However, that’s double his YAC average from 2016 and his value got better too.DRAGThe drag is a shorter another short throw for the quarterback that yields a high completion rate, often used in a Mesh concept that uses a rub to get one of the receivers open for YAC. No Buccaneers show up on this list in 2017 or 2016.GO/FLYTwo Bucs show up - Evans and DeSean Jackson, but unfortunately they are second-to-last and fourth-to-last in value, respectively. They had 21 total targets, third-most behind just Pittsburgh (Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant) and Detroit (Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay). A 25 percent catch rate is a low-percentage play, among the lowest in the NFL. Jackson’s catch rate was 11.1 percent and Evans’ was even worse 9.1 percent, which, you don’t need me to tell you is awful. Interestingly, Evans’ target depth was 29.1 but Jackson’s was 38.1, tied with Tyreek Hill and second deepest to just Bryant.Obviously, Jameis Winston’s deep accuracy issues are at play here, as are a myriad of other factors. This is a huge discussion and has been a major point of contention among fans Tampa Bay Buccaneers Womens Hoodie , but we’ll just hit the key points. First, in 2017 Winston actually improved his accuracy over his 2016 season pretty much everywhere, and he was the 11th most efficient deep ball thrower in the NFL last season. This is largely because in today’s game anything past 16 air yards can be considered deep, and secondly Winston earns most of his keep from 10 to 25 yards out as he targets that area more often than almost all quarterbacks. However, his accuracy past 35 yards isn’t good (ranked 15th from 30-34, 25th between 35-39, and 26th 40+). If your definition of a deep ball is different then obviously this ranking will change for you. It’s also worth noting completed passes longer than 50 yards are statistically random and can’t be replicated from year to year. Winston’s deep ball mechanics appear to have suffered his pre-draft work with QB guru George Whitfield and haven’t been the same since. Lastly, it has to be noted that Winston suffered an injury to his throwing shoulder in Week 3 of last season vs. the Minnesota Vikings and did not look healthy until the last few weeks of the season. He has improved in every year; did the injury rob us of seeing some of that improvement in his deep ball, or did it just cover up a problem that’s still there? Or make a bad problem look even worse? We will have to wait until Weeks 4 and 5 of this season to find out. In 2016 Evans’ value was better but still below average, and his catch rate was 20 percent, and Jackson’s value was the fourth-best in the NFL. So the bottom line is this: the Bucs have a quarterback who struggles a great deal to hit deep vertical passes, for whatever reason, but is nonetheless operating in an offense that not only attempts these low-percentage passes at a high rate, but also half the time at an extreme depth. What that says is the team is repeatedly expecting their quarterback to do something he cannot do. Something has to change.In Part 2 we will look at how the Bucs did with WR screens, posts, comebacks, broken plays, fades, and seam routes.