Chicken or the egg?
Joe held onto the following since Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield got hurt.
A little over a week after Mayfield got hurt, Joe was tagged on this video that tried to blame the Bucs’ offensive woes on Baker Mayfield.
The handle of the video “leahlytics.” Whoever she is, she won’t be the first person to try to build a career for herself on social media.
In the video, this girl tried to make the case that Mayfield is responsible for the Bucs starting 0-3. Mayfield was getting sacked right and left and fans were screaming about the offensive line.
Fair. Dude gets sacked, that’s a line problem. Right? Well, perhaps, that’s too simple.
This girl claimed that (after Week 3), the Bucs’ pressure rate (pass rush pressure allowed) was 11th. This got Joe curious. So he started doing some research on his own.
When Joe searched “pressure rate allowed,” he came up with a site called “StatRankings.” This site had different numbers.
Per StatRankings, the Bucs had the worst pressure rate allowed in the NFL (through six games). Worst. Not average. Worst. No. 32.
However, Joe also clicked on “Last 3” as in the pressure rate allowed for the last three games. Interestingly, the Bucs were No. 18, meaning close to league average (which is what this girl claimed).
Joe doesn’t care what kind of stat you are talking about, “baseball card stats” or advanced analytics. Any time a team (or player) jumps from dead last to right about average, that’s a pretty big jump.
So what has been different with the Bucs the past three weeks? Mayfield didn’t play. Jalon Daniels was the starting quarterback as Mayfield suffered a dislocated thumb against Minnesota.
So the Bucs’ pressure rate allowed spiked in the positive with Mayfield out of the lineup? Maybe this girl is onto something?
(The following video was published on Oct. 7, just after Daniels made his first start against Green Bay.)