Recent history shows…
Clearly the Bucs are mostly all-in for trying to make a playoff run.
They’re much more all-in than the Cowboys were last year when Jerry Jones said the team was all-in before the season yet did nothing to upgrade the roster.
The Bucs sure looked committed this offseason when they drafted Emeka Egbuka in the first round and signed edge rusher Haason Reddick.
(Yes, Joe knows the cynics out there would say if the Bucs were all-in they would have rented Micah Parsons.)
The Bucs also loaded up on cornerbacks in the draft. Last year, the Bucs had no legitimate depth at corner. Now they do.
It’s a good thing the Bucs drafted Reddick and drafted Jacob Parrish and Benjamin Morrison. Based on history this decade, the Bucs must improve DVOA to get to a Super Bowl.
What is DVOA? It stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. It’s a stat widely used by statgeeks and gamblers that measures efficiency. It was developed years ago by Aaron Schatz, the former owner of Football Outsiders (RIP). Even NFL teams use this measurement in their analytics departments.
You can read how Schatz developed DVOA here.
TikTok NFL analyst Theo Ash posted something on Twitter yesterday that intrigued Joe. Ash noted the median defensive DVOA of every NFC champion this decade is No. 3. Since Bucs coach Todd Bowles took over as head coach in 2022, the Bucs haven’t been close to that.
Joe did a little digging and here is how the Bucs’ defense has ranked in DVOA since Bowles arrived in Tampa Bay in 2019.
2019: 13th
2020: 4th
2021: 4th
2022: 14th
2023: 18th
2024: 11th
So what happened in 2022 other than Bowles took over as head coach? Jason Pierre-Paul was gone and Bucs sack king Shaq Barrett ruptured his Achilles in a midseason home game against Baltimore. He was never the same.
But Joe, Shaq had 19.5 sacks in 2019 and the Bucs had the fourth-best run defense and the DVOA was not great!
Yeah. And the Bucs also had Vernon Hargreaves starting at corner opposite of second-year corner Carlton Davis. They were learning a new defense, too. Jamel Dean and Sean Murphy-Bunting were rookies. And, the Bucs had the fourth-most points per game in 2019 yet still had a 7-9 record.
Notice that the next two years when the Bucs won the Super Bowl and then damn near went back to the Super Bowl in the 2021 season, the defensive DVOA ranking was No. 4.
So Ash’s observation seems to hold water.
Bowles has shown he can transform a defense with the Bucs before. He’ll have to do so again if the Bucs want to make NFL history this fall.
The median NFC conference champion ranks 3rd in defensive DVOA since 2000.
The median AFC conference champion champion ranks 11.5 in defensive DVOA since 2000
— Theo Ash (@TheoAshNFL) September 1, 2025
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