Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 4 Critical areas of focus at the bye week
1. Finding a way to get the passing game on the same page
The Buccaneers have a wealth of talent on offense. Unfortunately, they also have a good amount of talented players who have never played with some of their other offensive teammates. This was the perfect week to get the whole cast of characters on the same page.
Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette and LeSean McCoy are all spending their first season in this offense. Antonio Brown has only been with the team for four games after spending over a year out of the NFL. All of the other major skill position players just started learning the offense last season. There is still a lot of work for the team to do for everything to be second nature.
Brady spent 20 years in the same offense and even though his football IQ has never been questioned, there have to be times especially when under pressure that he has to fight muscle memory and instinct because the offensive concepts are so different. Even when some of his New England plays are run, he probably still feels unsure about whether or not his receivers will be where he expects them to be.
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Without a true offseason, there is no way that everyone is on the same page. A bye week will not fully accomplish this either, but it does offer an opportunity to help iron out some of the bigger issues. Doing this would go a long way towards turning this offense into the unstoppable force most people felt like it would be.