The Bucs' offense and what it means to 'layer' an offense

How Bruce Arians, Byron Leftwich and Tom Brady tie their run-game to play-action and RPOs.

One of the most important building blocks for any modern offense is the idea of ‘layering’ one concept on top of the other.

Layering is as it sounds: Adding fresh dimensions to an idea, a formation, a motion, a movement, a whatever, that builds on top of the base construct. Layering is often used as a synonym for pay-off plays. A coach carefully, artfully, builds in a tendency, before self-breaking that tendency for a big, explosive, pay-off play. Jet-give. Jet-give. Jet-give. Jet-give. Reverse!

Lane Kiffin is the master at building towards pay-off plays. But there are other more subtle ways a coaching staff layers their offense. For most coaches, adding layers is simply about not tipping what’s about come: About breaking a tendency before it can truly gather steam and a defense can get a read on what’s coming through formation or specific alignments.

No one – not anywhere – does a better job of layering concepts than Bruce Arians, Byron Leftwich, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

At root, layering is about keeping the defense off balance. About asking linebackers to shuffle their feet, rather than triggering and firing one way or the other. About having the safeties creep down or shuffle back, not knowing if their eyes are lying to them one way or the other.

Arians, Leftwich and company remain among the best (and we’re splitting hairs between Tampa and Green Bay) at tying their run-game to their play-action game – and building in RPOs off those same structures. Tying the two together – having the action look, feel, sound like a run play at each and every junction – can keep the defense off balance. The Bucs run play-action on only 20-odd percent of dropbacks. And that figure has dropped throughout the season — they’re dead stinking last in play-action rate since their bye.

But the threat that Brady might pull the ball and try to target one of his innumerable weapons down the field is enough to force linebackers to check themselves. And adding any kind of beat to the linebacker’s fit is one way a coach can help boost his run-game.

Coming out of the bye, Tampa has made a bunch of nifty adjustments (some of which I will explore in more detail over the coming weeks – there is a lot to sift through). But one thing has really jumped out: The shift to a more gun-laden, spread-to-run running game.

Throughout the Arians-Brady partnership, the run-game has served as a cheat code. It allows the team to run defenses out of staunch two-high safety looks (and if you spin against Tampa, you’re in big, big trouble) or it can rest there as an every-down thumper, constantly churning out yards, constantly moving the ball.

Add to that, throughout the Arians-Brady partnership the Bucs’ offense has been able to live in two worlds: A spread-out passing game; a bigger-bodied thumping game. The Bucs are the pinnacle of the moniker ‘run two systems from the same personnel grouping’. If you can hit that in the modern NFL, that’s where football nirvana lies.

It’s a world that comes naturally to Tampa. Why? In short: Rob Gronkowski.

In 11 personnel, Gronkowski serves, ostensibly, as an extra lineman. And not just any old lineman, but as an honest-to-goodness Hall of Famer. Gronkowski remains disturbingly good as a blocker and receiver – even if spokes and sprockets and carburetors fall off him whenever he rumbles further than five yards down the field.

Gronkowski allows the Bucs to have a balanced, diverse running game. They can run from spread formations, with Brady under center, a solitary back in the backfield, an attached tight end, and three spread-out receivers unloading the box through the formation.

Look at that! It’s a six vs. six box. Only Tampa’s six sports the finest offensive line in the league and what is tantamount to a sixth offensive lineman, a living, breathing polar bear that lives to climb to the second-level to mush linebackers.

From that same look, the Bucs are a threat to run or pass. And if it’s a run, there is a whole playbook of ways to bulldoze fronts out the way once you add an extra gap and an in-line (and move) blocker as good as any in the league.

Last season, the Bucs built a playbook of ways to mash opposing fronts with two staple concepts: Outside zone and duo. You probably know all about both: They are the staple run concepts across the entire league. In outside-zone, the line kick-steps in unison to one side of the field, they get out and run, and the running back tries to find a hole to knife through (bend, band, bounce). On Duo, a pair of double-teams hammer inside, try to distort the levels of the defensive front, and the running back tries to dance up behind them or slams through a clear, open, hole.

They are the basic of all basic run designs (though with a bunch of different coaching intricacies). The Bucs turned them into high art, riding both concepts all the way to the title.

At the start of this season, Bruce Arians and his crew decided to diversify a little. They supplemented their base runs with craftier designs. Suddenly, there were pulling guards. Suddenly, there was a pulling center. All of a sudden, a fairly rudimentary (yet dominant) group was engaging in ballet.

It worked – the Bucs ranked 3rd in rushing success pre-bye. As the season has progressed, the Bucs have worked in more and more — they now rank 1st in rushing success rate, a small but notable jump. Just as importantly: They’ve added layers on top of those layers, trying to prevent the defense from getting a read on what’s coming in the hope they can pop some big plays. It’s had a clear impact: The Bucs’ have shifted to a run-heavy offense and yet still rank first in first-down rushing success rate. They’re mauling fronts even when the defense knows they’re running the ball, and that Tampa is picking from only a slender number of overall running designs.

Post-bye, the Bucs have leaned increasingly into the spread-to-run style, even with Gronkowski off the field. Single-man power is the go-to design. Under center. Out of the gun. It doesn’t matter. It’s one lineman pulling while the rest of the line builds a wall and seals.

Typically, they target the behind of the tackle, with the back then able to read it out inside-or-outside like a zone-blocking scheme more than a traditional gap-scheme run. The classic mechanics of a ‘Power’ concept usually aim to hit beside the frontside guard in the B-Gap. The Bucs’ are using their single-man power game as a pivot from their traditional outside-zone trappings:

Click on any Bucs game and you will see the same thing hit over and over again. It’s their comfort food. It’s always the same base concept, with some slight tweaks. Maybe the target point is changed. Maybe the formation is a little different. Maybe there is an extra lineman in place of Gronkowski. Maybe there’s an eligible lineman. But it remains that same single-man power, typically targeted to the right side of the offensive line:

And yet if a defense tries to guess. If it plays only for that core concept, they can out-leverage themselves and gift easy yards and scores. Coming out of the bye, the Arians-Leftwich cohort has once again proven it leads one of the smartest self-scouting staffs in the league, always adding fresh wrinkles to their core concepts:

Hoo, boy. That’s nice. The Giants think they have it. They see the formation. They know the checks. Here comes that single power! It’s coming this way! Slant, slant, slant!

The Giants look to slant to the pull side, with the linebackers then flowing over the top to meet the ball-carrier.

But wait! The Bucs have done their homework, too. They’ve added a layer to the single-man design. The puller is a fake. As Brady sets up to slam the ball into Leonard Fournette’s belly, here comes Mike Evans swooping behind on the reverse.

Evans gathers the ball and kicks out the backdoor with a convoy of blockers in front. Seven – count ‘em – seven Giants defenders bite on the single-man power (why wouldn’t they) as Evans jets up the field with six blockers of his own free and in space.

Within their framework – running four or five core concepts – the Bucs get as varied and creative as possible, always adding a new tweak to keep the defense off guard. One week it’s a dose of same-side runs; the next it’s a tweaked alignment for the tight end; then it’s juggling which back gets which style of run – one-week Fournette is a gap-scheme only runner; the next there’s more balance to the plays he’s given.

In the spirit of malleability, the Bucs have focused more on a from-the-gun run package that sticks to the same core concepts as the team would typically run from under center but that offers a different presentation to the defense.

And as with their under-center work, it’s all about – say it with me – layering!

When you have the most gifted offensive line in the league, you can club a defense over the head with the same simplistic concept:

There’s that power design again, only this time from the gun — a same-side variant, no less. And just look at the thing. It doesn’t get much better than that: The front side hinge, the backside skip step from Ali Marpet, Smith’s base/seal block on the backside, the frontside push, Fournette’s patience. It’s delicious.

As with the under-center stuff, Leftwich starts to add some bricks on top of the foundations. Here are the Bucs tying play-action to their running concept:

Play-action usage has been discussed ad nauseam over the past five or so years. Yet that discussion often devolves into ‘play-action: good; no play-action: bad.’ It’s not quite that simple. While play-action is inherently the most efficient way to move the ball, it isn’t all that efficient to have a play-action game that is completely divorced from the run game. The two must work in concert. A singular run design that has no relation to your play-action designs — and the reverse — can work, but it’s making life more difficult (and the plays potentially less successful) than it need be.

The Bucs example is nothing special, just a quick flash-fake. The Bucs’ send a receiver in motion, setting up for more of an ‘insert’ zone run than a power design. At the snap, there goes that backside guard wrapping around anyways. Washington has seen that thing on tape all week. Pull! Pull! Power! Power!

Nope. Brady gathers, fakes, and then flips the ball out to the tunnel screen in the flat while Washington’s linebackers and the overhang defender trigger on the power-run, giving Bucs’ left tackle Donovan Smith just enough time to climb up to seal the apex defender.

It’s *chef’s kiss* type stuff – made all the better due to the fact that there’s a simple RPO adjustment the Bucs’ can plug in (it may even have been a pre or post-snap RPO above that Brady just triggered super-duper quickly).

But Leftwich, Arians, and Brady are not done there. One layer. Two layers. Those aren’t enough when you’re the best of the best:

Same game. Same opponent. Same tendencies. Another formation tweak. The same base concept.

This time it’s pure play-action. It’s Leftwich setting up for the pay-off play. After hammering Washington with single-man pulling designs, it’s time to try to take a shot down in the redzone, and the Bucs get what they’re looking for, Brady just sinks the throw and Chris Godwin is unable to pull the ball in.

At the snap, it’s the same initial action. There goes the backside guard, and there follow the linebackers and safeties. The second level sits flat-footed or shuffles towards the line of scrimmage. Back in the secondary, the safety to trips plays the pass; the down safety starts to trigger on the run. Split between those two levels is the void that Brady is looking for:

It should have been an easy pitch and catch, but Brady and Godwin whiffed.

This is just one example from a singular base design. Everything about the Bucs’ offense is about layering one concept on top of the other, as well as giving Brady as many built-in post-snap and pre-snap options as possible. It’s a marvel.

The plays were simplistic by design but forced Washington’s defense to read and react and guess, rather than play fast, which is kind of, sort of the whole point of offensive football.

Coming out of the bye, the Bucs’ have had to adapt to different defensive looks (more on that next week). The bombs away approach of the early portion of the season has had to be ditched for a confuse-and-clobber style, with the team hammering defensive lighter fronts with the run-game.

One style is more in keeping with Arians-ism – and has helped Brady post gaudy numbers into his mid-40s. But it’s the new style where the Bucs’ are currently unmatched. No staff does a better job of tying the run-game, play-action, and RPO games together – As mentioned: Green Bay is an equal but lacks the offensive line talent to run such a symphony.

This might not be the way Arians, Brady, and Leftwich want to win if you handed them truth serum. But in this age of two-deep, light box looks, it’s a style that gives them a significant advantage over the rest of the field.

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A quick note: As you may have heard during the Symes Scheme podcast (which I encourage you to listen to if you haven’t already), I’ve been working on a longer Bucs piece for a while that has grown to such a point that I cannot post it through Substack (that can be irritating but it’s a helpful editor, too). Instead of slicing it to bits — because there’s lots of interesting stuff to cover that has broad implications for the rest of the league — I’m going to publish it over the coming weeks as part of a mini Bucs-offense-focused series. The idea: They’re likely to be (at least) in the NFC Championship game, Byron Leftwich will be one of the most sought-after coaching candidates, and what they’re doing is just bleeping fun to discuss. So no matter your team, there should be something to take away.