TAMPA, Fla. — The NFL’s worst running game from last season has managed to get even worse this year.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-3) average 3.1 yards per carry. That’s down from a league-worst 3.4 last year. Quarterback Baker Mayfield subtly mentioned changes could be on the way.
“It’s just little things here and there,” Mayfield said. “We had a big run, and it was called back on a holding call. We’re kind of learning that we’re not going to be a run-first team, but we’re still going to do it when we need to.”
“It’s a lot of things. I kind of said it a little bit ago: everyone just taking a turn at messing something up,” left tackle Tristan Wirfs said. “The frustrating part is how hard we work on it. How much time and effort we put into it, so for it not to go [well] is really frustrating.”
The Bucs run game will face a Buffalo Bills (4-3) defense on Thursday night that allows over five yards per carry. This could be the game the Tampa Bay rush attack gets going. But the challenge is preparing for a game just four days after a week seven loss to the Atlanta Falcons.
“A lot of mental work. You never really get physically ready for these Thursday night games, but it’s a lot of mental work during the week,” Mayfield said. “Like I mentioned earlier – over-communicating, making sure we’re on the same page. That preparation really never stops until game time. You get enough walk-throughs into where you talk about pretty much every single look you might get.”
On the other side of the ball, the Bills’ offense is led by one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Josh Allen.
“We’ve got to do our best to contain him,” safety Antoine Winfield, Jr. said. “He’s good [and] he has weapons everywhere. Going into this game, we know he has skill, and he has skill around him, so we’ve got to do our best to make sure we contain him as much as possible.”
Thursday’s game begins a stretch of eight weeks that includes six road trips for the Bucs.
Bucs and Bills kickoff at 8:15 p.m. Thursday.
