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# The 10-Yard Cliff: How Tampa Bay's Intermediate Passing Game Broke, Not Its Protection
- URL: https://www.statsdigest.com/buccaneers-2025-intermediate-passing-collapse/
- Published: 2026-08-05T13:43:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-05T13:43:34.000Z
- Description: Tampa Bay's protection held steady in 2025 — the offense collapsed entirely on intermediate throws.
- Author: Bill Seifert
- Tags: Buccaneers", "Baker Mayfield", "EPA", "CPOE", "Mike Evans", "2025 NFL

Every "Bucs offense fell off" take in 2025 wanted to be about something big: Baker Mayfield regressing to his career mean, a 32-year-old Mike Evans breaking down, coordinator turnover, "the league figured them out." The data says the collapse was much narrower than any of those stories — and much more specific. Tampa's offense didn't get crushed at the line of scrimmage or blown up on deep shots. It fell apart on one throw, in one air-yard band, at one catch point.

## Table of Contents

1. The top-line drop
2. Protection was fine
3. The one band that broke
4. The target-mix substitution
5. What it means

## The top-line drop

Tampa Bay went from one of the most efficient offenses in football to a below-water unit in a single year. Their offensive EPA/play fell from **+0.129 in 2024 to −0.009 in 2025**, with the damage concentrated on the pass side: pass EPA/play cratered from **+0.192 to −0.026**, while the run game was essentially unchanged (+0.050 → +0.014). The team's record slipped with it, from 10-7 to 8-9.

That is a top-3-ish passing offense turning into a below-average one without changing quarterbacks. Mayfield threw 573 of TB's 574 pass attempts in 2024 and 549 of 564 in 2025 — same guy, same offense on paper.

## Protection was fine

The intuitive first blame in any passing-game collapse is protection. It doesn't fit here:

|             | 2024  | 2025  |
| ----------- | ----- | ----- |
| Sack rate   | 6.51% | 6.31% |
| QB hit rate | 9.28% | 9.30% |
| Dropbacks   | 614   | 602   |

Sack rate actually ticked *down*. Hit rate is flat to the third decimal. Whatever went wrong with Tampa's passing game in 2025 did not happen because the pocket collapsed more often — Mayfield was hit and sacked at the same rate he was when he was posting +0.19 EPA/play.

## The one band that broke

Bucket Mayfield's throws by air yards and the story writes itself. His CPOE (completion percentage over expectation) by band:

| Air yards                | 2024 attempts | 2024 comp% | 2024 CPOE | 2025 attempts | 2025 comp% | 2025 CPOE |
| ------------------------ | ------------- | ---------- | --------- | ------------- | ---------- | --------- |
| **10–19 (intermediate)** | **127**       | **59.1%**  | **+0.82** | **134**       | **49.3%**  | **−7.39** |
| All other throws         | 443           | 74.9%      | +4.40     | 409           | 67.7%      | −0.37     |

That is a **−8.2-point** swing in expected-completion performance on the intermediate band alone, with completion percentage dropping nearly ten full points (59.1% → 49.3%). Every other bucket got worse — the whole offense got worse — but nothing else fell off a cliff like the 10-to-19-yard throw did.

And it wasn't as if Tampa retreated from the throw. Mayfield's share of dropbacks in the intermediate band actually *rose*, from **22.3% of attempts in 2024 to 24.7% in 2025**. They leaned into their signature zone more, and got punished harder for it every time.

## The target-mix substitution

The mechanism becomes obvious when you look at who was catching (or, mostly, not catching) those 10-to-19-yard throws.

**2024 intermediate targets (top receivers):**

| Receiver    | Int. targets | Comp% | CPOE      |
| ----------- | ------------ | ----- | --------- |
| M. Evans    | 42           | 69.0% | **+8.26** |
| J. McMillan | 21           | 52.4% | −5.44     |
| S. Shepard  | 15           | 53.3% | −5.22     |
| C. Godwin   | 11           | 54.5% | −5.83     |
| C. Otton    | 9            | 55.6% | −4.18     |

**2025 intermediate targets (top receivers):**

| Receiver      | Int. targets | Comp%     | CPOE       |
| ------------- | ------------ | --------- | ---------- |
| **E. Egbuka** | **44**       | **34.1%** | **−25.32** |
| M. Evans      | 25           | 56.0%     | −4.13      |
| T. Johnson    | 19           | 63.2%     | +3.43      |
| S. Shepard    | 15           | 66.7%     | +11.38     |
| C. Godwin     | 10           | 30.0%     | −27.37     |
| C. Otton      | 9            | 77.8%     | +22.66     |

The engine of Tampa's intermediate game in 2024 was Mike Evans catching 69% of his 42 mid-range targets at +8.26 CPOE — elite, sticky-hands football against tight coverage. Evans then played in only **8 of 17 games in 2025** (down from 14 in 2024), and his intermediate volume was cut nearly in half (42 → 25).

The player who inherited that volume was rookie Emeka Egbuka, and the numbers on his intermediate work were bleak: **44 targets, 34.1% completion, −25.32 CPOE**. That's not "rookie growing pains" as a vibe — that is one of the worst air-yard-band CPOE marks you'll see on real volume, on the exact throw the offense was built around.

Chris Godwin filled in for 10 more intermediate targets at 30.0% completion and −27.37 CPOE. Between Egbuka and Godwin, that's **54 intermediate targets combined at a −25.7-ish CPOE**, roughly the same intermediate volume Evans handled by himself in 2024 — at nothing remotely like the same catch rate.

The bright spots (Shepard at +11.4 CPOE, Otton at +22.7, Johnson at +3.4) actually suggest the *throws themselves* weren't the problem when they went to the right players. It really does look like a catch-point issue at specific target destinations.

## What it means

To me, the surgical version of the 2025 Bucs offense story looks like this:

- Protection didn't degrade. Sack and hit rates were flat.
- Playcalling didn't back off the intermediate game — Tampa threw *more* 10-to-19-yard balls, not fewer.
- The intermediate band, which was Mayfield's best zone in 2024 relative to expectation, turned into his worst.
- The mechanism was a target-mix swap: 42 Evans intermediate targets at +8.26 CPOE were replaced, at the margin, by 44 Egbuka targets at −25.32 CPOE and 10 Godwin targets at −27.37.

None of that is a diagnosis of "Mayfield regressed" in any general sense — his non-intermediate CPOE went from +4.40 to −0.37, meaningful but not catastrophic. It's the intermediate throw that turned the offense from +0.129 EPA/play into −0.009, and the intermediate throw that broke because the receivers finishing those throws changed.

If Evans stays healthier and Egbuka's catch-point numbers regress toward what you'd expect a first-round rookie to grow into, I'd expect a lot of Tampa's 2025 offensive shortfall to come back on its own.