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Buccaneers DeskThe Verdict

Buccaneers lost to the Bears the way the snaps said they would

Tampa Bay played like a team that wins 15% of the time, and a 67-yard interception return made the Bears' 27-24 win official.

TurnoversThe VerdictDeservedDeserved 15% · Week 9
By Buccaneers Desk, Pigskin NightlyNov 10, 11:00 AM ET3 min read

The verdict

Played like that, the Buccaneers win 15% of the time. The snaps gave the Bears an 85% chance and a deserved margin of 5.7 points. Chicago's 27-24 win was earned.

The final score is closer than the game was. Tampa Bay also drew 1.6 luck points in this game to Chicago's minus 2.4, so the three-point margin owes something to fortune.

What the score hid

The Buccaneers averaged minus 0.27 expected points added per snap. EPA measures how much each play moves a team's scoring outlook compared with an average play from that spot. The Bears were at minus 0.19. Neither offense was good, and Tampa Bay's was the worse of the two.

Success rate says the same thing. The Buccaneers were successful on 40% of snaps and the Bears on 43%. For a passing offense that Pigskin Nightly measures by EPA per dropback, that is a quiet afternoon.

The swing play came with 3:50 left in the third quarter. B.Mayfield threw short right for C.Otton from a shotgun set, and J.Johnson intercepted it at the Chicago 33 and returned it 67 yards for a touchdown. That one throw moved win probability by 28 points. No other snap came close.

The calls

Todd Bowles made two fourth-down calls the model leaned against, and both were punts. In the first quarter, on fourth-and-4 from 54 yards out, the model preferred going for it. The punt cost 0.4 expected points. In the third quarter, on fourth-and-2 from 66 yards out, it preferred going again. That punt cost 0.7.

The other seven calls matched the model. Bowles went for it on fourth-and-2 from the 12 in the first quarter and converted. He went on fourth-and-1 from his own 35 in the second quarter and was stopped, which was the right call even though it failed. Neither lean was a glaring error. They fit a pattern, though, and it shows up in the trend below.

The flags did not decide this game. Chicago was called for offensive holding for 9 yards in the third quarter, worth 6 points of win probability to Tampa Bay. A face mask on the Bears for 15 yards in the fourth quarter added 4. Tampa Bay's own holding for 10 yards, 38 seconds of game clock after the first Chicago hold, gave 4 back. The net effect favored the Buccaneers, and they still lost.

The trend

Tampa Bay is 3-6. The snaps say 4.7 deserved wins, which leaves the Buccaneers 1.7 wins short of their play. That is the 31st-luckiest standing out of 32 teams. They are 1-6 in one-score games. Chicago's kicking luck, minus 5.8 points over the season, has been a drag on them, while fumble recoveries have returned 1.8 points. Net EPA per snap on the season is 0.046, 11th in the league, so the season-long picture is better than Sunday's.

The Chicken Index is where Bowles's record shows up. The model recommended going for it 10 times in 50 graded fourth downs, and Tampa Bay went 3 times. The index sits at 70%, fifth most timid of 32 teams, and the cost is 4.3 expected points. None of the misses has been a clear one.

The luck sheet says 1.7 wins are still unpaid. That does not guarantee a win this week, because Sunday's 15% was real.

The Buccaneers play next in Week 11, at the Detroit Lions on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 1:00 PM ET on Fox.

How this was reported. Every number in this piece comes from the play-by-play, drive, injury and snap data Pigskin Nightly collects for every game. EPA (expected points added) is from the open nflverse model. We do not use anonymous sources or invent quotes. Read how we write; spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it in the open.