Tom Brady and the Buccaneers have struggled up to this point in the season, recording a 2-2 schedule thus far and falling in back-to-back games in the past two weeks.
Many have cited injuries as a primary reason for this early struggle, as the Buccaneers’ first loss of the year came with their top-3 wide receivers out due to either injury or disciplinary suspensions.
Defensively, the Buccaneers had been seen as a brick wall, stopping the run with ease, putting constant pressure on opposing quarterbacks, and keeping things under wraps in the secondary.
Despite this early defensive success, the Buccaneers could not find an answer for the Chiefs’ high-powered vertical offense. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw for 249 yards and three touchdowns in their 41-31 win over the Buccaneers.
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid pointed towards time of possession as a key reason for their win in his post-game press conference.
“Patrick, Kelce, Marquez, Juju and those two runners bared down and really did a nice job, which is big, you play this group and time of possession becomes a really big thing,” Reid said.
The Chiefs’ run game found success against the Buccaneers’ stout run defense as well, putting up 189 yards and two touchdowns on the ground as a team.
On the flip side, the Buccaneers also found success offensively, putting up the best offensive day of the season.
Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady threw for 385 yards and three touchdowns, finding his most successful performance this season.
It seemed the Buccaneers’ offensive play callers were comfortable putting all the offensive pressure on Brady’s 45-year-old arm, as the team threw the ball 52 times in comparison to just six rushing plays the entire game for a grand total of three rushing yards.
Despite this, the all-out pass offense simply wasn’t strong enough to keep up with the Chiefs’ 41 total points.
Brady weighed in on the struggles to find consistency up to this point in the season, stating that the offense simply isn’t playing well enough.
“We’re here for one reason: not to move the ball or anything like that, we’re here to score more points than the other team,” Brady said. “And they did a good job, we didn’t do a good job in the run game, could’ve done a lot better job in the pass game, and we’ve just got to get out there and get to work to see if we can do a better job.”
The Buccaneers will face off against the Falcons next week in what should be the start to an easier few games before they face off against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in week nine.