Bucs OC Talks Closing Out Close Games

Tampa Bay Buccaneers OC Liam Coen has his offense practicing the end of tight contests.

Jul 25, 2024; Tampa, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen during training camp at AdventHealth Training Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images / Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had some trouble closing out close games this year. And while it didn't end up mattering in the end when the team played the Detroit Lions, the ineffectiveness came back to bite them against the division-rival Atlanta Falcons.

The Bucs had an opportunity to seal the deal against Detroit with 53 seconds left at the six-yard line, but they ran twice and threw an incompletion on 3rd & 6 to punt back to the Lions in just 10 seconds of in-game time. In Atlanta, Tampa Bay had the ball at the Falcons' 28-yard line with 1:44 left and ended up going -14 yards, partially due to a holding penalty, that caused them to punt and then eventually lose the game.

Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen was the OC in both of those games, of course. And when asked just why the offense sputtered during those moments, he said that it comes down to one thing the team has not been doing well at the end of the game — getting back to the basics.

“I think that when it comes down to times of crisis and the game is [hanging in the balance] – you’re tired, you’re fatigued, you’re maybe a little anxious, right?," Coen said Thursday. "We have to stress and remind and go back to fundamentals and technique. What is my footwork? What is my track? What is my read? What is my assignment?"

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That's something Coen doesn't believe the team has been doing in these high-pressure situations. He mentioned that on defense, "six guys" could be doing something wrong and still get away with a stop, but on offense, you need all 11.

For Coen, it doesn't matter as much that the opponent knows they aim to run the ball to bleed the clock. For him, as long as all 11 of those players are on the same page, it shouldn't matter.

"So, if you look back at the last drive going back, we have it closed out and we have to be on the screws with the details, the footwork, the reads, the track and understand how everything is so important on every play to go close out a game," Coen said. "They know we’re running it, we are going to run it and we had an opportunity to win that game, and we have to use that as a learning moment. If we don’t learn from this and get better from this, it will happen again."

And learn from it he is. In fact, he mentioned Thursday that the team has been practicing exact situations like these in practice after what happened with the Atlanta Falcons.

"And we emphasized it today in practice – the exact same situation, the exact same time, the exact same type of deal, we kind of replicated that today in practice," Coen said. "We went over the plays we would run, executed them and will continue to try and learn from those moments.”

In an ideal world, the Bucs wouldn't keep it close enough for these things to matter. But if they do — especially against the division-rival New Orleans Saints — they'll want to make sure they're ready this time around.

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