Snap Count Observations From the Buccaneers' Week 15 Loss to the Saints

There are some noticeable changes when it comes to this week's observations for obvious reasons.

Tampa Bay suffered another gut-wrenching loss at the hands of the Saints and this time, injury was added to insult. 

Some key cogs had to leave this game early, so who made up for the losses in terms of playing time?

Offense

The Bucs' offensive snap counts for Week 15 vs. the Saints

The injuries to Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Leonard Fournette obviously shook things up this week. Tyler Johnson played the most he's ever played and had an OK game, recording four catches for 41 yards on seven targets. Scotty Miller also saw a career-high in both snaps and playing percentage, but was targeted just three times and two catches for 18 yards to show for it. 

What's most interesting is how little O.J. Howard played on a night where so many options in the passing game went down. There's also the fact that Ke'Shawn Vaughn played only three less snaps than Ronald Jones II. RoJo was playing really well, but according to Bruce Arians, he was "gassed" after his big 30-yard run.

“It was just a matter of him being gassed really quick and having Ke’Shawn [Vaughn] in for a couple of pass plays," Arians told reporters after the game. 

Vaughn was in primarily on third down and was the lead back when the Bucs found themselves down two scores with under five minutes left in the game, so it'll be interesting to see if that is his role moving forward. Until Fournette and Giovani Bernard come back from their injuries, of course.

Defense

The Bucs' defensive snap counts for Week 15 vs. the Saints. Numbers on the far right indicate special teams snaps

It looks like Pierre Desir was the Bucs' No. 3 corner, but only played 36% of defensive snaps, which makes me think the team was in its base defense for the majority of the night. That makes sense considering how much the Saints run the ball, especially when you see they ran 31 times against the Bucs. It would also explain why Will Gholston and Steve McClendon received a season-high in playing percentage. Vita Vea and Ndamukong Suh also played more snaps than their season average has shown, as well.

Joe Tryon-Shoyinka continues to flash when he's on the field. Around 40-50% of snaps is exactly where he should be and as of now, he has 4.0 sacks on the year.

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