Uh, oh. Tristan Wirfs is arguably the best tackle in the game, and indications are he won’t be playing until October. He recently underwent arthroscopic knee surgery.
Rick Stroud, who covers the Bucs for the Tampa Bay Times, says the team believes Wirfs wil start the season on the PUP list. That would require him to miss four games (under the old rules, it was six games for PUP players – now it’s four).
That’s not a certainty. The team might just be opting to start with a conservative time line, to stop Wirfs from feeling pressured to return before he’s ready. But it’s looking like he’ll be missing some games. And that should help drop Tampa Bay’s offense a notch.
It’s an offense that was looking to dip anyway, having lost offensive coordinator Liam Coen in the offseason. In part because of his contributions, the offense scored an additional 19 touchdowns last year while rising from 23rd to 3rd in yards gained.
To me, there are two offenses that stand out as being certain to fall well short of where they ranked last year: Lions and Bucs.
Wirfs, at least, should be available for three quarters of the season. And after looking at tackles for the last two hours, the numbers suggest the loss of one key player shouldn’t cause the wheels to fall off the entire offense.
Below see a list of big-time offensive tackles who’ve missed at least four games in a season, while also playing in a least four games. These are all guys who were either first- or second-team All-Pros in either the given year or the previous year to what’s listed. I then compared how the offense performed with the player and without him.
I used four categories – wins, points, rushing yards and sacks. (All numbers, of course, averaged by the number of games played.) The dropoff wasn’t as steep as what I expected. The teams won 10 percent fewer games, but only 3 percent dips in the other three categories.
For these 17 teams, the majority actually averaged more rushing yards when their All-Pro tackles weren’t available. For the other three categories, 6-7 teams were better without their standout tackle.
Only two teams were worse in all four categories when their tackle was sidelined – the 2021 Saints and Eagles.
So if you’re adjusting the board for Tampa Bay, it should be only slightly.
Nonetheless, he’s a guy they’d much rather have for those first four games. They’re opening with a big one – on the road at Atlanta, in a battle of NFC South favorites. In Week 2 they’re at Houston, which has a strong pass rush.
Tampa Bay hosts the Jets and Eagles in Weeks 3-4.
| OFFENSES CHANGING WITHOUT ALL-PRO TACKLES | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Wins | Pts | Run | Sack |
| 2016 | Trent Williams, Was. | -8% | 26% | -1% | 17% |
| 2017 | David Bakhtiari, G.B. | 125% | 75% | -17% | -25% |
| 2017 | Marcus Cannon, N.E. | 24% | 20% | 3% | 8% |
| 2018 | Terron Armstead, N.O. | -26% | -34% | 15% | -36% |
| 2019 | Duane Brown, Sea. | -70% | -24% | 30% | 21% |
| 2020 | David Bakhtiari, G.B. | -10% | -1% | -31% | 50% |
| 2020 | Mitchell Schwartz, K.C. | 8% | 2% | -32% | -46% |
| 2020 | Ronnie Stanley, Bal. | 5% | 3% | 6% | 53% |
| 2021 | Jack Conklin, Cle. | 17% | -19% | -9% | -1% |
| 2021 | Lane Johnson, Phi. | -59% | -7% | -37% | -55% |
| 2021 | Ryan Ramczyk, N.O. | -29% | -37% | -18% | -51% |
| 2022 | Tristan Wirfs, T.B. | -54% | -16% | 7% | 68% |
| 2023 | Andrew Thomas, NYG | -29% | -21% | 5% | 5% |
| 2023 | Tyron Smith, Dall. | -35% | -3% | 17% | -39% |
| 2024 | Jordan Mailata, Phi. | 33% | 12% | 1% | -20% |
| 2024 | Trent Williams, S.F. | -71% | -21% | -34% | -2% |
| 2024 | Tyron Smith, NYJ | -5% | 30% | 14% | -6% |
| Avg | (of these 17 OT) | -10% | -3% | -3% | -3% |
—Ian Allan