T Luke Goedeke, part of one of the NFL's top offensive lines in 2024, thinks the Bucs are realistically in position to become the most productive offense in the NFL in 2025

Scott Smith

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are about to play their50th season, and for a good part of those five decades the team's peak successes were driven by defense. Lee Roy Selmon and the 1979 Buccaneers kicked off the franchise's first run of playoff participation by rising to the top of the NFL ranks. The highly-competitive years that began in the second half of the '90s and peaked with victory in Super Bowl XXXVII in the 2020 season, featured one of the best defenses in NFL history. It's no coincidence that the first five Buccaneer players to land in the Hall of Fame all played defense.

The Buccaneers' current run of five straight playoff seasons and four straight NFC South titles not to mention a second Super Bowl championship is different. While the Bucs' defense has still been a key part of all that success, most notably in the Super Bowl LV run, the team's offense has arguably been more of a focal point.

From 2020 through last season, the Buccaneers scored 2,166 points and gained 31,054 total net yards, ranking seventh and sixth in the NFL in those categories, respectively. In that same span, the Bucs were first in touchdown passes (180), second in passing yards (22,510) and fourth in point differential (+390). The Buccaneers ranked first in passing yards in 2021, as well as in 2018 and 2019.

What they did not quite accomplish at any point in the span is a season in which their overall offense was ranked number-one in the NFL, which is based on total yards. In their first 49 seasons, the Buccaneers have finished a season with the league's number-one defensive ranking three times: in 1979, 2002 and 2005. They've never taken the top spot on offense, though the 2021 Tom Brady-led group came close, at number two.

Could this be year the Bucs' offense rises to the top of the heap? One key component of that attack, rising-star right tackle Luke Goedeke, believes that is a reasonable goal, and one that truly is within the Buccaneers' reach. Tampa Bay's offensive line as a whole is coming off a fantastic season in which it helped produce the NFL's fourth-most rushing yards and also allowed the lowest pressure rate in the league. For those reasons, Pro Football Network ranked the Bucs' line third in the NFL in 2024 and Goedeke believes it can be a driving force for even more success in 2025.

"I feel like the sky is the limit for our O-line and our offense as a whole," he said after minicamp practice on Wednesday. "I'd like to see our offense as the best O-line and best offense in the National Football League. That's the goal among every team but I would say we're definitely a team [where] that's definitely achievable. Everyone strives for that and that's great and everything but I think the Bucs, here, as we stand today, they're in a good spot to achieve that this year."

Finding balance was the key to putting the Buccaneers within range of the top spot. The Bucs were ranked first or second in passing yards in every season from 2018 through 2022 but haven't been higher htan 24th in rushing yards in that span. In fact, Tampa Bay was dead last in that category in both 2022 and 2023. Last year, however, the Bucs had the only offense in the league to finish in the top five in both rushing and passing, with rankings of fourth and third, respectively.

Goedeke may be right that the top offensive ranking is an achievable goal for the Buccaneers in 2025, but it won't be easy of course. Patrick Mahomes is still playing, and even if the Chiefs did dip to 16th last year they could quickly rise back to the top. The Lions are loaded and averaged more than 400 yards a game last year. With Lamar Jackson stacking MVP awards and now sharing the running load with Derrick Henry, the Ravens rang up an amazing 425 yards per game in 2024. San Francisco, Green Bay, Washington and the defending-champion Eagles may have a say in the matter.

Still, the Bucs have one of the deepest receiving corps in the NFL, that strong and still improving offensive line, a new star in the ground game in Bucky Irving and a quarterback in Baker Mayfield who has thrown for 8,544 yards and 69 touchdowns over the past two seasons. The offense is also returning every starter and key contributor, and even with last year's offensive coordinator, Liam Coen, now in Jacksonville, the internal promotion of Josh Grizzard will provide scheme continuity. The pieces to the puzzle are all there, and if Goedeke is right, maybe the image they produce will look like this: "#1."