The Buccaneers have been hurting with injuries and seeing their playoff chances shrink in recent weeks, but they overcame this, used the weapons they still had and came up with a dominating victory over Seattle. Tampa Bay hasn't beaten many good teams this year, but they certainly looked like they could play with anyone in this one.
As for the Seahawks, the likely No. 5 seed New Orleans Saints must be licking their chops at the thought of playing in the playoffs vs. Seattle — if the Seahawks can show anything in the Week 17 Sunday night game vs. St. Louis, unlikely given their recent play.
Seahawks: Three performances of note
RG Mike Gibson (-3.3) found his way into the starting lineup midseason and made the move to right guard last week where he had his best game of the year. He followed it up with his worst game, allowing the only sack the Buccaneers made and struggling greatly in run defense.
CB Marcus Trufant (-3.6) has been having a season to forget and this game was no exception. He allowed five catches for only 60 yards, but three of those five catches were for touchdowns. There was question as to if Trufant was going to play in the game, and the back spasms from the previous week or not having the full week of practice may have hurt his performance.
DE Kentwan Balmer (-2.2) started the season looking promising, but it has gone downhill since he made the move to playing more at end than tackle. He has greatly struggled in stopping the run, and he’s gotten ether no pressure or one pressure in every game since Week 7. The play of each of these players needs to go up if they want the division title.
Buccaneers: Three performances of note
The clear star of this game was QB Josh Freeman (+7.1) who completed over 80% of his passes, threw for 9.3 yards per attempt and threw five touchdowns. On paper — and upon our further review — the Buccaneers haven’t looked too good, yet they’ve been winning. Freeman is a huge reason for the team’s success.
With a lot of the Buccaneers receivers hurting, Freemen went to TE Kellen Winslow (+4.4) early and often in this one. He caught all seven balls thrown his way for 98 yards, 43 of them coming after the catch and two touchdowns. He was also pretty good at run blocking which helped his rating. The catches came against five different defenders, showing the Seahawks tried different ways to stop Winslow but no one could.
OLB Geno Hayes (+2.8) has shown some promise for the Buccaneers this year, but was coming off of one of the worst games by an outside linebacker this season. He stepped up in this game, getting five stops and two sacks to help stop the Seahawks from getting momentum, and keeping the ball in the Buccaneers offense hands.
Rookie report
A number of rookies saw action for the Seahawks. Most notably, LT Russell Okung (+1.4) had one of his better games with only allowing two pressures and doing well in run blocking. FS Earl Thomas (+1.6) also had a strong performance, not allowing a catch and stopping the run well. WR Golden Tate (+0.6) saw a little time on offense near the end, catching three short passes.
The Buccaneers had even more rookies featured in this game. HB LeGarrette Blount (+0.7) had a nice day running the ball, but when the Buccaneers tried to use him on pass plays he struggled. LG Ted Larsen (-2.6) and RG Derek Hardman (+1.4) both started the game with Larsen continuing his poor play while Hardman had his first good game. Four of the six wide receivers used in this game for the Buccaneers were rookies, with WR Mike Williams (+2.3) stealing the show from the group and having a second straight strong game. CB Myron Lewis (-0.5) was the nickel cornerback and wasn’t thrown at.
Random note
Seahawks QBs Matt Hasselbeck and Charlie Whitehurst had identical ratings in both passing and running; Whitehurst got the better overall rating thanks to a nice run block.
© 2025 PFF - all rights reserved.