Evaluating Cody Mauch’s Rookie Season

Cody Mauch was drafted in the second-round last year out of North Dakota State where he was a standout in their run-heavy scheme. I profiled him shortly after the Bucs selected him noting that he excelled in his movement skills as a very athletic offensive lineman who lacked some strength and power, but those areas could be developed over time. Mauch would need refinement as a pass protector as well.

For this article I reviewed three games from Cody Mauch’s 2023 campaign, looking for signs of progress. Those games were Week 1 @ Minnesota, Week 12 @ Indianapolis and the Divisional playoff game @ Detroit.

Looking Back On Cody Mauch’s 2023

Cody Mauch was one of the worst guards in all of football according to Pro Football Focus. Of the 54 guards who logged at least 687 snaps his 45.0 grade ranked 52nd overall. He was dead last in run blocking grade (37.6) and 46th in pass blocking grade (52.1). He also allowed the most pressures by any guard in the league at 57.

This was very reminiscent of teammate Luke Goedeke’s 2022 season when he logged a similar performance as a rookie guard. That season Goedeke was 56th of 60 qualifying guards in overall grade (46.7), 54th in run block grade (47.8) and 54th in pass block grade (46.7). Goedeke only allowed 24 pressures (albeit in a much smaller sample size since he was benched midway through the season). For a more apples to apples comparison, Goedeke’s pressure rate allowed in 2022 was 5.73% whereas Mauch’s was 7.32% this past year.

There’s an argument to be made based on the metrics above that Mauch was even worse last year than Goedeke was during a woeful 2022. But you’d be hard-pressed to find film junkies who support that claim. Before I get into what stood out on tape to me it is important to provide some important context surrounding the two performances.

Goedeke was blocking for Tom Brady in 2022 whose average time to throw was 2.30 seconds. Mauch had to cover for 2.74 seconds. That doesn’t seem like a lot of additional time until you realize it’s a 19% increase. Further supporting evidence can be found in both Tristan Wirfs and Robert Hainsey seeing marked increases in their pressure allowed rates increasing year-over-year.

Did Cody Mauch Progress Over The Course Of The Season?

I wanted to see if Mauch saw any periods of sustained improvement over the course of the season, so I charted his rolling three game average in three quantifiable areas: PFF pass block grade, PFF run block grade and pressure allowed rate. Here is the grading charts:

And here is his rolling pressure allowed rate.

Rookie Wall

Throughout his collegiate career Mauch would play about 15 games in a season. Last year he logged 19 total as the Bucs had a two-game playoff run. You can see his play precipitously dives around week 17. If we re-publish those graphs stopping at week 16, the outlook becomes rosier.

Tale of The Tape

Looking at the chosen three game sample-size as indicators of his play early, middle and late season here are some of my observations.

Week One – Minnesota

The first thing that jumped out to me throughout his first regular season game, was Mauch’s ability to recover even if he got beat at the outset of the rep.

As noted when he was drafted, coming from an FCS school that didn’t pass much, Cody Mauch was an unrefined player last year. But he made up for a lot of that with sheer will and determination combined with hip pliability and a strong lower half. Mauch was almost never out of a rep, no matter how badly it started for him.

He was smart with his eyes when identifying assignments while facing overloaded defensive alignments, showed a strong anchor and would readjust his hands if initially he had a poor placement.

There were red flags as well. He had a tendency to stop his feet when he got to the second level as displayed in the clip above. He could be late to throw his hands giving defenders an opportunity to get into his chest. He had inconsistent pad level which would lead to lost reps where defenders could forklift him.

I also noticed he could get caught out over his skis if an opponent moved in an unexpected way. It was almost as if Mauch made a pre-snap determination of what he thought the defender would do. If he guessed right, he was in good shape. But if he guessed wrong, he didn’t have enough balance in his movements to stay even as he adjusted.

Week 12 – Indianapolis

This game was Mauch’s cleanest in pass protection and his third-highest graded game of the season overall. What’s especially impressive about that is he had several reps against DeForest Buckner where he more than held his own.

Mauch didn’t allow a single pressure in this game. He looked more patient, controlled and confident in his movements, guessed less and used more tricks. He had several reps where he knew the play was going away from his side and so he just stepped out and back to wall off his defender. His hand-fighting was on full display against Buckner as he would swipe away Buckner’s punches as the veteran defensive tackle tried to attack his chest. Mauch was also proficient with throwing the correct hand for the leverage he had based on Buckner’s path.

It wasn’t a perfect game. Mauch still struggled with length as he still had reps where he would expose his chest. He would still occasionally get caught leaning and guessing. But those plays were reduced significantly.

Divisional Round – Detroit

By the time the team finished their divisional round game against Detroit Mauch had played 22 games and 1,316 plays spanning 24 weeks. That’s a lot of football. This would be the 4th-highest graded game of his season. PFF has him credited as allowing four pressures, but I couldn’t find more than two. Mauch’s run blocking was much improved as his play strength looked to be improved from early in the season. Especially in his lower half. Much of his improvements came from stay connected to the block through the end of the play.

What to Expect In 2024

I am very excited to see what Cody Mauch can do in his second season in Tampa Bay. The technique improvements he displayed

throughout last season combined with a full offseason to learn and get stronger with a professional weight training program should create the building blocks for a big jump forward in his sophomore season.

The Bucs have consistently praised Mauch for his play in his rookie season. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles commented on Mauch saying, “I think starting on offensive line as a rookie is one of the hardest things to do as in the NFL. Cody did it kind of seamlessly, so you don’t really talk about him. But he was a rookie, and he was going up against All-Pros every week. He held his own. He’s a very smart player. He’s a very tough player. He’s a very dedicated player. With a year in the system, and him getting in the weight room, I look forward to big things from Cody.”

Me too, coach. Me too.