The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are spending their bye week searching for answers.

The Bucs are just half a game out of the NFC South, but they're 3-6 and in danger of plummeting further. Tampa Bay has an elite defense and an elite running game, but their passing game is among the NFL's worst and is dragging the whole team down.

Much has been discussed about the passing game as a whole, but there's one specific part of it that's a major concern for Tampa Bay through nine weeks — and the Bucs need to find a way to fix it fast if they want the passing game to take off.

Bucs Have Serious Trouble Throwing to the Middle of the Field

The best teams in football — and even average ones, for that matter — find ways to pass to the middle of the field. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have failed spectacularly when it comes to this, and their pass game is paying for it as a result.

The league average for passes between the hashes is at 10.4% this year so far. The Bucs have thrown just 11 passes to the middle of the field all year (Baker Mayfield has thrown eight and Jalon Daniels has thrown three). That's just 4.9% of their attempts so far this year, and both their total attempts to the middle of the field and their percentage of throws to the middle of the field rank 31st in the NFL — only the Denver Broncos are worse in both categories, per SumerSports.

The best team in the league at finding the middle of the field is the Houston Texans in both attempts and percentage of attempts. Some of the NFL's best offenses lead the league in middle-of-the-field percentage, like the Jacksonville Jaguars (No. 2), the Chicago Bears (No. 3) and the San Francisco 49ers (No. 4), among others.

Tampa Bay's passing offense has the entire area blocked off at the moment, and the team is suffering for it. But why aren't they getting the ball there so far this season?

Why Aren't the Bucs Throwing Between the Hashes?

There are multiple factors, of course.

The Buccaneers don't seem to have any receivers who can survive in high-traffic areas and have the route-running acumen on inside-breaking routes to thrive there. This also involves physical toughness — first-round draft pick Emeka Egbuka has struggled with that for most of his NFL career to date; Chris Godwin is in the tail end of his career and his age makes it harder to take those hits; and wideout Tez Johnson is among the smallest wideouts in the NFL.

That could be making offensive coordinator Zac Robinson spooked, and could prevent him from putting first reads between the hashes in a progression-based read system. Mayfield could also be frightened to throw to the middle of the field as many NFL quarterbacks have been in the past, but with Daniels throwing there at just as little a rate, Robinson's scheming could be more of the culprit.

No matter what the reason is, the Bucs need to figure out how to unlock that part of the field in the passing game. Getting it to at least a league-average rate would be very beneficial for this team, but it will take a combination of multiple parties on the offensive side of the ball to make that happen.

Tampa Bay will play the Detroit Lions on the road in Week 11 after their bye week this weekend.