Thursday night’s 36-30 loss to Atlanta will haunt the Buccaneers for a long time

Tampa Bay Buccaneers blocked a kick to preserve a three-point lead, then intercepted the ball with just under three minutes to play. But they still managed to let the Atlanta Falcons back into the game, force overtime, and score a walk off TD in to give the Falcons first place in the NFC South.

Thursday night’s 36-30 loss will haunt the Bucs for a long time. It was an easily-winnable game where the offense came to play. Baker Mayfield threw a trio of touchdowns and the running game finally showed up, with the team rushing for a total of 160 yards.

But the defense was more or less a doormat for Kirk Cousins to walk over on the way to a 509-yard, four-touchdown night. (In sum, the Bucs gave up 550 yards of total offense to a team whose scoring high for the season this season had been 260.)

The offense was not without its warts though and committed some inexcusable mistakes in the loss. Rookie running back and fan favorite Bucky Irving fumbled on a key possession late in the fourth quarter, giving Atlanta a chance to tie the game with all three timeouts and over two minutes to go.

But defensive end Logan Hall—who had a solid performance—came up with an impressive sack to set up a fourth-and-forever for Cousins who ended up being picked off by the steady as ever Lavonte David who set the Bucs up on the Falcons 31-yard line.

Unfortunately the offense grabbed the opportunity and flushed it down the toilet, with a couple negative runs, a failed screen, and a facemask penalty by rookie center Graham Barton that forced the Bucs to punt.

New punter Trenton Gill—in for the struggling, and benched, Jake Camarda—took his chance to pin the Falcons inside their own five-yard line by bouncing the kick it into the end zone, resulting in a punt with a net yardage of 22 yards (expect to see Camarda back next weekend).

Overtime went similarly to the rest of the game; not much resistance to Cousins and the Falcon offense,which took just 75 seconds to drive 70 yards down the field and score the winning touchdown.

The Bucs face the New Orleans Saints a week from Sunday, giving them a long time to think about everything that went wrong in their first divisional matchup of the year.

In a season where their margin for error is slim, a game like Thursday’s, which was very much within reach, is one that has to be a victory. The short week after a win over Philadelphia cannot be an excuse for the silly mistakes that were made on both sides of the ball.

Hopefully the Bucs can bounce back from their embarrassing meltdown on Amazon Prime, but it certainly falls in line with the franchise’s history of making themselves look like a bunch of losers in front of a national audience. Maybe that’s just who they are. Or maybe I’m overreacting.

Regardless, don’t fire the cannons. Fire someone, though. Probably Trenton Gill.

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