Even though Atlanta still had three timeouts, Tampa Bay was leading 30-27 and on their opponent's 28. On a second-and-13 handoff, Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving was tackled by Falcons linebacker Kaden Elliss for a seven-yard gain.
Buccaneers lineman Graham Barton was flagged for a holding and the Tampa offense was backed up a further 10 yards. However, replays of Elliss's tackle revealed the linebacker brought Irving down via his face mask.
Offsetting penalties would have ruled the play dead and kept the Buccaneers in field goal range. Instead, they punted on fourth-and-long two plays later with Atlanta still only needing a field goal to tie.
Cousins guided a miraculous two-minute drill to tie the game as time expired. The Falcons would run out 36-30 winners four plays into overtime on a 45-yard KhaDarel Hodge touchdown.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield didn't point the finger at any official when asked to summarize the game. "All I care about is wins, and that's it. So we gotta find a way to finish that game out on offense," Mayfield said.
"I'm thinking about missing that shot to [Sterling Shepard], it should have been a touchdown and we ended up with three points. I'm just replaying that one over in my head where maybe it shouldn't have been an overtime situation."
Mayfield carved up the Falcons' defense to the tune of 131 yards and three touchdowns in the first half, putting up 24 points. The Buccaneers offense struggled in the second half as their quarterback failed to tally even 50 passing yards.
The former first-overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft is in the first season of a three-year, $100 million contract ($50 million guaranteed) after a Pro Bowl 2023 campaign with the Buccaneers.
"I think first and foremost, everybody needs to take this time to get healthy," he continued. "We had a lot of guys go down tonight. We were already a little banged up, so everybody needs to be pros, take care of their bodies, and just regroup. Get back to the basics and just execute. I think that offensively, we'll look back at the tape and realize that we didn't exactly execute in the second half."
Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles was directly asked about the face mask postgame: “There was a blatant face mask penalty against Bucky Irving that was not called….you’re on the competition committee…shouldn’t this play be reviewable?"
“Hopefully we can get to that, we’re trying to get to that right there," Bowles said. "I think it should be reviewed from the top or at least reviewed by the coaches if anything else so they don’t miss many calls.”
"We had opportunities on both sides of the ball," he continued. "We didn't finish. Did some good things. We did a lot of bad things to lose the ball game. So, we'll get some rest, we'll some guys healthy, and we'll get ready for next week. We've got a good football team. We didn't finish the game."
buccaneers need to stay aggressive on offense and try to score especially in the last minutes with 3 point lead. Seen this tactic of playing it safe fail.
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