The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were 4.5-point road favorites coming into the Week 16 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, yet Baker Mayfield and co. left town with one of their most disappointing losses of the year.
The Bucs had to win this game, not only because that’s what NFL teams need to do, but also because the Atlanta Falcons beat the New York Giants earlier in the day. Therefore, a loss would knock the Bucs off the NFC South perch and out of the playoff race, as well.
That should be enough motivation for any team to come out and get the job done, right? Well, it may have motivated the Bucs, but they certainly didn’t play that way on Sunday. The team immediately came out flat on both sides of the ball and the result was a 10-point, first quarter deficit that eventually proved enough to win the game.
The Bucs simply didn’t play like a team fighting for a playoff spot, yet the Cowboys did despite being mathematically eliminated from the postseason before kickoff and star wide receiver Mike Evans said as much after the game.
“They made more plays than us. They were more physical than us,” Evans told reporters after the game. “We committed way too many penalties and way too many mistakes. They deserved to win today [because] they played like they were trying to clinch playoffs and we didn’t.”
The slow start was extremely out of character for a Bucs offense averaging 7.5 first quarter points coming into the game. That was No. 1 out of the league’s 32 teams and the defense hadn’t been bad, either, allowing the 10th-fewest first quarter points at 3.6 points per game.
The unit managed to gain just 31 net yards and logged just one first down in the first quarter. In hindsight, Sterling Shepard’s key 4th and 3 drop on the Bucs’ first drive ended up being a bad omen for things to come.
When the offense finally started showing life, the defense cratered and allowed 13 second quarter points that made it a 23-14 game at halftime. In all, it was a discombobulated mess on both sides of the ball. Evans is 100% correct: That’s not how a playoff team operates and if it does, it deserves to get bounced out of the dance as quickly as possible.
Now, the Bucs need help to get into the dance. The Falcons currently sit atop the NFC South at 8-7. Tampa Bay has to win one more game than Atlanta over the next two weeks or else it can kiss a fourth-straight division title goodbye. Either way, the Bucs have to win out. An eighth loss would doom them completely, because on top of Atlanta, they’re chasing the Washington Commanders for the No. 7 seed. If the Commanders lose their final two games (one is against the Falcons ironically enough), then the Bucs would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to their Week 1 win.
It’s going to be up to guys like Evans, Mayfield, and Lavonte David to make sure this team immediately corrects course. It won’t come easy against an improved Carolina Panthers team that took them to the wire, and should’ve won, back in Week 13.
Because if they don’t then they will miss out on the playoffs for the first time in five years. And that’s a spot no one on that roster wants to be in.
