The Buccaneers were heavy favorites heading into Sunday’s game against the Saints, but it didn’t take long to realize that the Saints weren’t going to roll over on a rainy day in Tampa.
Mason Tipton returned the opening kickoff 54 yards to set up six-play, 45-yard touchdown drive for the Saints and short fields would become a theme for New Orleans on their way to a 24-20 win. They never had to drive more than 53 yards for points on a day when the Bucs threw an interception and failed to convert 5-of-7 fourth down tries. Baker Mayfield went 5-of-5 for 60 yards on the Bucs’ first offensive possession, but was 9-of-22 for 62 yards the rest of the afternoon and they had to settle for a field goal in the fourth quarter when wide receiver Emeka Egbuka failed to hold onto a catchable ball in the end zone.
It wasn’t the result many people expected due to the Saints’ 2-10 record coming into Sunday, but it wasn’t one that shocked Bucs head coach Todd Bowles.
“It’s a division game; they always play us tough,” Bowles said, via the team’s website. “I said that all week. We don’t look at records. When we play division games they know us and we know them. We had plenty of chances to make plays, coaching-wise offensively, defensively and special teams, definitely player-wise offense, defense and special teams. We had situations come up where we didn’t make any plays. We could have made better calls. There’s a myriad of things that could have happened that we lost this ballgame. It doesn’t matter whether the team was 12-0 or 0-12. It’s the NFL; you’ve got to show up and play and make plays or the other team is going to beat you.”
The Bucs will need to learn the lessons of the loss quickly. They have a Thursday night game against a Falcons team that’s lost seven of their last eight games and Bowles said “we can’t let one loss turn into two” with the Panthers also at 7-6 heading into the final four weeks of the season.
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