Thursday's loss vs. Falcons put Buccaneers in category nobody wants to be in
It wasn't pretty for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday night. They had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter but mistakes and conservative play calling ended up costing them in a 36-30 loss against the Atlanta Falcons. Now, you can try blaming the missed facemask call on the final drive for […]
It wasn't pretty for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday night. They had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter but mistakes and conservative play calling ended up costing them in a 36-30 loss against the Atlanta Falcons.
Now, you can try blaming the missed facemask call on the final drive for why the Buccaneers didn't finish the job, but the entire game exposed why the Buccaneers ended up losing on Thursday night.
Buccaneers defense has historic performance
It wasn't just the loss for the Buccaneers, it was how they lost the game. They allowed quarterback Kirk Cousins to throw for an astounding 509 yards on Thursday, which is tied for 15th in all-time single game performances.
Cousins' performance was the 25th time a quarterback has thrown for 500+ yards in a single game. He is also the sixth active quarterback with a performance of 500 passing yards, joining Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, Jared Goff, Derek Carr and Matthew Stafford. What's even more wild is three of them have been against the Buccaneers.
Of those three, two of them have been have been against a Todd Bowles defense. Now, it wasn't a fully healthy Bowles defense. They were without defensive tackle Calijah Kancey, safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and linebacker SirVocea Dennis along with both safety Jordan Whitehead and edge rusher Yaya Diaby to injury during the game.
Cousins was picking apart the Bucs defense up the middle with hitch routes and hi-lo concepts all game long, including a perfect throw to KhaDarel Hodge on a hitch route to end the game.
If this was a fully healthy Buccaneers defense, there would be a lot more concern and there should be some for the remainder of the season. However, this defense will need a talent influx this offseason to fully run what Bowles wants to do.
