‘It is the single-worst loss that any team has suffered this entire NFL season’ — ESPN NFL analyst rightfully takes blow torch to the Bucs after loss to Falcons

ESPN’s Peter Schrager went in on the Bucs after their dreadful loss to the Falcons on Thursday night.

Craig Smith — College Football & NFL Trending News Writer
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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ once-promising 2025 season has gone flying off the rails, and the latest indignity – a 29-28 come-from-ahead loss to the then-4-9 Falcons at home on Thursday Night Football – might just take the cake for the worst loss of the season.

And no, not just for the Bucs’ season – in the entire NFL. That’s at least how one notable NFL analyst sees it.

Peter Schrager went on the Get Up show on ESPN on Friday morning, and he said that, all things considered, Tampa Bay’s loss to the Falcons takes the cake as the worst loss that any team across the league has suffered this season.

ESPN’s Peter Schrager calls Bucs’ loss to Falcons the worst by any NFL team this year

“It is the single-worst loss that any team has suffered this entire NFL season,” Schrager said. “When you consider the stakes and what was – that was an eliminated team already, the Atlanta Falcons. They’re playing without Drake London, their best wide receiver. And late in this game, Atlanta had a second and eighteen and throw it incomplete, but there was a penalty. So they say, ‘we’ll accept the penalty’ the Bucs say to make it second and twenty-eight. Guys, it’s third and twenty-eight. Third and twenty-eight. And they allow this. Out of the backfield, big chunk. Then you have a fourth and fourteen. An inexplicable David Sills finds the opening, gets it, and they lose this way.

“A horrid, horrid loss. You’re up 14 points in the fourth quarter to a team who’s already been eliminated at home, and oh, by the way, the Falcons had nineteen penalties last night. Inexplicable. If you are a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, you are sick. If you are a Carolina Panthers fan, you wake up, and the sun is shining in Charlotte this morning.”

I can’t argue with a word Schrager said. I was discussing Schrager’s comments with my A to Z Sports Tampa Bay colleague Evan Winter about it being the worst loss, and Evan aptly mentioned the Week 1 loss by the Baltimore Ravens where they blew a 16-point fourth quarter lead with four minutes left against the Buffalo Bills as another candidate. That one is a worthy one for sure in my opinion, and I’m not totally sure that’s not the worst.

But Schrager’s points are why last night’s Bucs loss edges it out and takes the cake for me as the worst. Atlanta committed 19 penalties, which the broadcast showed were the worst by any NFL team since the Cleveland Browns in 2019. London was out. Kirk Cousins had thrown for more than 200 yards once this season. And the passing game CLEARLY ran through Kyle Pitts.

The Bucs’ fourth-quarter defense looked like a college student who had partied all night and showed up for the 9:00 am test the next morning without having studied. The Bucs’ pass rush was nonexistent when they needed it to show up for just one drive. There was obvious confusion on the back end. And how Pitts was allowed to even touch the football, given the rest of Atlanta’s passing game options, remains a mystery to me.

In no world should a third-and-28 ever result in a first down, and especially without a penalty by the defense. Instead, the Bucs allowed a dump off that went for half the yardage third down, and they dropped back and went soft, allowing Sills to snare the catch that put Atlanta in position to win. It’s what Mike Evans was saying as he angrily walked back to the locker room and is surely what most fans were shaking their head and yelling about themselves after the game as well.

If it’s not the worst loss in the league, it’s still the worst one this season by a big margin, and it could end up costing Todd Bowles his job when all is said and done.

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