The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were beaten by the New England Patriots 28-23 which dropped their season record to 6-3.
Football is the ultimate TEAM game and there was lots of blame to go around during this game. Football is also a game that requires all 11 players to do their job in order to be successful from play to play and series to series. Mental errors were on full display on BOTH sides of the ball today.
On Offense, after an impressive opening drive which culminated in an Emeka Egbuka TD reception, they couldn’t do much other than a FG until the 4th Quarter.
On Defense, the Bucs gave up 4 plays of over 50 yards (2 passing and 2 rushing). When long plays happen it’s usually because someone or several people are not where they’re supposed to be.
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The Patriots scored a TD on the last play of the 1st and 2nd quarter to take a 14-10 lead. Then they scored on the 2nd play of the 3rd quarter to take a 21-10 lead. The usually stout Bucs run defense has given up some long runs in 2 of the last 3 games. Championship defenses just don’t give up those type of plays.
The Offense finally woke up in the 4th quarter and got to within 5 points but despite the Defense giving them two chances to take the lead, they couldn’t convert a 3rd or 4th down and 3 and essentially that was the ball game.
I wrote earlier this week about how we will find out what kind of team the Bucs were going to be after this 3 game stretch (Patriots, Bills and Rams), well today they proved they aren’t ready to compete against the elite teams.
The NFL is a once per week referendum on the state of each team. Next week they get another chance to see what they can do.
The only silver lining today was that the Falcons and Panthers both lost. The Bucs are still 1.5 games ahead of Carolina but they had an opportunity to stretch that lead even further.
The Buffalo Bills are up next and they’ll be an angry team as they were waxed 30 to 13 by the Miami Dolphins. Once again, Buccaneers will get to answer the question of “what kind of team are you going to be?”
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