Thursday night’s loss to the Falcons dropped the Buccaneers out of first place in the NFC South, and for the first time this season the Panthers are in the NFL playoff picture and the Buccaneers are out.
Despite all that, the Bucs remain the betting favorites to win the division.
The current betting odds have the Bucs as the -130 favorites to win the division, and the Panthers as the +110 underdogs. It’s a two-team race, as the Falcons and Saints are both mathematically eliminated.
The NFL schedule makers gave us plenty of intrigue in the NFC South, as the Buccaneers and Panthers play against each other in Week 16 and again in Week 18. If either team sweeps those two games, that team wins the NFC South regardless of what happens in any other game. The NFC South race is still wide open, and likely will remain open into the regular-season finale.
As the fourth overall pick, Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts Sr. entered the league in 2021 with ridiculously high expectations. Despite becoming the first rookie tight end since Mike Ditka to generate 1,000-plus receiving yards as a rookie (Brock Bowers has since matched the feat), Pitts has failed to meet the bar that his draft pedigree and potential established.
That changed on Thursday night, with a prime-time breakout only four games away from his first crack at free agency: 11 catches, 166 yards, three touchdowns.
It was his first 100-yard game of the season, although in recent weeks he’d been getting closer and closer. In Week 13, Pitts had a then-season-high 82 yards on seven catches against the Jets. In Week 14, he gained 90 yards on six catches.
Also, the Week 15 game resulted in his first 100-yard receiving performance since December 26, 2021.
After last night, the past may not matter. He showed what he can do, under the right circumstances. And as Bill Walsh once said, if a guy can do something once, he can be coached to do it consistently.
So here’s the question. What will happen when Pitts becomes available? Will a team be sufficiently enthralled by last night’s showing that it shows him the kind of money most never dreamed he’d earn?
The Buccaneers, who witnessed it the hard way, may want to put him at the top of the wish list. If it turns out to be Mike Evans’s final year in Tampa, that money and cap space could go to Pitts.
Really, any team with a need at the position should consider Pitts. Any team without a need should evaluate him as a potential upgrade.
On Thursday night, everyone saw what Kyle Pitts can do. Of the 32 teams in the NFL, one of them likely will decide to pay him a lot of money in the hopes that he’ll do it again.
And again. And again.
Todd Bowles hasn’t been known for fiery press conferences over the years, but the Buccaneers head coach had one on Thursday night after his team blew a 14-point lead to the Falcons and lost for the fifth time in their last six games.
Bowles called the team’s performance “inexcusable” in a profanity-laced excoriation of their effort against Atlanta and said in a Friday morning videoconference that his comments weren’t meant to send a message to the locker room. Bowles said he sent the same message to the team in their postgame meeting and that everything he said on Thursday night was “honest, raw, and right off the top.”
Bowles also said that the response to the loss wasn’t because of any thoughts he might be having about how the team’s recent slide could impact his own job security.
“I don’t think I worry about it at all,” Bowles said. “It doesn’t creep into the locker room. Players play and coaches coach. I got more years behind me than I do ahead of me. I think we’re in a situation where we’re right back in it and our only focus is on winning a ball game.”
It’s too late in the season to make any significant changes to the personnel or schemes in Tampa, so the current players are going to have to play better and the current coaches are going to have to coach better in order for them to hold off the Panthers for a playoff berth that would quiet most of the questions about Bowles’ future in Tampa.
The Falcons trailed 28-20 with five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter when receiver Darnell Mooney fumbled. Six Buccaneers players surrounded the ball, and it looked like the Bucs were about to recover and that the Falcons’ best chance of a comeback had just been fumbled away.
Instead, Falcons center Ryan Neuzil, who was far behind the play at the time the ball came out, sprinted downfield, jumped into the pile and ended up with possession, a crucial fumble recovery that kept the Falcons’ drive alive, leading to a touchdown and ultimately a 29-28 win.
It was an extraordinary play from Neuzil, whose teammates and coaches said afterward that they couldn’t believe what he did.
“I jogged off the field, I said there’s no way we recovered that ball. I just jogged off. Someone said, ‘No, we might have it.’ I said, ‘How?’” Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins said after the game. “Our offensive line coach [Dwayne Ledford] preaches covering. So when the ball is thrown and the rush stops, you are to run forward. You don’t know where or why but you are to run forward. They coach it. They do it so much that when we’re in walk-through, just walking through plays, after every play they walk forward to train the muscle memory. Neuzil covered tonight. If you watch the tape, they do it a lot, more than most guys I’ve played with. When you cover like that, it saved the game. I’m so happy for Neuz making that play. It’s classic o-lineman to just do their job, not make it about them, and be in the right spot and make the play because they’re doing what they’re coached to do.”
Falcons coach Raheem Morris said Neuzil made exactly the kind of play he told his players before the game he needed them to make to find a way to win.
“Effort. Effort,” Morris said. “We talk about covering for our offensive line, you run down the field and do the things that’s required. To watch him do those things, finish and get the ball back for his football team. We talked before the game about playing for each other, and that is the absolute definition of playing for each other when you run down the field and you recover a fumble like that and you get the ball back and continue to give us a chance.”
Offensive linemen don’t get enough credit for their big plays. Neuzil deserves the praise he’s receiving for a huge play on Thursday night.
The Falcons beat the Buccaneers on Thursday night despite a stunning display of penalties, the likes of which the NFL had not seen in years.
Atlanta committed 19 accepted penalties for a total of 125 yards on Thursday night. That’s the most accepted penalties in an NFL game in nine years.
The last time a team committed more penalties than that was October 30, 2016, when the Raiders committed 23 accepted penalties. That game was also against the Buccaneers, and the Buccaneers also managed to find a way to lose that one, 30-24 in overtime, despite all their opponents’ miscues.
On Thursday night the Bucs committed just four accepted penalties, for 25 yards. But they lost 29-28 despite the huge advantage in penalty margin.
Morris was proud that his team, which has been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, fought hard to win, despite the penalties.
“We’ll clean up the penalties and do what we have to do, whatever that is,” Morris said.
Morris was seen screaming at a TV camera at the end of the game, and he said afterward that he was yelling about the penalties. He knows they were a problem for his team on Thursday night, but he also knows his team overcame a lot to get a big win.
