Best and Worst of Buccaneers Win Over Falcons

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are on a 2-0 start in the 2021 NFL season thanks to a victory Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons. The final score was 48-25, but it wasn’t as sharp a game as the score might indicate, although the Bucs never really lost control of the win.

As we do every week. Let’s dive into the good and bad sides of this latest Bucs victory.

THIRD WORST: END OF SEMI-EXECUTION

With 47 seconds left in the first half, the Buccaneers scored a touchdown when quarterback Tom Brady found wide receiver Mike Evans three yards away.

The scoring gave Tampa Bay a 14-point lead, and even with Atlanta receiving the ball to start the second half, gave them a solid grip on the game up to this point.

In the final 40 seconds of the game, however, the Falcons managed to get from their own 35-yard line to field goal distance. Younghoe Koo put in a 36-yard field goal for the Falcons at the end of the first half, and gave his team a smaller deficit to make up for and some momentum.

Admittedly, the practice should have ended with a defensive touchdown following a perfectly timed strip-sack by Bucs outside linebacker Shaquil Barrett, but even with the official snafu, the Bucs defense could have locked their opponent for secure the advance of two touchdowns.

Instead, following the erroneous flag nullifying the defensive score, an unnecessary roughness penalty on Bucs cornerback Carlton Davis III and an offside penalty on outside linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul did not help their opponent. to reduce the score before the break.

THIRD BEST: HISTORICAL RHYTHMS

Tom Brady is going to become the greatest NFL quarterback to ever play the game whenever he decides to call it a career.

The statistics, the championships, the product on the field, all that. No one holds the torch for what the sixth-round draft pick has been able to accomplish, and if he continues at his current pace, he’s going to reach another historic milestone in a very important place.

Brady already holds the career touchdown record. His 581 kills were ten more than former New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers quarterback Drew Brees at the end of last season when he retired.

The nine Brady has so far this season after five more touchdowns on Sunday bring his total to 590, just ten from becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to throw 600.

When could he throw the 600th touchdown pass? Quite interesting …

Of course, that would force Brady to throw in five touchdown passes next week against the Los Angeles Rams, at SoFi Stadium nonetheless.

Don’t tell Brady he can’t do it. Many have already made this mistake.

SECOND WORST: LACK OF USE OF RONALD JONES II

Many Bucs fans want to see Jones back on the pitch consistently. After getting just six runs and one catch in Week 2, Jones has had more than ten touches in just two of the last six regular season games he’s been in.

Obviously, this kills any relevance to fantasy football that he has, but more importantly, it shows a change in the separation of races between Jones and fellow running back Leonard Fournette.

It seems the Bucs coaching staff prefer Fournette when he’s been on the pitch for quite some time now, but this early season use is more than a clue.

While Jones struggled to get touches, Fournette has had more than ten touches in all but one game since returning from a healthy scratch against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 14 of the 2020 season. the NFL.

Of course, fumbles and missed pass protection missions won’t help Rojo get onto the pitch any more than he already is.

SECOND BEST: CHRIS GODWIN’S REBOUND GAME

Resilience is perhaps the most coveted characteristic of the NFL. You can learn to have it, but for the most part there are resilient players, and there aren’t.

Chris Godwin is in the first group and proved it again in week 2.

In Week 1, Godwin fumbled with football on the Dallas Cowboys two-yard line trying to score what would have been a decisive touchdown.

Dallas recovered, and on the ride that followed, they took a late lead. Godwin then made a big catch, the last hold of the game, to put the Bucs in Ryan Succop’s range.

The Bucs win and Godwin celebrates the return of what could have been a huge mistake.

In week 2 the error was smaller, but the rebound was significant.

Brady and Godwin had already connected twice for 24 yards, then a third connection attempt was hampered by Falcons cornerback AJ Terrell. So the receiver and his quarterback had already felt they could do some work against Atlanta, and the defense knew it too.

On the fourth connection attempt, Brady looked for the No.14 on a third and five plays off the Buccaneers’ own 48-yard line. Tampa Bay was leading 14-7 at the time, and the capture would have given them yet another set of downs for Atlanta, looking to extend their lead early on.

Godwin dropped the pass, however, and the Bucs kicked. Again, not the biggest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

As some moan on social media about a lost pass from Godwin, linking it to other lost passes, I thought about the catcher’s tendency to make up for mistakes.

Make up for it, he made a touchdown pass just two targets later. The score was 34-25 and came in the middle of Atlanta’s comeback attempt.

The trajectory of the pass, meeting it in the air while jumping backwards, the defender once again trying to hinder the reception, the ascent is better than the fall.

Dropping the pass on the third down cost the Bucs a first down and a chance to score points. Catching the touchdown pass secured points and quelled the Falcons’ lift just in time.

WORST: LET A STRUGGLE TEAM RETURN TO THE GAME

Let’s not be too disrespectful to the Atlanta Falcons here. It’s an NFL team and quarterback Matt Ryan helped them qualify for a Super Bowl not too long ago. Yeah, I know 28-3 … it’s funny. Is still.

That being said, the Falcons are a team looking for an identity. They don’t know who they are. Ryan will be 37 before next season and likely won’t be a part of the long-term plans for the foreseeable future.

Calvin Ridley is fortunate enough to establish himself as the No.1 wide receiver, but we haven’t seen the most anticipated takeover ability in a top player. Kyle Pitts is a rookie just two games into his NFL career.

The defense is devoid of star players outside of perhaps middle linebacker Deion Jones, and even he is not a national name.

The Atlanta running back band has gone through more characters than the Black Mirror Netflix series, and their top back is now… a large receiver.

This isn’t a team you would expect to meet with a Super Bowl champion, even if it is a division rivalry. At least not to the point where the Falcons had the ball with a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter.

Yet this is what we had. And no one is happy with it.

BEST: MIKE EDWARDS BIG DAY

That brings us to Mike Edwards and the two interceptions he brought back for touchdowns to take the Falcons down, once and for all.

At first, Edwards passed Falcons wide receiver Russell Gage and landed Ryan’s intended pass. He then runs a lone lineman from Atlanta to the end zone.

On the next pick-six, Edwards benefits from pocket penetration to the Buccaneers’ defensive front and deflection on a cornerback blitz from Carlton Davis III.

As the ball flies through Davis’s hand, Edwards, who had also gone into a blitz, follows the ball, drops it and comes back into the end zone.

Edwards has been reported for taunting about the game because the referee is a Falcons fan the NFL has put a new emphasis this season on not adding insult to injury.

Likewise, officials would certainly never let a forward flip into the end zone unreported. Even though it was a terribly executed flip attempt. In any event.