In a game where the Bucs went through the air plenty, they did enough to keep it close, but couldn’t hang with the Cowboys at the end. Jameis Winston passed the ball 48 times in yet another end to a game where Tampa Bay suffered a seven point loss, this one by a score of 27-20. After the Bucs lost, head coach Dirk Koetter addressed questions at the podium.

(On the frustration for how the defense played and the turnovers that resulted in 17 points for Dallas)
“Yeah, two big plays in that game really swung it. We’re moving it going in to possibly score, and the fumble that they take all the way back, and when we fumble the mesh on the handoff and they get the ball on the goal line, like you said, that’s a 14 to 17 point swing right there.”

(On how frustrating it was to move the ball on drives in the fourth quarter, but not score so close in the red zone)
“Yeah we moved the ball consistently all day and penalties put us in a bind in the game and negated some of them. It’s frustrating to move the ball like that and not get touchdowns, against good teams, that’s what you need to do.”

(On the 4th and 1, if he thought about taking a timeout)
“I did think about the timeout and I saw the clock. We were going to throw it anyway, so I just didn’t know about using the timeout, and sometimes being back further gives you more route options anyway, so, I also thought we were going to get the ball snapped. So, we didn’t do a good job there.”

(On if it’s fair or unfair to say that all the Bucs penalties were undisciplined)
“No, no, that’s unfair.”

(On when a lot of the penalties come from the offensive line, if that means the Cowboys d-line did a good job of making plays to force the penalties)
“Well let me tell you, that team is a really good rush team. That team really brings it, we threw it 48 times today, so, if you’re an offensive lineman in the NFL, your job is to protect your quarterback, and it surprised me to see when I looked at the stats sheet that they had more penalties than we did ten to nine. Now, we had the holding penalties, and a couple, three I think maybe in the pass game, and the one on the long run by Peyton, that hurt us a lot on that drive. Holding penalties aren’t disciplined, those guys are giving their all to protect the quarterback, that’s not a discipline issue. It doesn’t mean you like them, but that’s a really good rush team we played today, and our offensive line played their tails off. I mean, in a perfect world we wouldn’t be throwing the ball 48 times, but we did.”

(On if the end around play would have went to DeSean Jackson if he wasn’t injured, and how much has Bobo Wilson practiced that play)
“No that was Bobo’s play this week. We had the reverse in the first half to DeSean and that was a fly sweep, that was Bobo’s play all week, so, it wasn’t that.”

(On if it was just a bad handoff, or he just didn’t accept it right)
“I didn’t have a good look at it, and I talked to Jameis afterword, but, we’ll see.”

(On if having penalties on the plus side of the field inside the 40 is the worst time to get penalties because you’re in a position where you think you’re getting points)
“I mean, I don’t think there’s ever a good time for it. We overcame some of those penalties today, so after I sort it all out, it’s all kind of blurry right now. But, when we sort it all out, penalties didn’t help us, we’ll see how many we overcame. We had a lot of chances to make plays in the game, we’ll still go back to those two turnovers, I mean we punted twice today, they punted four times, what’s the difference? Those two turnovers that led to 14 points, so whether we get points or not, everything else is playing football, competing on both sides, and those are two teams that both played hard today, and we came up short.”

(On if there was any way Jameis Winston could have known that the Dallas defender was coming on that sack fumble)
“No, and that’s probably one of the things that Dallas is best at is that their guys are relentless chasing the football. Jameis has made a lot of plays like that this year, and he knows that guys are always coming up behind him, but he’s made a lot of big plays like that too, so, you can’t say don’t do that. He’s trying to play, and he’s one step away from making a big play.”

(On Jameis Winston showing his great effort)
“Jameis did a lot of really nice things today. Again, that rush, they have an excellent rush, Jameis hit his checkdowns consistently. They played a lot more two deep coverage today then they have in the past, and, I think part of that was DeSean being out there, they played more two deep, and then we got behind the chains because of the penalties and that sort of thing, they played more two deep, which forces you to check the ball down. For the most part, Jameis did a good job of that today.”