Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was all smiles after his team recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this season, beating the Falcons, 16-0, at Raymond James Stadium in a rain-soaked affair.

The Bucs improved to 3-5 on the year and moved to 2-0 in the NFC South after beating the Panthers and Falcons in successive weeks. Tampa Bay trails 3-4 Carolina by only half a game for the division lead.

The Bucs had a pair of 100-yard rushers on Sunday in Bucky Irving, who ran for 170 yards and Kenny Gainwell, who ran for 140 yards. Each running back set a new career high, and Tampa Bay ran for a franchise-record 324 yards against Atlanta, which entered the game with the league’s fourth-best run defense.

Bowles was also thrilled with his defense’s effort, picking off Michael Penix Jr. four times, and holding Bijan Robinson and the dangerous Falcons run game to just 99 yards. Atlanta was 0-12 on third downs against a red-hot Tampa Bay defense.

After the game Bowles addressed his team following the Bucs’ first win at Raymond James Stadium this year with heavy praise.

Todd Bowles Gives Impassioned Post-Game Speech After Bucs Win

“Guys, that was an old-school, hard-nosed football game, and that’s a hell of a job fighting right there,” said Todd Bowles as he addressed the team after the first back-to-back wins since Weeks 5 and 6 last year. “Hell of a job fighting, right? Over 300 yards rushing. I might make Baker [Mayfield] a wishbone quarterback!”

Mayfield was 0-of-3 passing in the torrential downpour, but for the second straight week the Bucs simply didn’t need to throw the ball. Last week at Carolina the Bucs ran for 258 yards while Mayfield completed just 7-of-11 passes for 64 yards while coming back from a dislocated thumb that sidelined him for three games.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield and RB Bucky Irving – Photo by: IMAGN Images via Reuters Connect

“Hell of a job on defense getting turnovers,” Bowles continued. “We talked about it during the week – only us can bring ourselves out of that hole, right? Only us.

“We won the second quarter three games to one, right? Keep your [expletive] shovels close to you – we’ve got a lot more digging to do. We just got back even – now we’ve got to [expletive] take it over.”

Bowles relayed that message to his team during his post-game press conference with the media after the win over the Falcons.

“We did a lot to dig ourselves out of it,” Bowles said. “We’re still in it being 3-5, not being .500 or anything else. I told them to keep their shovels close because we have a lot more digging to do, but it gets us back in it. At least it gets us back in it, and now we [have] to dig even harder and dig even deeper just to get out of the hole.”

The Bucs travel to Chicago to play the 5-2 Bears on Sunday Night Football. If Tampa Bay wins and improves to 4-5 along with Carolina losing to Denver next Sunday and falling to 3-5, the Bucs will have the lead in the division. Even if 3-5 Atlanta beats Cincinnati in Madrid next Sunday the Bucs will have the current head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Falcons due to Sunday’s win.

After Bowles spoke to the team, Bucs All-Pro left tackle and team captain Tristan Wirfs proceeded to give kicker Chase McLaughlin a shout-out after he went 3-for-3 on field goals in the rain to help the Bucs build a 9-0 lead in the victory over the Falcons.