A manageable Thursday Night Football game took a quick turn for the worse after celebrating the career of legendary Bucs safety John Lynch.
And it nearly got sickeningly bad for Tampa Bay fans when the game was well out of reach, watching quarterback Jameis Winston get walloped while trying to run in a 2-point conversion that would have made the score 40-22 Atlanta if converted with less than 7 minutes to play.
The visiting Falcons turned a 20-14 lead at the break into a 43-28 beatdown on national television. Quarterback Matt Ryan engineered two long touchdown drives on the Falcons’ first two possessions of the second half and the rout was on from there. Sandwiched between the marches of 11 plays for 86 yards and 10 plays for 82 yards was a Bucs three-and-out that took only 60 seconds off the clock.
A week after allowing Oakland to pile up 626 total yards of offense, Tampa Bay surrendered 461 to the Falcons overall and 344 and four touchdowns through the air. Ryan completed 25 of 34 pass attempts and spread his scores around to four different targets – WR Julio Jones (eight catches for 111 yards), TE Austin Hooper (3 for 46), TE Levine Toilolo (1 for 32) and FB Patrick DiMarco (1 for 1).
As for Winston and the Bucs, a deficiency of offensive weapons became more glaring as the game proceeded. After picking up a combined 26 yards on six carries during an impressive 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to open the game, the running back tandem of rookie Peyton Barber and career backup Antone Smith ran the ball 10 more times for 30 additional yards.
Somewhat lost in the disappointment of a blowout defeat to a division opponent was the huge night for Bucs receiver Mike Evans. The third-year pass catcher turned in one of the best games of his career, grabbing 11 receptions for 150 yards and two touchdowns. Included in that performance was a wild one-handed, over-his-head catch near the sideline that ended with Evans getting both feet down and holding onto the football despite taking a jarring shot.
As for Winston, he ended the game as a spectator for the first time since taking over the team to start last season. The hit he took had him hobbling around the sideline for a moment, but Winston appeared to shake it off and didn’t retreat to the locker room with trainers. Winston finished with 261 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions and completed 23 of 37 passes before giving way to Mike Glennon. The backup played Tampa Bay’s final drive and hit on 10 of 11 pass attempts for 75 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown hookup with tight end Cameron Brate.
Tampa Bay led twice in this game as the Bucs were going for the season sweep of Atlanta and their fourth straight head-to-head win. The Falcons took advantage of consecutive Bucs fumbles while ringing up 13 unanswered points, but Winston’s 24-yard scoring pass to Evans midway through the second quarter put Tampa Bay back on top, 14-13.
Keeping possession by sustaining drives proved to be too difficult after that second-quarter score. Atlanta rattled off another 27 straight points stretching into the fourth quarter and eventually won the time of possession battle 33:28 to 26:32.
The loss drops Tampa Bay to 3-5 on the season and 2-1 against NFC South opponents. The Falcons strengthened their grip on first place, improving to 6-3 overall and 3-1 in division play.
