Welcome to a NEW post-game column, where I’ll take a look at the moment(s) the game turned either in favor or against the Buccaneers. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive look at all the reasons the Bucs won or lost, but instead the key moment or two where things went north or south for the team.

The Game-Changer

With the Bucs up 13-0 with just over seven minutes left in the second quarter, the Bears took over on their own 25-yard line. After a first down conversion to the Chicago 41, a quick swing pass to David Montgomery was swallowed up for a loss of six by a swarming Bucs defense led by Jordan Whitehead and Rakeem Nunez-Roches.

On 2nd-and-16, Foles hit Montgomery for a gain of just four before Murphy-Bunting cut him down. On 3rd-and-12, Chicago right guard Germain Ifedi clearly moved well before the snap, causing edge defender Shaq Barrett to jump the snap. Officials huddled together and somehow penalized Barrett, which put the Bears in a 3rd-and-7 instead of a 3rd-and-17.

The egregious error on a routine call turned an almost impossible 3rd down conversion into a much simpler one. But the Bucs defensive responsibility is to execute regardless, and once again, much like they did on the Chargers’ second scoring drive in Week 4, they were unable to overcome poor officiating.

On 3rd-and-7 Barrett nearly sacked Foles, but the Bears quarterback got the ball away to Montgomery for a 12-yard gain on a blown coverage. It looked like the back leaked out late and the coverage didn’t peel out with him. Four plays later, including another underneath freebie to Allen Robinson and a 25-yard wheel route in which Cordarelle Patterson smoked Jordan Whitehead, and the Bears were in position to cap their drive with a short touchdown run by Montgomery.

It was an ugly drive for the Bucs even without the officiating error, but not getting an extremely advantageous 3rd-and-17 situation was a massive reason the game turned around the way that it did.

Still, the Bucs had nearly a dozen mistakes that they could point to as the turning point in this game, including countless penalties on offense, more dropped passes, a key fumble by their RB5 after a big hit, poor play-calling and decision-making by the coaches, egregious failures to adjust a soft coverage approach by Todd Bowles and a couple of killer coverage mistakes with the game on the line. There was plenty of blame to go around in this one, but a mistake by the officials was the game-changing moment that swung the tide against a Bucs defense that has lost some of their early season mojo over the past two weeks.