FAB 3. Rewind Week 12: Bucs vs. Chiefs

Not having open locker room at One Buccaneer Place and restricted media access to players this year due to COVID-19 has forced me to do less feature segments on players and more analysis on the games. So I’m using the Fab 3 section – called Rewind – Fast Forward – to share some observations from the Bucs’ last game as well as my analysis in previewing the next one.

With the bye week coming up, we’ll Fast Forward to the Vikings game next week. But first let’s Rewind to the Kansas City game with some final thoughts and observations from that one.

Bucs WR Mike Evans – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

• Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to give him 11 for the season. He’s one away from tying his own Bucs’ single-season record for touchdown catches, which is 12 (set in 2014 and tied in 2016), and two TDs away from setting a new record in Tampa Bay with four games to go.

Also worth watching is Evans’ run at history where he is 387 yards away from another 1,000-yard season. Evans is tied with Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss for the most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to start an NFL career with six. If he reaches 1,000 yards this year he’ll be atop that mark with seven straight 1,000-yard seasons. Evans needs to average 96.75 yards per game over the last four weeks of the season to reach 1,000 yards. Evans is currently averaging 51.1 receiving yards per game.

• If you are looking for a silver lining in Tampa Bay’s 27-24 loss to Kansas City it’s the fact that the Bucs rallied back from a 17-0 deficit in the first quarter to outscore the the defending Super Bowl champions 24-10 over the final three quarters. Yet the Bucs came up short, just as they did a week ago in a 27-24 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football.

But trailing 17-0 early, that game looked like it would end up being a 38-3 beat-down just like the Saints had administered a few weeks ago on Sunday Night Football in Tampa. New Orleans raced out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and increased that lead to 31-0 at halftime. The Bucs showed some resolve on offense and defense to make it a game against the Chiefs and trailed 20-10 at halftime before coming on strong in the second half.

Bucs OLB Jason Pierre-Paul – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

• While the Bucs defense struggled early against the Chiefs’ explosive offense, Tampa Bay made some necessary adjustments on defense and held Kansas City to just 27 points. The Chiefs came into the game with the highest-scoring offense in the league, averaging 32 points per game, but were held six points below their average. Kansas City had scored 30 points or more in seven of its 10 previous games prior to playing Tampa Bay.

Whenever two really good teams battle, the game typically comes down to the turnover margin. The Chiefs picked off Bucs quarterback Tom Brady twice and Tampa Bay’s defense only forced one takeaway, which came from outside linebacker Shaquil Barrett on a sack-fumble of Patrick Mahomes. The Bucs defense actually intercepted Mahomes twice in the second half, but INTs from cornerbacks Ross Cockrell and Sean Murphy-Bunting were negated due to penalties.

• Bucs quarterback Tom Brady offered his thoughts on the team as Tampa Bay headed into the bye week, which was the latest bye week in franchise history after 12 straight weeks of football.

“The season is what it is,” Brady said. “You’re kind of in the race, so you might have moments where you can really sit back, reflect, self-scout and so forth, but the tough part about the NFL is you’re just kind of on to the next week and you’re trying to get ready for a new scheme [and] a new opponent. Yes, you have to fix the things that didn’t go well – because you’re always trying to improve the things you’re not good at – but then you’re also dealing with a new set of challenges, new information you’re trying to retain, new scheme and new design.

Bucs QB Tom Brady – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“It’s a tough league [and] it’s a very competitive league. Games are decided by a play here or there every week. We’re going to try to make those plays to help us win the game and we’ve had a few games where we’ve been right there and had the opportunity to win them. Sometimes we have and sometimes we haven’t. We’ve got to certainly improve on those and then find ways to keep getting better and keep improving. I think one thing I’ve learned about the NFL is it’s a week-to-week league. You can’t let one loss carry over to the next week and lose confidence that you’re not capable of getting the job done because we’ve gotten the job done [and] we just need to do it on a more consistent basis.”