2024 Week 5: Buccaneers 30, Falcons 36
Finally a shootout on a primetime, it feels like it’s been years since we’ve had one. The Falcons and Bucs combined for 883 yards of offense and had to play into overtime to settle the score.
Atlanta is (3-2) and back on track to win the NFC South after beating New Orleans and Tampa in their last two contests. The schedule is taking an easier turn for Atlanta and they are coming out of this tough stretch with a winning record, most of them just barely scraping by, which means they may be undervalued the next few weeks.
Tampa (3-2) is not a good team. Their defense is awful, it’s probably the worst in the league, but their prolific offense is saving them metric-wise. The Bucs have a tough schedule coming up and I wouldn’t be surprised if Todd Bowles is on the hot seat soon, especially if they can’t get their run game working.
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I’m going to blend both teams' passing attacks rather than separating QB and WR, it just makes more sense, especially for Atlanta.
Falcons Passing Game:
- Kirk Cousins (42/58 for 509 yards, 4 TDs/ 1 INT) had a monster game thanks to two things, 1) the Bucs defense is bad and 2) the Bucs gameplan looked like they wanted to sell out against the run and play zone in the secondary and make Cousins beat them. Not sure, why you’d let a 13-year vet sit back in the pocket and pick apart your soft zone but that’s what they went with. It’s easy to see 500 passing yards and nearly 3 receivers having 100+ yards and get antsy with excitement and think this is the new future for Atlanta… maybe not 500 every week but a lot of 300+ yard games to come. The argument I have against that is Tampa can’t play defense, and Atlanta had, and I mean this literally, 2 games worth of passing numbers this week. Before this matchup, Atlanta was averaging 29.75 pass attempts per game. Kirk threw the ball 58 times. It’s simple math to figure out 29 goes in 58 twice, and the extra two attempts were on their way if not for a broken play to swiftly end OT.
- Drake London (12-154-1/13) of course has another big game after I call him a glorified tight end. London is great at finding openings in zone coverage and Kirk and London kept working them. Any amount of man coverage on London eliminates the majority of his game and limits him to outside passes and jump balls where he can use his size to his advantage.
- Darnell Mooney (9-105-2/16) was the next benefactor of the passing explosion. Mooney looked great with his routes but he nearly cost Atlanta the game by dropping an easy, potentially game-sealing first down. He was too focused on scoring a third touchdown. I don’t think the drop problem is going to hurt Mooney’s targeting, he and Kirk have a strong relationship going back to mini-camp.
- The Buc's defense is so bad that yes, even Kyle Pitts (7-88-0/8) managed to have a good game. I don’t see anything different from Pitts last week. It seemed like their gameplan was to throw a lot and Pitts looked more energized than usual, and he generally stayed that way since the ball kept going to him. As we all know this is not Pitts’ norm and he will probably have a (1-7-0/2) stat line next week.
Buccaneers Passing game:
- In classic ‘is the NFL rigged’ fashion, DraftKings had a boost for Baker to throw 200+ yards, and here’s the kicker, he didn’t reach it! 200 yards is a figure he had hit convincingly in 2 out of 4 games he played this year, and the two he didn’t hit 200 were against Detroit and Denver, two of the better defenses. Conspiracies aside, Baker Mayfield (19/24 for 180 yards, 3 TDs) didn’t play as well as he needed to, it’s just that teams only have to defend one aspect of the Tampa offense. There isn’t too much to say about Tampa’s passing game. Week-in and week-out it is the same. Chris Godwin (5-64-0/6) and Mike Evans (5-62-2/7) switch off who has the better game based on who the opposing defense decides to worry about. Both will reliably have strong performances every game. I was hoping Cade Otton (3-44-0/4) would have another big day so he can assert himself as one of the top receiving threats at the tight end position. Unfortunately, he didn’t but it wasn’t a bad game. One bad pass and one drop away from a 5-catch 65+ yard performance.
RB Report:
- Atlanta did the nonsensical thing and is not accepting the split backfield that has been brewing since last season. Bijan Robinson (12-61-0, 3 catches for 16 yards) was clearly the focus of Tampa’s defensive game plan as I noted earlier and they succeeded in slowing him down. Tyler Allgeier (6-12-0, 3 catches for 13 yards) had about one-third of the snaps and touches that Bijan had but they don’t look all that different as runners, it’s just Bijan had better-quality plays than what was drawn up for Allgeier.
- This game featured two ‘media-guys’ at running back. Bijan and Tampa Bay’s Bucky Irving (9-44-0, 2 catches for 12 yards). As always Bucky had the creative play calls which led to him having a higher ypc (if you ignore Rachaad’s break-away 56-yarder). When Bucky was running the same boring up-the-middle runs that Rachaad White (10-72-0, 3 catches for -6 yards) always takes, he wasn’t doing any better than White. Bucky fumbled late in a key moment as Tampa tried to put the game away, which eventually turned into a loss. You can look back at a bunch of plays every game as to why a team loses, but for Tampa, it is definitively this one.
- I don’t think the game-losing fumble hurts Bucky’s standing with the coaching staff. Instead of getting punished like every other RB [except for a rare few, that are much better than Bucky], he was right out there on the Bucs’ next possession. The media, fans, and now even Todd Bowles are completely enamored with Irving.
image source: (AP Photo/John Bazemore)