The Falcons may be out of the playoff picture, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way they fought Thursday night. Despite a game littered with penalties and mistakes, Atlanta pulled off a stunning 29-28 comeback win over the Buccaneers - sealed by Zane Gonzalez’s 43-yard field goal as time expired. And while the Falcons were playing for pride, that kick might’ve just dealt a serious blow to Tampa Bay’s postseason hopes.
With the loss, the Bucs dropped to 7-7 - their fifth defeat in six games - and handed control of the NFC South to the Panthers. The Falcons, now 5-9, have nothing to play for in the standings, but they played spoiler in dramatic fashion.
This was a game that swung wildly in the fourth quarter. Atlanta trailed 28-14 after Bijan Robinson lost a fumble deep in his own territory, setting up a short-field touchdown for the Bucs.
At that point, it looked like Tampa Bay would cruise to a much-needed win. But the Falcons didn’t fold - not even after racking up 19 penalties for 125 yards.
Instead, they rallied behind big nights from Robinson, Kyle Pitts, and Kirk Cousins.
Cousins, in particular, looked sharp. He completed 30 of 44 passes for 373 yards and three touchdowns - all of them to Pitts.
The tight end had a monster performance, hauling in 11 catches for 166 yards, including scoring grabs of 8, 17, and 7 yards. Robinson bounced back from his fumble with 93 rushing yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, adding 82 more yards through the air on eight receptions.
Still, the Falcons needed every bit of that production to claw back into it. After tying the game with two fourth-quarter touchdowns - one by Robinson, one by Pitts - Atlanta failed on both two-point conversions, leaving them down 28-26 with just over three minutes to play.
That’s when the Bucs had a chance to put the game away. With 3:34 left and the Falcons out of timeouts by the 2:24 mark, Tampa Bay had the opportunity to drain the clock. But an incompletion on second-and-14 and a sack of Baker Mayfield at the two-minute warning stopped the clock and gave Atlanta one more shot.
And the Falcons made the most of it.
Even after a strip-sack by Haason Reddick set them back eight yards - a play where officials ruled Cousins had simultaneous possession of the fumble, allowing Atlanta to keep the ball - and a holding penalty pushed them into a second-and-28 hole, the offense didn’t blink. Pitts grabbed a 14-yard pass on third down, and then David Sills, who had dropped a potential touchdown earlier, came up huge with a 21-yard catch on fourth-and-14.
That conversion set up Gonzalez for the walk-off field goal - a kick that might not mean much for Atlanta’s season, but could be the turning point that ends Tampa Bay’s.
For the Bucs, there were some bright spots. Mike Evans returned from a fractured collarbone and looked like his old self, catching six passes for 132 yards - his best game in nearly a year.
Mayfield threw for 277 yards and two touchdowns, but also had a costly interception. Chris Godwin and Devin Culp each found the end zone, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a defense that gave up 476 total yards.
The Falcons may be heading into the offseason early, but on this night, they showed they’re not going quietly. And for the Bucs, the margin for error in the NFC South just got razor-thin.