Buccaneers Collapse Late Against Falcons as Mayfield Takes the Blame: “This Falls on My Shoulders”
With a 14-point cushion in the fourth quarter and the game seemingly in hand, the Buccaneers looked poised to walk out of their NFC South clash with a critical win. Instead, they walked off the field stunned-beaten by a Falcons team that erased the deficit and stole the game with a last-minute field goal. It was a gut-punch loss for a Bucs squad that’s now dropped five of its last six, and the frustration was written all over the field, the locker room, and the podium.
Let’s start with the moment everything changed.
Tampa Bay was up eight with just under nine minutes to play, driving into Falcons territory. That’s when Baker Mayfield made the kind of mistake that quarterbacks lose sleep over-he threw a pick. Atlanta’s defense jumped the route, flipped the field, and gave Kirk Cousins a short runway to mount a 10-play, 67-yard touchdown drive that brought the Falcons right back into it.
Still, the Bucs had a chance to close the door. Up two, ball in hand, clock ticking.
Second-and-14. Get a first down, and you’re chewing clock, maybe icing the game.
Instead, Mayfield missed a wide-open Emeka Egbuka. Incomplete.
Clock stops. Momentum swings.
But this wasn’t just about one throw. This was a full-team collapse.
Tampa’s defense had Atlanta backed into a corner-third-and-28 after a sack and a holding penalty. That should’ve been the dagger.
Instead, Cousins found Kyle Pitts Sr. for 14 yards, then hit David Sills for 21 more on fourth-and-14. Just like that, the Falcons were in field-goal range.
Five plays later, Zane Gonzalez nailed a 43-yarder, and the Bucs were walking off the field stunned.
After the game, head coach Todd Bowles didn’t sugarcoat it. In a fiery postgame press conference, he laid into his team, calling the loss “f------ inexcusable” and demanding accountability. He challenged his players to look in the mirror and ask themselves if it hurts enough to change.
Mayfield? He didn’t flinch. He owned it.
“It falls on my shoulders,” he said. “Can’t turn the ball over, can’t have that interception.
And then, just gotta hit Emeka in stride on that third down. Listen, you can say what you want about being up two scores and the defense right there, but we have to be better on offense, and it comes down to how I play.
And this one’s gonna haunt me.”
It’s not just the pick or the missed throw. It’s the opportunity that slipped away.
A win would’ve pushed Tampa Bay’s playoff chances to 80%. Instead, they sit at 53% with three weeks left-and a Week 16 showdown against Carolina looming large.
The Panthers, suddenly surging, could leapfrog the Bucs in the standings with a win over the Saints.
Mayfield, for his part, wasn’t about to shift blame to the defense, even after they gave up a fourth-and-14 conversion with the game on the line.
“Yeah, we’re pissed off,” he said. “We expected to win that game.
We want to win that game. Should be pissed off.
And, like I said, when you’re up two scores and your offense has a chance to put the game away, and you don’t-obviously, people are gonna blame the defense, but it’s not the defense’s fault. It’s our fault.
It’s my fault.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, but at the core of it is a team that’s spiraling at the wrong time. After a 5-1 start, the Bucs have lost five of six.
The offense has sputtered in key moments. The defense, while opportunistic at times, hasn’t closed games.
And the margin for error? It’s gone.
Mayfield echoed Bowles' frustration, acknowledging the head coach’s pointed message.
“He hit the nail on the head, saying and questioning does it mean anything to the guys?” Mayfield said.
“Like, ‘does this hurt enough for you to actually make changes? To come in, do the work that you need to do, to do the things that we need to do as a team to get better, fix these things and win ball games?’”
He didn’t stop there.
“We have talent. Talent doesn’t get you s--- though.
Doing the work and executing on game days does, and that’s-we didn’t do that today. Like I said, I did not do that.”
This wasn’t just a bad loss. It was the kind of loss that can define a season.
The Bucs had the Falcons on the ropes. They had the ball, the lead, and the clock.
And they let it slip through their fingers-one missed throw, one busted coverage, one penalty at a time.
Now, with the playoff picture tightening and the division still up for grabs, Tampa Bay has no choice but to regroup fast. The Panthers are coming.
The margin for error is gone. And if the Bucs want to be playing meaningful football in January, they’ll need to start by doing what Bowles and Mayfield both demanded-look in the mirror.