The NFC South race has been tightly competitive throughout the season. It became even more of a chaotic mess on Sunday after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ narrow win over the Atlanta Falcons.
The Carolina Panthers may be eliminated, but the Bucs, Falcons, and New Orleans Saints are all very much still in the race.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Add Chaos to NFC South Race
The Buccaneers came into the day a game back of the NFC South-leading Falcons, making the stakes plenty high for their clash late in the season.
Tampa Bay (6-7) found a way to get a big win in the context of the division that brought it into a tie for the division lead with both the Falcons (6-7) and the Saints (6-7). New Orleans took an important 28-6 win over the Panthers on Sunday to make it a three-way tie for the division lead.
The Bucs hold the NFC South lead currently by virtue of tiebreakers it has over each team, including best win percentage in common games over Atlanta and head-to-head win percentage over the Saints.
Still, with a three-way tie for first and four weeks of games remaining, there remain plenty of possibilities for how it could all shake out.
It went back and forth early Sunday as Tampa Bay grabbed the lead a pair of times before Atlanta matched the scores. A safety gave the Bucs a 12-10 edge heading into halftime. The Falcons then scored a go-ahead touchdown with just 3:23 left in the fourth quarter to pull ahead 25-22 and looked poised to remain alone atop the division.
They left too much time for Baker Mayfield, though, as he and the Bucs orchestrated a 12-play, 75-yard drive capped off by an 11-yard touchdown pass from Mayfield to Cade Otton to take a 29-25 lead with 31 seconds to play.
That lead held the rest of the way as Atlanta’s last gasp pass play came up four yards short of the end zone.
Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles was impressed with his team’s resilience throughout the game, but particularly in the waning moments to pull out a much-needed victory for its playoff hopes.
“A lot of resilience,” Bowles told reporters after the game. “Offense came out and had a heck of a drive, [defense] held ’em out of the end zone at the end. Can’t say enough about these guys fighting, the competitiveness they had coming in here. Huge win. It’s going to be like that every week for the last four weeks.”
MORE: PFN’s FREE NFL Playoff Predictor
Mayfield helped lead the way through it all, going 14-of-29 for 144 yards and two touchdowns while taking just one sack. Rachaad White had a big day on the ground with 25 carries for 102 yards, and Chris Godwin came up with a team-best five catches for 53 yards as Atlanta focused on limiting Mike Evans, who had just one catch for eight yards.
Despite those challenges, the Buccaneers ultimately came out on top and are now in a position to control their own destiny down the stretch of the regular season.
Tough tests remain against the Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars, and New Orleans Saints, though, that will undoubtedly make the Bucs winning out no easy task. Mayfield’s focus after the game was on knocking off the Packers next week to stay in the division’s driver’s seat.
“We need to carry this mentality over to next week,” Mayfield said. “This game won’t matter unless we take care of business next week. Have the same mentality, approach the week the same, be intentional about it and come out one play at a time, and find a way to win.”
Want to predict the rest of the 2023 season with our FREE NFL Playoff Predictor? Looking for the most up-to-date NFL standings? What about a breakdown of team depth charts or the NFL schedule? Pro Football Network has you covered with that and more!