What the Falcons’ TNF Win over the Buccaneers Means for the NFC South Race | The Rich Eisen Show

What the Falcons’ TNF Win over the Buccaneers Means for the NFC South Race | The Rich Eisen Show

Derek Brown of the Carolina Panthers. He uh of the causing Matthew Stafford to fumble late in the game to beat the Rams fame. Uh is going to join us in hour number three of this program. And it’ll be great to tell Derek Brown or ask him, hey, are you ready for some football? Are you ready to step up? Because the door to win the NFC South has been left wide open by the once upon a time 6-2 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now 7 and7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers as we are sitting here now on the Friday of week 15 that is now underway in the National Football League with one month to go. Four games left for every team in the NFL with the exception now of Tampa and Atlanta because Atlanta beat Tampa to kick off week 15 on Thursday Night Football. And shocking the system coming back from two touchdowns down with 10 minutes to go 28-4 to hand the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a bitter home loss just 5 days after suffering a wait for it bitter home loss in division. The Buccaneers at once upon a time 6 and2 have lost back-to- back home games to the Saints and the Falcons. the bottom half of the division to now leave the leave the door wide open for the Carolina Panthers who are visiting the New Orleans Saints this week in New Orleans before they play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers twice the rest of the season, week 16 and 18 in that week 17 game against the Seattle Seahawks at home. Should be huge for both. That is what is up right now because the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in first alert mode. They have fallen and can’t get up. Even though they have gotten Bucky Irving back, even though they got Mike Evans last back last night and he was targeted 12 times, catching half of those targets for 132 yards. He was doing his job. Bucky Irving got only 60 yards uh rushing and only one catch coming out of the back field. So, if you’re looking at any results of last night’s stats that you’re saying, “Boy, they could have done a better job. They could have done a better job running the football against the Atlanta Falcons.” But you’re just nitpicking because the Falcons did all they could do to basically give the game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 19 penalties the Falcons had last night. 19 penalties, which is the most in a National Football League game since the Oakland Raiders lost uh actually hold a minute. The Oakland Raiders committed 23 penalties in week eight of 2016, but also won at Tampa Bay. So, this is the most penalties in uh c most in penalties committed by a team in a game since that time and also in a win since that time. And Kirk Cousins did his thing with a 373 passing yard, three passing touchdowns, and no interception game. It’s his first such game since week two of two years ago. And it’s the first time an Atlanta player’s done it because two years ago he was a Viking. The last Atlanta player to have a stat line like that was Matt Ryan in the co year in week 15. So they come back from two scores down after committing a fumble to give the two-score lead. Bjan Robinson fumbles. The Bucks go. Was that a fumble? You know what? I’m sure I’m sure I’m sure Ravens fans are saying that. Sure looked like Isaiah likely’s touchdown grab, but it was a fumble and then a two-score lead taken. And then Atlanta does what it seems everybody’s doing these days, which is going for two when they didn’t have to only to try and go for two because I get it everybody out there who’s giving me, you know, analytics that you do this sort of thing. So, if you get the two, then you now only need a touchdown and you can walk out with a one-point win, which wait for it, the Falcons did anyway. Exactly. We’ll talk about that analytic stuff in a minute or later on, too. Because this is really about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers blowing it at home. They have the Saints at home. They have the Falcons at home. All they got to do is keep winning these home games in division when they’ve already won one at Atlanta and they’ve got two coming up in against Carolina and they’ve got one that they’ve already won in New Orleans. That’s all they got to do is home field turf protected against their division and instead they lose two in a row and their win against Arizona that they, you know, had to pull out, if you will, comes after a three-game losing streak against much better opponents. So, they have been struggling and spinning their wheels. And the conversation for the Bucks have been, wait till they get healthy. When they get healthy, the team that started six and two is going to show back up again. And yet this past two-week run with Godwin back for a while and Evans now back and Bucky Irving now back, they couldn’t defend their home turf. And the big problem at the end of the game was a an interception that Baker Mayfield threw that Atlanta used to try and get back in this game, which they did. And they kept again shooting themselves in a two-point conversion foot only to get the ball back because of a third down conversion that the Buccaneers could not do. Letting up defensively a fourth down and 14 on the final drive. All they got to do is is defend that small piece of turf at home. And they couldn’t do that. And the Falcons, unlike week one, do get a kick to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and move on and send Baker Mayfield to the podium saying, “I’ve got broad shoulders. Put it on mine.” Disappointing obviously. Uh but falls on my shoulders. Can’t can’t turn the ball over. Can’t have that interception. Um and then just got to got to hit Mack in stride on that third down. Um, 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, this one’s going to haunt me. This This falls on my shoulders. Again, the interception, the inability to get one more first down. Uh, a lot of people were talking about again that fourth down conversion that Atlanta came up with to march down the field and get the game-winning field goal. Third and 28 at one point, right? And then they got just enough to make it fourth and not even manageable, but they still got that as uh what David Sills the fourth kept catching pass after pass after pass. Wide open touchdown earlier in the game. I mean, and he got targeted 10 times as Drake London was out. Um, Mooney seemed to fumble, but they got it back. There were four four bucks around that play, too. Kyle Pittz had the best game of his Falcons career. They have been literally waiting for a night like Thursday night since they drafted him. It’s his first 100yard game since his rookie season. That’s how long it has been. And he became the first tight end with 150 or more receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns in a game since Shannon Sharp did it in week six of 1996. That’s how they torched the Buccaneers defense. So Todd BS who watched this team go six and two and is now seeing this Buccaneers team lose five of their last six to be at 500 or worse in week 15 or beyond for the third time in the last four seasons. now staring into that same abyss of still having to pull it out of the fire, which by the way the Buccaneers have done every single one of these times and they’ve been 500 or worse entering the final three games of a season. He had this to say and this is a guy I mean let me just say this. What you’re about to see from Todd BS is 100% the equivalent of Dennis Green ranting or any other coach losing his um filter uh at the podium losing raising their voice to pound the podium. Todd BS doesn’t do that, but he does this instead. It’s inexcusable. You don’t make excuses. We You got to care enough where this hurts. You got to care enough where this hurts. It got to mean something to you. It’s more than a job. It’s your livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? Well, you can’t sugarcoat. It was in the excusable and there’s no answer for it as for no excuse for it. That’s what you tell them in a lot. Look in the mirror. That was 10 beeps. Woo. Uh, it wasn’t a truck backing up. That was in response to a question of what do you tell your team? And that’s what he said he told his team. Well, I saw that transcript so I was curious how that was going to sound. And again, that is him ranting. Yeah, that’s his version of a rant. Yeah, Baker Mayfield was told uh about what Coach BS had to say cuz he was first up at the podium on Thursday night. He hit the nail on the head saying it and questioning does it does it mean anything to the guys? Like it does this hurt enough for you to actually make changes to 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. And he repeated it and it’s it really is as simple as that. We have talent. Talent doesn’t get you 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. Yeah, the Falcons left the Buccaneers cursing, which nobody I I didn’t see coming with 10 minutes to go in this game. With them up 14, I thought that was going to be a wrap and instead, kudos to the Falcons and Raheem Morris who could have had the U-Haul backed up. Uh but they decided to come up um with their uh their biggest over overcoming a deficit win. Last time the Falcons overcame a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter and won was 1993. Week 15 against San Francisco when they trailed 24 to7 in the fourth quarter and wound up scoring the final 20 unanswered to win by three. And that’s how Todd BS watched his team fold to the Falcons in the fourth quarter and leave them a halfame behind the Carolina Panthers who have a monster game in New Orleans on Sunday. If they win that, they take a oneame lead into the final three weeks with two to go against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And that game will be uh for the uh Buck that that game will be at home the first one. So they’ll get the Buccaneers in their house to start it. And they have been better at home than they have been on the road. As you know, they beaten the Rams there. They did they did beat Green Bay in Green Bay. So this Panthers team has a shot and so do the Bucks obviously. Listen, if I’m going to counsel Philadelphia Eagles fans to relax. Um I will try and do the same to Buck to to the Bucks because they it’s in their hands. It’s in their hands. All they got to do is win those games and that’s the end of it. And while Carolina plays Seattle, Tampa Bay visits Miami. So the game in between the two that they play each other, Tampa has, if you will, the more winnable game. Although the way that they have been playing of late, you can’t chalk anything up as winnable for this team. So, the NFC South has just gotten far more dramatic and far more wide open for a team that comes in with an opportunity into week 15. Carolina at New Orleans, win that game against the three- win Saints and off you go with a oneame lead into the final three to play. And if they beat the Bucks to start it, if they’re a game above the Bucks to start that stretch at home and beat Tampa, they would be two up with two to play. And I don’t know what the tie breaks are. I don’t know, but we’ll find out when we get the playoff clinching scenarios based on what Carolina does over the weekend. So now the Bucks are in the unenviable position of sitting at home and rooting for the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

Rich Eisen weighs in on the Atlanta Falcons’ come-from-behind Thursday Night Football win over the reeling Tampa Bay Buccaneers who now have some work to do to make the playoffs this season.

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