Falcons vs. Buccaneers Game Preview: NFL Week 8

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have one more home game before embarking on a string of five road contests in a seven-game span, and it’s a big one. First place in the NFC South will be on the line when the 4-3 Atlanta Falcons visit Raymond James Stadium to take on the 4-3 Buccaneers. The all-time lead in the series will also be up for grabs, and the home team has a little bit of extra motivation to settle the season score after letting a 36-30 overtime game slip away from them in Atlanta three weeks earlier.

“Every game’s important,” said quarterback Baker Mayfield, who leads the NFL with 18 touchdown passes. “Obviously you have a little bit more emphasis on the divisional games. And just where we’re at right now – tied for the division, this one’s for the outright lead for the division and we definitely need it for head-to-head stuff. We need this one. Next-game mentality, but this one just happens to be a divisional opponent at home.”

The storyline that has dominated the week for the Buccaneers has been an unwelcome one, as both of their star receivers, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, were knocked out of their Monday night loss to Baltimore with significant injuries. Evans, who has a hamstring ailment, is hoping to make his return after the Bucs’ Week 11 bye, but Godwin was put on season-ending injured reserve on Wednesday. Of those aforementioned 18 touchdown passes thrown by Mayfield, 11 have ended up in the hands of these two receivers.

So the Buccaneers will be looking for increased production from the likes of rookie Jalen McMillan, second-year man Trey Palmer and veteran Sterling Shepard. Liam Coen will be altering his game plans to play more to the strengths of those less-proven players, but the Bucs are confident they can find a way to keep the NFL’s seventh-ranked passing attack in high gear. Head Coach Todd Bowles is excited about working with the young players, drawing encouragement from something he learned from legendary coach Bill Parcells in New York and Dallas.

“Gotta find a way to win,” said Bowles. “That’s part of it. You never know what you can do until you find out what you don’t have. Coach Parcells always said that. Coaches have to do more, players have to do more and you’ve got to be more creative. We’re putting our heads down to work and we’ll get it done.

“It will be great because we’ve got to tweak our offense now to what they bring to the table, as opposed to what Mike and Chris bring to the table. So it will be a challenge for the coaches as well as the players, but I’m excited to see them play. I think they have more to them that meets the eye that we haven’t seen yet, so I’m excited to see them.”

A new type of winning formula for the Buccaneers in the absence of their star receivers could also involve a tightening of the screws on defense. Tampa Bay ranks fourth in the NFL in scoring with 29.9 points per game but 28th in scoring defense, allowing 26.0 points per game. The Bucs have already lost two games in which they scored 30 or more points.

“It’s a team game anyway,” said Bowles. “We need more out of the defense week-in and week-out, regardless of who’s playing on offense. But with Mike and Chris out, having the offense production that they’ve had out of the ballgame, and not just relying on those two guys, the defense has to step up and play.”

That defense will have to contend with a Falcons offense led by quarterback Kirk Cousins, who topped 500 passing yards in that Week Five shootout. The Falcons lost in Week Seven to the visiting Seattle Seahawks but Cousins still made good use of his trio of top-10 draft picks at the skill positions. Running back Bijan Robinson had 143 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown, wide receiver Drake London caught six passes for 63 yards and a score and tight end Kyle Pitts hauled in seven passes for 65 yards. The Falcons only scored 14 points and lost by 20, but they clearly have the makings of a very dangerous offense.

First place is the prize for whichever team can come out on top on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. And the NFC South title at the end of the season could also pivot on this Week Eight outcome.

GAME AND BROADCAST DETAILS

Atlanta Falcons (4-3) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-3)

Sunday, October 27, 1:00 p.m. ET

Raymond James Stadium (capacity: 65,844)

TV Broadcast Team: Adam Amin (play-by-play), Greg Olsen (analyst), Pam Oliver (reporter)

Radio: 98Rock (WXTB, 97.9 FM), Flagship Station

Radio Broadcast Team: Gene Deckerhoff (play-by-play), Dave Moore (analyst), T.J. Rives (reporter)

Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente

Spanish Radio Broadcast Team: Carlos Bohorquez (play-by-play), Martin Gramática (analyst)

Coming to the game or enjoying pregame festivities? Check out our Buccaneers Gameday Page for everything you need to know about getting ready for the game, Tailgate Packages, Bucs Beach and more!

The 2024 season is underway and there are a limited number of Single Game Tickets on sale now! Visit Buccaneers.com to purchase tickets.

ALL-TIME HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES

The lead in the all-time series between the Buccaneers and Falcons is once again up for grabs, as it has been so many times in the team’s 48-year shared history. Atlanta tied it up again in Week Five with a 36-30 overtime win in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The game was tied four different times, the last when Kirk Cousins was able to spike the ball with one second left in regulation to set up Younghoe Koo’s 52-yard field goal. Atlanta got the ball first in overtime and won on a 45-yard catch-and-run by KhaDarel Hodge. Cousins threw for 509 yards and four touchdowns.

With that, the Buccaneers and Falcons have now played each other 62 times since 1977, with each team snaring 31 victories. Last season, Atlanta initially tied it up at 30-30 with a 16-13, at Raymond James Stadium, but the Bucs took the lead back later in the season with a 29-25 victory in Atlanta. The first of those games was also tied three times, at 7-7, 10-10 and 13-13, before Koo won it at the buzzer with a 51-yard field goal. Mike Evans scored the Bucs’ only touchdown on a 40-yard catch, and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. kept his team alive in the fourth quarter with a remarkable forced fumble at the goal line against quarterback Desmond Ridder. In the rematch, Ridder put the Falcons ahead, 25-22, with three minutes left on a six-yard touchdown keeper but Baker Mayfield was able to counter that with a 12-play, 75-yard drive ending in his 11-yard touchdown pass to Cade Otton.

Overall, the Bucs-Falcons head-to-head record has rarely strayed too far from dead even. In fact, when the Buccaneers defeated the Falcons in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Week 13 of the 2021 campaign, completing a season sweep, it caused the series lead to change hands for the eighth time overall. The Buccaneers upped their lead to two games with a 21-15 win over Atlanta in Tampa in October of 2022 but the Falcons brought it back down to one, 30-29, by earning the split with a 30-17 decision in the regular-season finale. Overall, the Buccaneers have won six of the last eight meetings in the series.

Since the Bucs and Falcons became fellow NFC South denizens in 2002, the two teams are tied at 22-21. The Bucs’ longest winning streak in the series is six, between 1997 and 2003; the Falcons have won five in a row on two occasions, first from 2008-10 and again from 2016-18.

The Falcons won the 2022 regular-season finale, a contest in which the Buccaneers, having already been locked into the fourth seed in the NFC playoff field, rested many of their starters and pulled most of the rest early in the contest. Ridder, in just his fourth career start, threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns and Atlanta’s defense held the Bucs to 222 total yards of offense.

Earlier in the 2022 season, the Buccaneers held on to a 21-15 victory despite a late Atlanta comeback. Tampa Bay controlled the action for three quarters and used two Leonard Fournette touchdowns to take a 21-0 lead into the final period before Atlanta stormed back with two touchdowns. After an Olamide Zaccheaus touchdown catch made it a one-score game, the Bucs’ offense was able to drain the final 4:38 from the clock with one long drive.

The Bucs’ two wins in 2021 were both by double-digit margins. In Week at Raymond James Stadium, the Buccaneers got five touchdown passes from Tom Brady, including two each to Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski – plus Mike Edwards’ two fourth-quarter pick-sixes as an exclamation in a 48-25 victory. In the rematch in in Atlanta, Chris Godwin set a team single-game record with 15 catches and Gronkowski once again found the end zone twice in Tampa Bay’s 13-point win. Russell Gage, who is now a Buccaneer, caught 11 passes for 130 yards for the Falcons.

Prior to briefly retaking the series lead in 2021, the Buccaneers had been on top with a 24-22 advantage midway through the 2016 season before Atlanta reeled off five straight victories in a streak that included sweeps in 2017 and 2018. Tampa Bay has the all-time edge in scoring in the series, with 1,374 points to the Falcons’ 1,302.

In their run to the Super Bowl championship in 2020, the Buccaneers won eight straight spanning the regular season and the postseason, and they downed the Falcons twice in the final three weeks of the regular season, scoring a total of 75 points. Tampa Bay won, 31-27, at Atlanta in Week 15 and then took the rematch in Tampa by a 44-27 margin. The first win required a wild comeback after the Falcons raced out to a 17-0 halftime lead, with Tom Brady throwing for 330 yards and two touchdowns in the second half. The second game at Raymond James Stadium was less stressful, as the Buccaneers led from wire to wire, but included another huge day by Brady, who threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns.

The Buccaneers came close to taking both halves of the series in 2019, winning by a 35-22 score in Atlanta and taking a 22-16 lead into the fourth quarter in the Week 17 rematch in Tampa. However, Matt Ryan led a game-tying drive in the final three minutes of that contest, leading to Younghoe Koo’s 33-yard field goal as time expired in regulation. The Buccaneers won the overtime coin toss but lost the game on the first play of the extra period, as Jameis Winston’s last pass for Tampa Bay was picked off and returned 27 yards for a touchdown by Deion Jones.

Both of the games in 2018 went down to the wire, neither ending well for the Buccaneers. In Week Six in Atlanta, Tampa Bay rallied from a 15-point deficit to make it a 31-29 game with four minutes to play on Peyton Barber’s five-yard touchdown catch. The Falcons then tacked on a field goal to make it a five-point game with just over a minute to play but Winston got the visitors back into scoring range with consecutive completions of 18, 18 and 19 yards to DeSean Jackson, Mike Evans and Adam Humphries. With seven seconds left and the ball at Atlanta’s 21, the Bucs tried a tricky play in which Winston began to scramble up the middle and then suddenly attempted a lateral to Humphries. The ball ended up on the turf before Evans scooped it up and got a one-hopper off to Jackson, who appeared to have a path to the end zone pylon along the left sideline. However, Jackson couldn’t haul it in and time expired on a 34-29 Falcons victory.

In the Week 17 rematch, at Raymond James Stadium, the Bucs gave up a 10-point halftime lead and fell behind by 11 in the fourth quarter before once again rallying, this time taking the lead with five minutes to play on a 19-yard Chris Godwin touchdown catch. That was too much time to leave Ryan, however, and he hit Jones on a pair of 16-yard passes to get the ball into field goal range. Matt Bryant won it as time expired with a 37-yarder.