The Atlanta Falcons are thisclose to be 0-5.
They don’t care, nor should they. For the third time this season, the Falcons suffered a defeat and managed to pull off a miraculous victory. This time it was a massive Thursday night showdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Falcons had a huge effort in the final two minutes of regulation to set up a tying field goal late in the fourth quarter. The overtime didn’t last long.
KhaDarel Hodge caught a pass in overtime, broke a tackle and scored a 45-yard touchdown on the first drive of overtime and the Falcons took a 36-30 overtime victory. Kirk Cousins threw for 509 yards in a fantastic performance. The Falcons are 3-2 after the win, tied with the Buccaneers for the division lead.
The Falcons looked finished on several occasions Thursday night. But they managed to pull off an improbable victory, the third time they have done so in five weeks this season.
An explosive 1st half
The Falcons and Buccaneers had no trouble moving the ball in the first half. The Falcons started the night with a long drive that ended with a Drake London touchdown. The Buccaneers came right back with a Mike Evans touchdown run.
Both quarterbacks continued to throw uppercuts. In the first half alone, Cousins was 21 of 28 for 253 yards and two touchdowns. Cousins hadn’t played at that level during the first month of his career with the Falcons. On the other side, Baker Mayfield finished 12 of 15 for 131 yards and three touchdowns. Maybe it was all due to two tired defenses in a short week — the Falcons were the first team all season without a quarterback pressure in the first half of a game. according to Next Gen statistics – but it still made for an entertaining half.
Mayfield’s third touchdown was a fantastic throw. He rolled to his right and stuck it to a well-covered Sterling Shepard in the end zone for a touchdown. There was almost no separation, but Mayfield found a way to sneak in for a score.
The Buccaneers finally got a stop on the Falcons’ final drive of the half and led 24-17 before halftime. Not counting Tampa Bay’s kneel to end the first half, they scored on all four of their first-half possessions while the Falcons scored on three of five, with just a missed field goal and a punt preventing attacks to be perfect before halftime.
The match is close until the 4th quarter
The defenses finally tightened up a little in the second half. Meters were harder to find. For the third quarter and first half of the fourth quarter, either team’s only touchdown was Cousins hitting Darnell Mooney for Mooney’s second touchdown of the game.
Mooney, however, made a big mistake in the fourth quarter. On third-and-6, Cousins made a nice throw to Mooney, who was open, but Mooney dropped it at about the 15-yard line. Younghoe Koo had to come in for a 54-yard field goal and it was blocked.
It looked like the Buccaneers were going to win the game multiple times after that, but the Falcons wouldn’t go away. Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving was running for a first down just before the two-minute warning when Falcons safety Jessie Bates III reached out and punched the ball away. Atlanta recovered, but couldn’t move the ball, then Cousins threw an interception on fourth down. The Falcons still had their timeouts and used them to force a punt.
Then Cousins, as he did against the Eagles in Week 2, put together a great two-minute drill. He hit London over the middle and the Falcons scored with one second left. There was a nasty delay of game penalty before Koo’s attempt to tie the game, but it didn’t matter. He hit it from 52 yards and the game went to overtime. Last week, Koo kicked a 58-yard field goal in the final seconds to clinch the win for the Falcons, and his game-clinching kick Thursday night kept the game alive.
The Falcons won the coin toss to start overtime and won it quickly. London came away with an injury after extra time, which put Hodge in the spotlight and he came through with the winning score.
Atlanta has three razor-thin wins, but they’re not complaining.
