Dec 12, 2025, 02:23 AM ET<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> coach Todd Bowles blasted his players and challenged them to “look in the mirror” after his team blew a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter and lost 29-28 to the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> on Thursday night at Raymond James Stadium.<\/p>\n The Bucs (7-7) lost for the fifth time in six games to fall a half-game behind the Carolina Panthers<\/a> in the NFC South.<\/p>\n “You don’t make excuses,” Bowles said in an expletive-laden reaction. “You got to f—ing care enough where the s— hurts. It’s got to f—ing mean something to you. It’s more than a job. It’s your f—ing livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugarcoat that s—.”<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n After the Falcons cut a 14-point deficit to 28-20 on Bijan Robinson<\/a>‘s 6-yard touchdown run with under 10 minutes left, Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield<\/a> was picked off by Dee Alford<\/a> on the ensuing drive. Atlanta then drove 67 yards for a score, missing the 2-point conversion to make it 28-26.<\/p>\n The Falcons forced the Buccaneers to punt and got the ball at their 30 with no timeouts and 1:49 to go. Facing a third-and-28 on their final drive, quarterback Kirk Cousins<\/a> completed passes of 14 yards to Kyle Pitts Sr<\/a>. and 20 yards on fourth-and-14 to David Sills V<\/a> to set up Zane Gonzalez<\/a>‘s 43-yard field goal as time expired.<\/p>\n Bowles called the loss “inexcusable” and put the onus on the Bucs’ players to execute.<\/p>\n “At this point you’ve seen everything in the season,” Bowles said. “The coaches have done everything they can do. This is a player-driven team in the last four or five weeks. You’ve got to execute, and they’ve got to hold each other accountable. As a coach, you can sit there until you’re blue in the face. Until they start holding each other accountable and doing the little things right — and that’s not everybody, you know, we’re talking about a small, select few. But the small, select few is what’s getting us beat. And until that happens, it’s not going to get right.”<\/p>\n According to ESPN Analytics, the Bucs’ chances of winning the NFC South fall to 35% if the Panthers win against the New Orleans Saints<\/a> on Sunday; they rise to 76% if the Panthers lose.<\/p>\n Mayfield had all of his wide receivers available for the first time this season after six-time Pro Bowl pick Mike Evans<\/a> and second-year pro Jalen McMillan<\/a> were activated from injured reserve.<\/p>\n He shouldered the blame for Thursday night’s loss.<\/p>\n “This one is going to haunt me. It falls on my shoulders,” Mayfield said. “It’s not the defense’s fault. It’s my fault.”<\/p>\n Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec 12, 2025, 02:23 AM ET Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles blasted his players and challenged them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-344028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}