Three Keys to the Game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Atlanta Falcons

Here are three things the Bucs must do if they want to end the regular season on a high note against the Falcons.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-5) are playing some of their best football as the regular season comes to an end and are hoping to extend its three-game winning streak against the Atlanta Falcons (4-11) on Sunday.

The Bucs clinched a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2007 with a dominant 47-7 performance over the Detroit Lions last week and can enter the NFC playoffs as the No. 5 seed with a win. Bucs' head coach Bruce Arians has made it clear the regular starters are expected to play as usual and the team is hungry for a win.

"11-5, that’s very rare. To have a chance to get to 11-5, keep that seeding – we want that seeding just for pride," Arians said earlier in the week. "We don’t care who we play, it’s more for pride. I’d probably have to beat some guys in the head with a stick to try and get them not to play anyway. I talked to them about it before and [they said], ‘I’m playing.’ We’re going to practice and play like everything depends on it."

With that in mind, here are three keys to the game for the Bucs against the Falcons:

1. The Bucs Must Continue to Execute on Offense.

This sounds obvious, but it's easier said than done. The last time these two teams met, the Bucs were unable to execute on offense in the first half and punted on four straight possessions. 

Then, for whatever reason, a light bulb turned on, and Tampa Bay looked unstoppable. The Bucs scored 31 points in the second half as quarterback Tom Brady finished with nearly 400 passing yards and two touchdowns. The light bulb continued to stay lit against the Detroit Lions as the Bucs scored 47 points on offense, the fifth-most points scored in a game in team history.

“I just think we’re just executing," offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich said Thursday. "I think there were moments in the year where we were executing just like this. There’s been a lot of quarters, a lot of halves [and] a lot of games, really, where we’ve executed at this level. There have been some where we haven’t, and that’s what really got talked about more than when we do execute on this level. I don’t see it as [anything] different than what we’ve done all year."

And. he's right. The team didn't do anything special or over complicated things. Brady hit his receivers and the Bucs executed on offense with ease. This is something the Bucs have to do against the Falcons and into the postseason if the team wants to make a run at the Super Bowl.

"I just think we’ve done a better job of focusing in [and] locking in, especially [with] what was on the line [and] understanding the position we were in and what we needed to do," Leftwich said. "I think that locked us in and made us be able to execute at a higher level. We want to try to continue doing that the rest of the year.”

2. Tampa Bay Needs to Have Success on 3rd Down.

The Bucs only converted 4-of-10 third downs against the Falcons two weeks ago and Leftwich explained that's part of why Tampa Bay fell behind so early.

"It’s just going to be converting third downs," Leftwich said. "When you don’t convert third downs, especially early, you’re punting the ball, you’re giving guys opportunities to make plays against your team. We just have to do a better job of executing in the first half as we did in the second half, that’s really what we want to do." 

Tampa Bay totaled 416 yards when it was all said and done but only recorded 60 yards in the first half. The Bucs this entire season haven't been great on third down, only converting 42% of the time which ranks 13th in the NFL, but Leftwich says the offense just needs to be more consistent.

“Looking at the last game we played [against] these guys, I don’t think we played too well there in the first half. I don’t think we played badly, either," Leftwich said. "We just want to execute at a high level regardless of how many plays, whether it’s 65, 71, 62 – whatever amount of plays we [have], we really just want to execute at a high level from here on out.”

3. Apply Pressure and Sack Falcons' Quarterback Matt Ryan.

One of the biggest reasons Atlanta led 17-0 at halftime two weeks ago was because of the impressive quarterback play of Matt Ryan. The Falcons' franchise quarterback completed 23 of his 31 passes for 235 yards and tossed two touchdowns in the first half. Ryan wasn't sacked once.

In the second half, however, linebacker Devin White sacked Ryan three times. Ryan still finished the game with 356 passing yards, but only threw one touchdown.

While it might not happen, the Bucs need eight sacks on Sunday to set the team single-season sack record set in 2000 (55.0). Arians explained the number of sacks this season has been solid, but the team can do better.

“I think it’s what we’re capable [of], but I think we’re actually capable of more," Arians said about the team's 47.0 sacks this year. "We’ve let some quarterbacks get away from us when we had hands on them. Again, it is multiple. When you’ve got Will [Gholston], [Ndamukong] Suh, the other three guys, and [Jeremiah] Ledbetter getting one – whoever’s getting one-on-one, you better win. The multiplicity of that, I think, is what makes it dangerous."

If Tampa Bay can apply pressure to Ryan and force him to throw it away, that will lead to less damage from wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who caught 10 passes for 163 yards and added one touchdown two weeks ago.

"We’ll try to control Calvin Ridley a whole lot better than we did in that game and a whole lot better than Kansas City tried to this past week because he’s on fire right now," Arians said. "If we don’t get to Matt Ryan, they’re going to find [Ridley] because he’s playing at a really, really high level. We’ve got to get to Matt Ryan better than we did in the first half last game.”