What Is Holding the Buccaneers Back from Finishing Games?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are losing in heartbreaking fashion in too many contests, and it's all about the players according to head coach Todd Bowles.

Sep 22, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles looks on against the Denver Broncos during the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images / Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

There's always an element of 'what could have been when coming off a close loss, and after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell to the San Francisco 49ers 23-20 in Week 10 there were plenty of questions about that very topic.

Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles had a pretty consistent theme to his answers throughout the postgame conversation, and he began with what he said to the team after they dropped their sixth game of the season and fourth in a row.

“[We] have to finish ballgames. [When] guys get a chance to play, they have to come in,
play and execute," the Tampa Bay coach said after the game. "We can’t play hard and then not play smart at the end. We have to play smarter football. There’s nothing wrong with how hard we’re playing and how tough we’re playing, but we have to finish games. We have to find a way to finish ballgames.
[We’re] making too many mistakes at the end.”

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Bowles has been criticized plenty this season for not changing his operation, scheme, or adjusting enough to what is happening with this Bucs team. So hearing him emphasize a lack of execution over any lacking in the approach is nothing new.

Still, there were plenty wondering if the coach couldn't have handled the end-of-game situation a bit better than he did.

“No, we weren’t worried about the clock. We thought our play calls were very good," Bowles said when discussing how the Buccaneers handled their final possession of the game. "They
got us for a ‘TFL’ (tackle for loss). That kind of set us back and we never kind of got
anything on second and third down.”

Tampa Bay tied the game at 20 with 44 seconds left in the game, leaving the 49ers just enough time to get into position for a game-winning field goal which kicker Jake Moody made, sending his team back to the West Coast with a win in tow.

Getting the ball back at their own 34-yard line with just over three minutes to play, there was a sense that the Bucs needed to either score a late touchdown or run the clock down and get a game-winning kick of their own.

Instead, the Buccaneers took just over a minute off the clock and faced 4th-and-8 on their own side of the field after the two-minute warning. Faced with the option of punting the ball away to San Francisco who had multiple timeouts remaining didn't sit right with Bowles, so he made the decision to go for it.

The play to convert the fourth down was as improbable as it was impressive and demonstrates the true 'never give up' nature of quarterback Baker Mayfield. It also gave Tampa Bay a new set of downs near midfield and time to control the outcome of the game.

But that's not what happened. The Bucs didn't take control of the game. Not really.

Despite the running game having some success -— averaging 4.6 yards per carry on non-quarterback runs — and the existing need to move the ball while taking away the 49ers' chance to get points of their own, the Buccaneers kept dialing up passes. Furthermore, running back Bucky Irving, who led all rushers in the game with a 5.6 yards per carry average didn't get a single touch on that final drive to try and milk the clock, or at worst force the opponent to spend all of its timeouts.

The team ran eight plays after the two-minute warning and five of them were passes. Three plays were negated by penalties and two of those were passes as well.

The end result was that they forced San Francisco to use two timeouts but ultimately left their opponent one to use in a last-minute scoring attempt of its own. Against a defense that Bowles felt so little confidence in he opted to go for it in his own end of the field on 4th-and-8 over punting with two minutes left in the game.

“We talk about the field goal range we have to get to, and after that it’s, ‘Do
my job, be smart, don’t take a sack in the two-minute [drill] and just take what the
defense gives me,’ 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy said after the game. "Understand that we have one timeout and just get completions and move the ball and be smart in that regard, so that’s what was going through my mind. Going through my progressions, keeping it [as] simple as possible, you know, just try to execute – throw and catch.”

Purdy came on and completed three short passes to San Francisco receivers moving the ball quickly down to the Tampa Bay 39 before using his team's final timeout with 23 seconds left to play.

The 49ers used that timeout to draw up a 14-yard completion to receiver Ricky Pearsall at the Bucs' 26-yard line and spiked the ball with four seconds left in the game.

“No," Bowles said when asked if he thought about using a timeout to ice Moody who had missed multiple kicks already on Sunday. "He would’ve been fine. They were in field goal range. He had missed two before that, so we didn’t feel like icing him.”

There's no way to know for sure, of course, but some saw Bowles' lack of employing a pretty standard strategic move to make a struggling kicker think about the moment to come a bit longer as a sign of the coach being resigned to his fate. Not quite quitting, but certainly not pulling out any trick he had in his bag to influence the outcome.

Rewind again to the 3rd-and-Goal play from the San Francisco eight-yard line when the Buccaneers dialed up their final pass of the game, an incomplete pass that saved the 49ers their last timeout. Asked if Bowles thought about going for it on that fourth down, he simply responded, "No."

"We’re trying to win the game. We’re trying to win the game," Bowles said when asked about the approach the defense had to try and stop a late-game field goal by San Francisco. "We had to rush the passer and the DBs (defensive backs) had to cover. It doesn’t matter who was in the ballgame,
you understand what the game plan is, you have to execute, and we didn’t execute.”

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