Falcons shut out 16-0 as Buccaneers run 56 times for 324 yards without a completion

Tampa Bay threw three passes on Sunday afternoon and completed none of them. The Buccaneers won 16 to 0. There is no kind way to arrange those two facts.

It rained for most of the afternoon at Raymond James Stadium, and the field gave way under it. Tampa Bay responded by handing the ball off 56 times for 324 yards, which is to say they announced it on the first series and did it for three hours. Atlanta knew. Bucky Irving carried 27 times for 170 yards, Kenny Gainwell 25 for 140, and Baker Mayfield finished 0 for 3 with minus two net passing yards. The Falcons could not get off the field, and did nothing with the ball when they had it.

The game got away in two pieces. The first came in the opening quarter, when Alex Anzalone intercepted Michael Penix Jr. on back to back possessions, one on the opening snap of a drive at the Falcons 34, the other on third and 10 at the Atlanta 20. Each handed Tampa Bay the ball inside the Atlanta 20, and Chase McLaughlin turned them into a 6 to 0 lead. The second piece, the one that ended it, came at 6:31 of the third quarter. Tampa Bay had the ball at its own 19, second and one, leading 9 to 0. Irving went left end for 46 yards. Four plays later he scored from the four with 3:47 on the clock, a six play, 90 yard drive that took 3:22. An offense that had not scored in three quarters was not going to find 16 in one.

Offense

Atlanta went 0 for 12 on third down. Not one, in a game it trailed from the seventh minute. That line does most of the explaining: 52 plays, 224 total yards, 4.3 yards a play, 24 minutes and 44 seconds of possession, one trip inside the red zone all afternoon and no points from it.

Penix finished 8 of 24 for 125 yards with four interceptions and a passer rating of 12.0. Ninety five of those 125 yards went to Jahan Dotson on two catches, and 76 of them came on a single throw from the Atlanta 2 with 4:35 left and the game decided. Drake London was targeted six times and caught one pass for eight yards. Kyle Pitts Sr. was targeted five times and caught two for six. Strip out the one deep ball and the Falcons passing game produced 49 yards on seven completions.

The run game was serviceable and nothing more. Bijan Robinson carried 19 times for 76 yards, 4.0 a carry, with a 26 yard run on the first snap of the second quarter. Khalil Herbert added 12 on four. As a team Atlanta ran 28 times for 99 yards at 3.5. The offensive line deserves a mention it will not get: zero sacks allowed, in the rain, with Tampa Bay knowing Atlanta had to throw, and three penalties for 25 yards all day.

Harder to account for is the shape of the plan. Tampa Bay won doing the thing Atlanta also had available, which was hand it to a good running back behind a line that was not being beaten. Instead Penix threw it 24 times in conditions that had already produced four interceptions worth of evidence against the idea. Robinson got 19 carries. The weather was the same on both sidelines.

Defense

Three hundred twenty four rushing yards on 56 carries, 5.8 a carry, to a team that attempted three passes. Tampa Bay picked up 16 first downs, 15 running and none throwing. A defense told exactly what is coming and giving up 5.8 a carry has failed at the only job it had.

The mitigation, and it is real, is that 324 yards became only 16 points. Atlanta held Tampa Bay to 4 of 13 on third down and 1 of 3 in the red zone. Jessie Bates III ran down Irving at the Atlanta 1 in the first quarter after a broken play and a lateral, forced the ball loose, and watched it roll out of the end zone for a touchback. That was seven points the Falcons never gave up.

Harold Perkins Jr. had the team's only sack, on third and seven at the Tampa Bay 48 in the third quarter, and forced a punt with it. He finished with seven tackles, a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit, and he was the one Falcon consistently winning his snap. Kendal Daniels led the team with 13 tackles, Xavier Watts had nine and C.J. Henderson eight. Those are not compliments. They are what a secondary produces tackling running backs in the open field all afternoon.

The matchup that was lost was on the edge. On the 90 yard touchdown drive, four of the six snaps went to the left side of the Tampa Bay line and produced gains of nine, 46, one and 28. Samson Ebukam, who went in questionable with a hamstring, finished with two tackles. Zach Harrison and Cameron Thomas had four apiece and no tackles for loss between them. When a team runs the same direction all day and keeps getting it, that is not a scheme problem.

Special teams

The best Atlanta unit on the field, and it was not close. Zachariah Branch returned three kickoffs for 69 yards, Olamide Zaccheaus one for 37 and Herbert one for 29, five returns for 135 yards at 27.0. They put the offense in business at the 30, the 34, the 45 and the 33. Jake Bailey punted four times for a 48.3 average, two inside the 20, none into the end zone, long of 55.

Nick Folk missed a 53 yard field goal wide left on the opening drive, which turned out to be the only points Atlanta had a credible chance at all day. A hard kick in a hard rain, and forgivable. McLaughlin went 3 for 3 the other way, long of 46. Field position did not beat the Falcons. They were handed good spots and did nothing with them.

Coaching

The team came out ready enough. The opening drive went ten plays and 35 yards, converted a fourth and one at the Tampa Bay 39 on a Penix keeper, and reached field goal range before the miss.

The decisions that followed are harder. Atlanta went 3 for 6 on fourth down, and the one that mattered was fourth and six at the Tampa Bay 32 with 12:39 left in the second, down nine. In that rain a 50 yard field goal was not a real option, so going for it was right. Throwing it was not, and Jacob Parrish intercepted at the 17 with Penix already carrying two picks. At 1:30 of the second, fourth and one at the Tampa Bay 36, Robinson went left guard for nothing. That drive had just been charged a ten second runoff when a replay reversal wiped out a first down at the 34.

The halftime adjustment reached one side of the ball. The defense opened the third quarter by forcing Tampa Bay off the field on three plays twice in a row. The offense answered with two three and outs of its own, six plays for 15 yards, and gave it straight back. Tampa Bay took the next possession 90 yards. The defense bought a window and the offense never got a snap past its own 36 in the quarter.

Zero for 12 on third down is a players problem on some snaps and a plan problem across twelve of them.

What it means

The Falcons are 3-5 at the midpoint. This is the second time in eight games Atlanta has been held to three points or fewer, after the 34 to 3 loss to Carolina in Week 2, and it came a week after beating San Francisco. Penix had thrown one interception in his first seven games and threw four on Sunday.

Two things have now shown up for three straight weeks. Third down is the first: 3 of 12 against Chicago, 4 of 12 against San Francisco, 0 of 12 against Tampa Bay, seven conversions in 36 tries. The second is the run defense. Over the last four games Baltimore ran at 5.9 a carry, Chicago at 3.0, San Francisco at 5.3 and Tampa Bay at 5.8. Three of four over five yards a carry, and the one that was not still won.

What is next

Cincinnati comes to Atlanta next Sunday, November 8. The question they have to answer by then is the simplest one on the sheet. They have to convert a third down. Everything else, the field position, the defensive stops, the clean pocket, was there on Sunday and went to waste because the offense could not stay on the field.