Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ loss to Bears- aided by officiating- is a gut punch

Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ loss to Bears- aided by officiating- is a gut punch

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers came into Thursday night riding high on a three-game winning streak and favored by nearly a touchdown. They came out with nothing to show for it other than a gut-wrenching loss that will be an item of frustration for weeks to come.

Things looked bright early when the Buccaneers got the scoring started with a 39-yard field goal from Ryan Succop with 9:48 remaining in the first quarter. Following that field goal, Tom Brady would find Mike Evans on a 2-yard touchdown pass with less than a minute remaining in the first quarter to give the Bucs a 10-0 lead.

Just when it seemed Tampa Bay was going to have a chance to roll, the Bears resurged off a couple of questionable penalty calls against the Bucs and help from both the Tampa defense and offense. Chicago scored two touchdowns in the last two minutes of the second quarter- one on a 3-yard rush from David Montgomery and then one on a 12-yard TD pass from Nick Foles to Jimmy Graham to take a 14-13 lead into halftime.

The two teams would trade field goals before Succop drilled a 25-yard attempt with 4:49 remaining to give the Bucs a 19-17 lead. Though the defense came away with one stop with a little more than three minutes remaining, the offense couldn’t convert a first down and that gave the Bears the ball back with more than two minutes remaining. They ultimately kicked a field goal to come away with a 20-19 victory.

Analysis from the Buccaneers’ loss over the Chicago Bears

We said coming into this week that this game would be ugly. It was a short week against a Bears team that has a very talented defensive line and the Buccaneers were short-handed at the skill positions due to injuries.

That doesn’t excuse the fact that this was the worst game the offensive line has played all season long. Tom Brady was sacked three times and was knocked down seemingly after almost every single passing play. That’s simply unacceptable and we saw both tackles- Donovan Smith and Tristan Wirfs– have great difficulty against their assignments.

And then there’s the fact that the offense had multiple opportunities to put the game away and simply couldn’t do it before that last drive. Any time they had a chance to convert on a major or go on a drive that could potentially give the Bucs complete control over the game, they were unable to do anything.

In addition, we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the fact that the Buccaneers had 11 penalties for 109 yards and a couple of those- especially the phantom roughing the passer call and the offsides call on Shaquil Barrett– really gave the Bears new life.

Oh, and on top of all of that, the defense- which had been so sure-handed coming into this game- couldn’t get a stop when it mattered most and, instead, allowed Nick Foles to make plays necessary to set up the game-winning field goal.

This game is a gut-punch without any question and the sting from the loss won’t be going away anytime soon.