6 Buccaneers to blame after embarrassing loss to Falcons

6 Buccaneers to blame after embarrassing loss to Falcons

Dave Canales

Whatever magic Dave Canales had earlier in the season is officially wearing off. The thin veneer is exposing a Scooby-Doo situation where the same old pitiful offense is under the mask of what was presented as a fresh start. Bucs fans who were rah-rah about the change he represented have begun to turn on the first-year play-caller after yet another miserable performance by the offense.

It wasn't just the bad play on the field that sunk the Bucs, it was some head-scratching play calling that painted the team into a corner even more than it already was. On more than one occasion the Bucs offense stunted both its own momentum and that which was created by the defense's stellar play.

A perfect microcosm of this was after the Bucs turned the Falcons over on a fumble by Desmond Ridder inside of the Tampa Bay 5-yard line. It was a botched snap that had Tampa Bay backed up on its own goal line, but a nice pass to Mike Evans brought them within a yard of extending the drive. The decision on 3rd-and-1 was to turn to the league's worst rushing attack, which promptly went backward and forced a punt.

This is sort of stuff is on a Groundhog Day style repeat cycle in Tampa Bay.

It happened three times on Sunday, as the Bucs defense turned Atlanta over and kept points off the board only to have the offense get absolutely nothing out of it.

Canales wears the crown of shame for how things went, as good momentum-building plays were followed up by feeble attempts to get the run game going. It became predictable, and when the Bucs had the ball with chances to take the lead late in the game Atlanta's defense could read the script.

With the ball inside of the redzone and a chance for a go-ahead score, Canales rolled out some of the lamest calls to try and get into the endzone (which the Bucs did not).

That was a third-down scoring chance that featured absolutely zero help underneath to try and create. Canales is still new at this, and he showed it in some pretty brutal ways in Week 7.