With two weeks left in the 2024 regular season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons had identical 8-7 records but the Falcons had the upper hand in the division title race thanks to a head-to-head sweep of their Florida rivals earlier in the season. Fortunately for the Buccaneers, they won their last two games while Atlanta lost a pair of overtime contests and the NFC South crown stayed in Tampa for a fourth straight year.
As the team with control of its own destiny in that race switched back and forth multiple times, it became quite clear how important those previous meetings in Weeks Five and Eight were. Atlanta rallied in the first one on a Thursday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to tie it in regulation and take a 36-30 decision in overtime. Three weeks later, the Falcons came to Raymond James Stadium and held off a later Buccaneer rally to prevail, 31-26.
This season, the Bucs and Falcons are getting that rivalry heated up even earlier, as they are slated to open their 2025 seasons together this Sunday in Atlanta. The early-season divisional showdown won't decide either team's fate, but the winner will certainly get an early boost in its long playoff quest.
"It's one ballgame," said Head Coach Todd Bowles. "[A win would] give us a leg up in the division; it's not going to win the Super Bowl, which is what we want to get to. It's great to get off to a good start, and that's all it brings to us."
The Bucs-Falcons series has historically been a close one, with the all-time lead changing hands nine times, most recently as Atlanta's sweep put them on top, 32-31. The last four games have been decided by an average margin of 4.5 points. Both games last year were best described as shootouts, but the Bucs had difficulty getting Atlanta's offense off the field. They will look for better results in that regard on Sunday but both teams have changed since last year and there may not be many lessons to glean from what transpired last October.
"Obviously, Atlanta got us twice but nothing carries over, whether it was their wins against them or how good we were on offense," said quarterback Baker Mayfield. "None of that matters. It's a clean slate for everybody so we're looking forward to opening up on the road with a divisional opponent. That's really all that matters, is how we find a way to win."
Atlanta notably passed for 742 yards in those two wins combined last year, but that was with Kirk Cousins under center. Late last season, the Falcons turned over the offensive keys to Michael Penix, the eighth-overall pick in the 2024 draft, and were encouraged by how he played in three starts to finish the season. Penix is surrounded by a lot of offensive talent – including fellow top-10 picks Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts – and the Bucs know that the young passer poses a serious threat. However, they are hoping their defense jells quickly in 2025 and is able to give the second-year player a tough challenge of his own.
"He can play. We know he can play," said Bowles. "I'm just excited to see how the defense comes together. The first game brings a lot of the unknown, for us as well as them. We've just got to play together, they've got to talk to each other, they have to have mental toughness. We're going into a hostile environment; it's a great place to play. It's a great place to open a season of football. We're just excited to play. … Just making sure we're ready first. We've got to make sure we're prepared to play and not worry so much about what they do as opposed to what we do. They've got a lot of talent, and that's going to be the same every week. We understand that. We feel like we've got a lot of talent as well. We've got to prepare the right way and we've got to go in with the right mindset. We've just got to play a solid game and not make mental mistakes."
Atlanta had the NFL's sixth-ranked offense in 2024 but finished 23rd in defense and, as has been the case for several years in a row, had extreme difficulty pressuring opponent quarterbacks. Atlanta ranked 31st in sacks-per-pass play rate and had the second-fewest sacks overall, with 31. In response, the team signed edge rusher Leonard Floyd in free agency and doubled down on the position in the first round of the 2025 draft with Jalon Walker and James Pearce.
"They've obviously had a lot of personnel changes," said Mayfield. "I haven't seen a lot of tape on Leonard Floyd with them, but we know who he is, great player. Obviously, they spent some early picks on edge rushers as well, and just some changes in the secondary. A.J. Terrell's a great player, still there. Jessie Bates: ball hawk, game changer-guy. Divine Deablo, a new guy in the interior linebacker for them. Some younger DBs that are going to play. Just personnel-wise, trying to figure out who's going to be where without really being able to get non-preseason tape up there to prepare with."
The Buccaneers and Falcons know each other well, and they've become well acquainted with late-season races to the top of the NFC South. However, there's a lot that the 2025 Buccaneers have yet to find out about the 2025 Falcons, and vice versa. That process begins on Sunday.
GAME AND BROADCAST DETAILS
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-0) at Atlanta Falcons (0-0)
Sunday, September 7, 1:00 p.m. ET
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (capacity: 72,000)
Atlanta, Georgia
Television: FOX
TV Broadcast Team: Kenny Albert (play-by-play), Jonathan Vilma (analyst), Megan Olivi (reporter)
Radio: 98Rock (WXTB, 97.9 FM), Flagship Station
Radio Broadcast Team: Gene Deckerhoff (play-by-play), Dave Moore (analyst), T.J. Rives (reporter)
Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente
Spanish Radio Broadcast Team: Carlos Bohorquez (play-by-play), Martin Gramática (analyst), Santiago Gramática (reporter)
ALL-TIME HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES
When Atlanta swept the two-game set with the Buccaneers last season, it marked the ninth team that the lead in the all-time series between the two teams changed hands. Atlanta is now just ahead, with a 32-31 edge after 63 previous meetings. Last year, the Falcons first tied the series up in Week Five with a 36-30 overtime win in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The game was tied four different times, the last when Kirk Cousins was able to spike the ball with one second left in regulation to set up Younghoe Koo's 52-yard field goal. Atlanta got the ball first in overtime and won on a 45-yard catch-and-run by KhaDarel Hodge. Cousins threw for 509 yards and four touchdowns. Just three weeks later, the two teams met again in Tampa and this one also came down to the wire. After Baker Mayfield hit Cade Otton on a four-yard touchdown pass with seven minutes to play, the home team still trailed, 31-26. Atlanta was able to burn six minutes off the clock with their final possession and the Bucs could advance only to the Atlanta 33 before one last crack at the end zone was incomplete.
In 2023, the Falcons initially tied the series up at 30-30 with a 16-13 win at Raymond James Stadium, but the Bucs took the lead back later in the season with a 29-25 victory in Atlanta. The first of those games was also tied three times, at 7-7, 10-10 and 13-13, before Koo won it at the buzzer with a 51-yard field goal. Mike Evans scored the Bucs' only touchdown on a 40-yard catch, and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. kept his team alive in the fourth quarter with a remarkable forced fumble at the goal line against quarterback Desmond Ridder. In the rematch, Ridder put the Falcons ahead, 25-22, with three minutes left on a six-yard touchdown keeper but Mayfield was able to counter that with a 12-play, 75-yard drive ending in his 11-yard touchdown pass to Otton. Overall, the Buccaneers have won six of the last 10 meetings in the series but Atlanta has won three of the last four.
Since the Bucs and Falcons became fellow NFC South denizens in 2002, the two teams are tied at 22-22. The Bucs' longest winning streak in the series is six, between 1997 and 2003; the Falcons have won five in a row on two occasions, first from 2008-10 and again from 2016-18.
The Falcons won the 2022 regular-season finale, a contest in which the Buccaneers, having already been locked into the fourth seed in the NFC playoff field, rested many of their starters and pulled most of the rest early in the contest. Ridder, in just his fourth career start, threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns and Atlanta's defense held the Bucs to 222 total yards of offense.
Earlier in the 2022 season, the Buccaneers held on to a 21-15 victory despite a late Atlanta comeback. Tampa Bay controlled the action for three quarters and used two Leonard Fournette touchdowns to take a 21-0 lead into the final period before Atlanta stormed back with two touchdowns. After an Olamide Zaccheaus touchdown catch made it a one-score game, the Bucs' offense was able to drain the final 4:38 from the clock with one long drive.
The Bucs' two wins in 2021 were both by double-digit margins. In Week at Raymond James Stadium, the Buccaneers got five touchdown passes from Tom Brady, including two each to Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski – plus Mike Edwards' two fourth-quarter pick-sixes as an exclamation in a 48-25 victory. In the rematch in in Atlanta, Chris Godwin set a team single-game record with 15 catches and Gronkowski once again found the end zone twice in Tampa Bay's 13-point win. Russell Gage, who is now a Buccaneer, caught 11 passes for 130 yards for the Falcons.
Prior to briefly retaking the series lead in 2021, the Buccaneers had been on top with a 24-22 advantage midway through the 2016 season before Atlanta reeled off five straight victories in a streak that included sweeps in 2017 and 2018. Tampa Bay has the all-time edge in scoring in the series, with 1,459 points to the Falcons' 1,354.
In their run to the Super Bowl championship in 2020, the Buccaneers won eight straight spanning the regular season and the postseason, and they downed the Falcons twice in the final three weeks of the regular season, scoring a total of 75 points. Tampa Bay won, 31-27, at Atlanta in Week 15 and then took the rematch in Tampa by a 44-27 margin. The first win required a wild comeback after the Falcons raced out to a 17-0 halftime lead, with Tom Brady throwing for 330 yards and two touchdowns in the second half. The second game at Raymond James Stadium was less stressful, as the Buccaneers led from wire to wire, but included another huge day by Brady, who threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns.
The Buccaneers came close to taking both halves of the series in 2019, winning by a 35-22 score in Atlanta and taking a 22-16 lead into the fourth quarter in the Week 17 rematch in Tampa. However, Matt Ryan led a game-tying drive in the final three minutes of that contest, leading to Koo's 33-yard field goal as time expired in regulation. The Buccaneers won the overtime coin toss but lost the game on the first play of the extra period, as Jameis Winston's last pass for Tampa Bay was picked off and returned 27 yards for a touchdown by Deion Jones.
Both of the games in 2018 went down to the wire, neither ending well for the Buccaneers. In Week Six in Atlanta, Tampa Bay rallied from a 15-point deficit to make it a 31-29 game with four minutes to play on Peyton Barber's five-yard touchdown catch. The Falcons then tacked on a field goal to make it a five-point game with just over a minute to play but Winston got the visitors back into scoring range with consecutive completions of 18, 18 and 19 yards to DeSean Jackson, Mike Evans and Adam Humphries. With seven seconds left and the ball at Atlanta's 21, the Bucs tried a tricky play in which Winston began to scramble up the middle and then suddenly attempted a lateral to Humphries. The ball ended up on the turf before Evans scooped it up and got a one-hopper off to Jackson, who appeared to have a path to the end zone pylon along the left sideline. However, Jackson couldn't haul it in and time expired on a 34-29 Falcons victory.
In the Week 17 rematch, at Raymond James Stadium, the Bucs gave up a 10-point halftime lead and fell behind by 11 in the fourth quarter before once again rallying, this time taking the lead with five minutes to play on a 19-yard Chris Godwin touchdown catch. That was too much time to leave Ryan, however, and he hit Jones on a pair of 16-yard passes to get the ball into field goal range. Matt Bryant won it as time expired with a 37-yarder.
NOTABLE CONNECTIONS
Rich McKay, who is the chief executive officer of AMBSE and the Atlanta Falcons, is the son of John McKay, the first head coach in Buccaneers franchise history. Rich McKay also had a long stint as a Buccaneers executive, starting out as the vice president of football administration before taking on the title of General Manager in 1994. He maintained that position through much of the 2003 season before leaving for the Falcons.
Atlanta Head Coach Raheem Morris began his NFL coaching career with the Buccaneers in 2002. Excluding the 2006 season, in which he was the defensive coordinator at Kansas State, Morris spent nine seasons with the Buccaneers, progressing from a defensive quality control coach to defensive assistant to assistant defensive backs coach to defensive backs coach, all on Jon Gruden's staff. At the end of the 2008 season, he was briefly tabbed to take over at defensive coordinator for the departing Monte Kiffin, but the team suddenly went in a different direction, letting Gruden go and promoting Morris to head coach. Morris held that position for three seasons (2009-11) as the Buccaneers compiled a 17-31 record.
Buccaneers linebacker Deion Jones was a second-round draft pick by the Falcons in 2016 and he played the first six seasons of his career in Atlanta, earning a Pro Bowl invitation in 2017. In 85 career games for the Falcons, Jones amassed 732 tackles, 13 interceptions (five returned for touchdowns), 53 passes defensed, five forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and 12.0 sacks.
Falcons Pass Game Specialist/Game Management Coach Tim Berbenich was on Tampa Bay's coaching staff from 2006-11, starting out as an offensive quality control coach for two seasons before moving over to assistant running backs coach in 2008. Morris retained him on his staff when he took over the next season and Berbenich spent three years as an assistant wide receivers coach.
Ike Hilliard, the Falcons' wide receivers coach, played the last four years of his 12 as an NFL receiver in Tampa, from 2005-08. In those four seasons he recorded 178 receptions for 1,767 yards and eight touchdowns.
Atlanta Inside Linebackers Coach Barrett Ruud was a second-round draft pick by the Buccaneers out of Nebraska in 2005. He played the first six of his eight seasons in the NFL in Tampa, starting 68 of the 95 games in which he appeared and amassing 657 tackles, 6.0 sacks, 22 tackles for loss, seven interceptions and seven, seven forced fumbles and five fumble recoveries.
Another member of Morris's Falcons staff, Outside Linebackers Coach Jacquies Smith, played three seasons and one game of a fourth for the Buccaneers from 2014-17. He recorded 13.5 sacks in that span.
Punter Bradley Pinion is heading into his third season in Atlanta after playing the previous three in a Buccaneers uniform. Pinion played in 47 games for the Buccaneers, posting a gross punting average of 43.6 yards and also serving as one of the NFL's best kickoff specialists.
Buccaneers Cornerbacks Coach Kevin Ross spent a small portion of his long NFL playing career in Atlanta, joining the Falcons in 1994 after 11 years with the Kansas City Chiefs. Ross played two seasons in Atlanta before finishing his playing career with one year in San Diego and one more back with the Chiefs.
Keith Tandy, who joined the Buccaneers' coaching staff in 2021 as a defensive/special teams assistant, wrapped up his NFL playing career with one season (2018) in Atlanta after six years on the field for Tampa Bay.
Falcons Assistant Head Coach/Defense Jerry Gray played nine seasons in the NFL before beginning his coaching career. His final season as a player was with the Buccaneers in 1993.