The New England Patriots scored on three plays of 55 or more yards and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' last-ditch efforts for a comeback came up short in a 28-23 loss at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday. The loss dropped the Buccaneers to 6-3 while the Patriots won their seventh straight game to improve to 8-2.
Baker Mayfield threw for 273 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions but it wasn't enough to counter a 72-yard touchdown reception by Kyle Williams and scoring runs of 55 and 69 yards by TreVeyon Henderson, the latter of which gave the Patriots a 28-16 lead with less than two minutes remaining. Mack Hollins also had a 54-yard reception in the fourth quarter that put New England at the Bucs' eight-yard line. Those four plays accounted for 57.5% of the Patriots' 435 yards of offense.
"There were four," said Head Coach Todd Bowles of the Patriots' big plays. "There were four in obvious situations that we didn't make, so obviously we didn't play it well enough. We definitely didn't coach it well enough. I didn't coach it well enough; it starts with me and those things can't happen when you're playing a good team like that, or any team in the league. We gave them up, they were inexcusable on our part."
The home team had a chance to pull out another last-second victory after S Tykee Smith made a diving interception in the end zone after Hollins' 54-yard grab. With the Bucs trailing 21-16, Mayfield guided the offense down to the Patriots' 27, but a fourth-down attempt just after the two-minute warning failed. Two plays later, Henderson ripped off his second long touchdown run for a 12-point lead, meaning the Bucs needed two scores in the game's final 90 seconds. Mayfield directed one scoring drive that ended in an 11-yard touchdown pass to rookie WR Tez Johnson, but an onside kick attempt failed and the Patriots were able to run out the clock.
"We just didn't execute good enough," said Mayfield. "You've got to do all the little things right in critical moments. We did not do that today. What I told the team, I told the offense after the game, at some point when stuff comes up during the week, whether it's mistakes or things we talk about, and then it shows up on Sunday, you have to have some pride about you. You have to have that fear of failure, of messing up for your teammates when we talk about something. You have to have that responsibility and accountability for the guys around you. It affects entire ballgames like this when you play a good team like the Patriots. Little things _will_ get you beat, and that was the case for us on offense today. It starts with me. There's some throws I'd like to have back, some incompletions. It starts with me, but everybody's got to have pride about it, too."
That was the second of two scoring grabs for Johnson, and Mayfield also hit the team's other rookie pass-catcher, Emeka Egbuka, on a 21-yard touchdown pass to cap a 65-yard game-opening drive. Interestingly, six of the seven touchdowns in the game were scored by rookies, as Henderson and Williams were both 2025 draft picks for the Patriots. The only exception was Stefon Diggs' one-yard touchdown catch just before halftime, which came on a fourth down after Tampa Bay's defense had stopped three straight runs from the one.
Egbuka caught six passes for 115 yards, averaging 19.2 yards per reception as the recorded the third 100-yard game of his young career. Johnson added 42 yards on four catches while TE Cade Otton tied a career high with nine receptions, which he turned into 82 yards. Overall, the Buccaneers racked up 371 yards of offense, including 113 rushing yards against a Patriots defense that came into the game allowing a league-low 75.4 rushing yards per outing. Sean Tucker led the way with 53 yards on nine carries, becoming the first opposing rusher to crack the 50-yard mark against New England this season.
Drake Maye, the Patriots' rising-star second-year quarterback, completed 16 of 31 passes for 270 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Hollins was his top target, catching six passes for 106 yards. Maye came into the game having taken 34 sacks on the season, the second most by any quarterback in the NFL, but the Bucs only got him down once and never consistently applied pressure on him. Henderson ran 14 times for 147 yards.
"He's a good football player," said Bowles of Maye. "He's poised in the pocket, he's athletic, he has great touch and he's a heck of a player in this league.
"We didn't win first and second down. When they had to pass they had extra protection in there, so we had made up our mind that we were going to cover more. It worked for us in the second half."
Smith's interception was the only turnover in the game, as the Bucs lost for the first time this season in a game in which they did not turn the ball over.
"We didn't play well," said Bowles. "We've got to take it on the chin. Give \[Mike\] Vrabel and the Patriots a lot of credit, they did a heck of a job doing the things they needed to. Their players made plays, our players did not. We've got to coach it better, we've got to play it better and that starts with me."