TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took the field Monday night looking to advance to Detroit to face the Lions in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. In their way stood the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Bucs played a scrappy type of football all season and got into the playoffs by winning the woeful NFC South division and 5 of their last 6 games. On the other side, the Eagles looked unstoppable early in the season and came crashing down into the playoffs, losing 5 of 6 games.
Led by a castoff quarterback, Baker Mayfield, the Bucs and their home crowd got a little pregame warmup from pro wrestling legend Ric Flair.
But on this Monday, which was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the late Dr. King's family members were on the field as honorary captains ahead of the game.
After all the pageantry, foot met leather around 8:17 p.m. when the Buccaneers offense took the field. Mayfield struck early with a completion on second down, getting the team out near midfield.
On the very next play, Mayfield fired a completion over the middle to a wide-open Mike Evans, and the Bucs were in Eagles territory. A couple of running plays later and the Bucs had pushed the ball down to the Eagles' 26-yard line.
Running back Rachaad White caught a third-down pass and broke two tackles to put the Bucs into the Red Zone on the opening drive with a first down.
But, just like the prior game against the Carolina Panthers, the drive stalled, and the Bucs had to settle for a field goal and a 3-0 lead after the opening drive.
After an initial Eagles first down, the Buccaneers defense brought a blitz on third down, and safety Antoine Winfield, Jr. batted away a ball, forcing an Eagles punt.
The Bucs committed a penalty on first down, backing them up inside the 20-yard-line. Mayfield then connected on a pass, and a penalty put the ball into Eagles territory. Mayfield dropped a perfect pass to Mike Evans that would have been a touchdown, but the reliable wideout dropped the pass.
One play later, Mayfield hit a wide-open David Moore, who weaved his way through the Eagles' woeful secondary and got into the end zone to give the Bucs a 10-0 lead with 5:47 left in the first quarter.
The Eagles had a quick three-and-out after tight end Dallas Goedert dropped a pass that would have given them a first down.
The Bucs offense came right back out and continued to have their way with the Eagles defense. Tampa quickly pushed the ball down into Eagles territory before the first quarter came to an end, with Tampa Bay leading 10-0.
Tampa put up 174 yards of offense in the first quarter to the Eagles' 26 yards.
After an Eagles sack, Mayfield threw into double coverage and just narrowly missed an Eagles interception. The Bucs kicker, Chase McLaughlin, hit a field goal from more than 50 yards out, giving the Bucs a 13-0 lead early in the second quarter.
The Eagles finally hit a big play when quarterback Jalen Hurts hit Devonta Smith in stride and took it into Bucs territory for a first down. Another Smith catch put the Eagles around the Bucs' 30-yard line.
Tampa brought another third-down blitz, forcing an incompletion from Hurts. That set up Jake Elliott, who hit a 47-yard-field goal to get the Eagles on the scoreboard, the score 13-3.
The Bucs tried another deep pass to Mike Evans, who again came up short on second down. Mayfield took off on a quarterback run on third down for a Bucs first down.
Tampa got the ball into Eagles territory and converted a fourth down when Mayfield flipped the ball to Rachaad White for a first down. If there was a story for the Bucs in the first half, it was dropped passes.
The Bucs lead would have likely been even larger if the team could have caught the ball consistently. Tight end Cade Otton had three drops alone in the first half.
After an incomplete pass on third down, McLaughlin hit another field goal to give Tampa a 16-3 with just over 5 minutes left in the first half.
Hurts brought the Eagles back out on the field and hit Julio Jones for a first down. Jones took a big hit from the Bucs and had to leave the field, which was a big loss with A.J. Brown not playing Monday night.
And on the very next play, Hurts hit a 56-yard pass to Devonta Smith putting the Eagles on the Bucs five yard line. Then, Hurts hit Goedert on a wide-open touchdown pass to put the Eagles right back into the game.
After a penalty on the extra point, the Bucs did something few were able to do this season, stop the Brotherly Shove of the Eagles offense. The failed two-point conversion left the score 16-9 with three minutes to go in the first half.
On the Bucs' next possession, Mayfield hit Otton on a play-action pass that put the Bucs back into Eagles territory as the two-minute warning stopped play.
But the Eagle's defense flexed its muscle and sacked Mayfield for a seven-yard loss.
The Eagles got the ball back but were able to do anything with the ball, and halftime hit with the Bucs leading 16-9.
As the second half got underway, the Eagles got the ball first, and the Bucs defense did what they do best: blitz the quarterback. After nearly getting to Hurts on second down, the Bucs' Calijah Kancey pulled Hurts down for a 9-yard loss on a sack on third down.
And after a first down, the Eagles defense played meet me at the quarterback with Baker Mayfield to push the Bucs back across the 50-yard line, forcing a punt.
The Eagles got a holding penalty call to get a third-down conversion. However, the Eagles offense had not successfully converted a third down with 8 minutes to go in the third quarter and failed again to end the drive.
After an Eagles punt, the Bucs offense pushed the ball right back into Eagles territory after a Rachaad White run. The Bucs pushed the ball past the 50-yard line on all of their possessions up to this point in the game.
But, just as quickly as the Bucs had put together a little momentum, the Bucs' Aaron Stinnie allowed a quarterback sack, pushing the Bucs out of field goal range with 3:41 left to go in the third quarter.
Tampa played the field position game and punted the ball down to the Eagles 10-yard line. A first down run by the Eagles lost six yards and put the Philly offense in a deep hole at their own 4 yard line.
Then on third down, the Bucs defense got to the Eagles' Jalen Hurts. He was flagged for intentional grounding when he was about to get sacked in the end zone. That penalty resulted in a safety for the Bucs, giving Tampa an 18-9 lead with two minutes to go in the third quarter.
Just to put an emphasis on how much the Bucs defense was putting pressure on Jalen Hurts, through the third quarter, he was blitzed on 18 of 27 pass plays by Tampa's defense.
Tampa got the ball right back after the safety and started another drive. And before anyone blinked, Mayfield hit receiver Trey Palmer with a pass, and he darted right through the Eagles' sieve of a secondary for a 56-yard touchdown reception.
The catch and run by Palmer pushed the Bucs lead to 25-9 near the end of the third quarter.
As the third quarter ended, the Eagles were starting to put together a drive as the Bucs stood 15 minutes away from a date in Detroit next Sunday.
The Eagles started the fourth quarter with back-to-back penalties and kicked a field goal, but a penalty on Tampa Bay caused Philadelphia to pull the points off the board to go for it on 4th and 5.
Hurts passed the ball to DeVonta Smith, but Tampa's Carlton Davis got his hand in the way, and the pass fell incomplete. Philly came out with no points after pulling the points off the board from the field goal.
As the clock wound down below 10 minutes to go in the game, the Eagles began to look like a completely defeated team, and the Bucs began to work the clock in the game as the running game took over.
During the Bucs' drive, Philadelphia's Darius Slay, Jr. was hit at an odd angle while making a tackle and went down on the field. He tried to make it off the field with assistance, but an injury cart had to be brought out to take him from the field.
Slay had just returned back for this game after injuring his knee in December.
But the game went on, and on the first play, after Slay was taken off the field, Mayfield was under a ton of pressure and threw up a pass that fell into the waiting arms of Chris Godwin for a touchdown to make the score 32-9.
The passing touchdown effectively put the game out of reach for the Eagles, with just 5:42 left in the contest.
On a third down, Hurts threw a pass to tight end Dallas Goedert who was injured on the play. Goedert was also flagged for a penalty of offensive pass interference on the play. Philly completed a short pass on third down and hadn't converted a third down in the entire game.
The Eagles went for it on fourth down and didn't convert, turning the ball over on downs with just three minutes to go in the game.
As the clock wound down, the Bucs sideline began celebrating, knowing they put together a dominating performance and were moving on in the playoffs.
In the game, Mayfield became the first Bucs quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards in a playoff game. He finished the game 22-36 for 337 yards, 3 touchdowns, and no interceptions.
It was the punctuation mark for a Bucs team that was doubted all year long and was now on their way to Detroit to face the Lions in an NFC Divisional Round game next Sunday.
