The Tampa Bay Buccaneers built a 17-0 lead over the red-hot Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium, but five consecutive turnovers in Tampa Bay territory in the second half facilitated 34 unanswered points for the visitors in what would eventually be a 34-23 Cincinnati victory.
“It’s the same old song, Bucs versus Bucs,” said Head Coach Todd Bowles after the game. “We played a good first half; the second half we come out and we shoot ourselves in the foot, either by turnovers or penalties or field position on special teams. A tale of two halves, and the half we played in the second half was Bucs versus Bucs.”
With the loss, the Buccaneers fell to 6-8 but maintained a one-game lead in the NFC South thanks to losses earlier in the day by Carolina to Pittsburgh and Atlanta to New Orleans. Cincinnati extended its winning streak to six straight games and improved to 10-4 and took over first place in the AFC North with a one-game lead over Baltimore. The Bengals also finished a sweep of NFC South teams in 2022 and the Buccaneers fell to 0-5 against AFC opponents.
“Just unforced errors,” said QB Tom Brady. “Two fumbles, two interceptions, you can’t win football games like that. We had a good first half, we were in good position and then we literally just gave them the ball. If you give them the ball, obviously we can’t score, and they’re a good offense so they scored. They took advantage.”
The wave of turnovers in the second half ruined what was in many ways an impressive performance by Tampa Bay’s defense against a Cincinnati offense that ranked fifth in the NFL in yards and sixth in points coming into the weekend. Before a clock-draining touchdown march late in the fourth quarter, Cincinnati’s longest scoring drive was 39 yards and the Buccaneers out-gained the Bengals in total yards, 396 to 237. It was the Bengals’ second-lowest yardage total of the season. But Cincinnati didn’t need many extended drives, as here wasn’t a single play run in Cincinnati territory during the first 28 game minutes of the second half.
“We work at it every week,” said Bowles of trying to get more consistent, mistake-free play. “In football, all you can do is fight. You can fight, you can play smarter, you can coach smarter and we’ve got to keep fighting. We understand what we’re doing is not good enough by far, it’s not even close to good enough, and we’ve got three games left to try to save our season.”
The Buccaneers dominated the first half, taking a 17-3 lead into…
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