Three weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were 4-6 and riding a four-game losing streak into the bye week that put them two games back of the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC South. The picture has changed significantly since then.
Atlanta lost games to the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers before and after its own bye week. The Buccaneers came out of their week off with renewed vigor and recorded road wins over the Giants and the Panthers. The first was a blowout and the second a nail-biter, but either way they were the wins the Bucs needed to tighten up the division race. Now both teams are 6-6, though Atlanta is in a more favorable position thanks to a pair of wins over the Buccaneers in the first half of the season.
Now there are five games left in the 2024 season and the 6-6 Buccaneers can capture their fourth straight NFC South title by winning one more game than the Falcons do. Since they can’t predict what will happen to Atlanta down the stretch and won’t get another head-to-head crack at them, they have to treat every outing as if it is an elimination game.
“Yeah, I mean obviously, we’d like to have a better record then we do now but we’re still saying that we control our own destiny,” said quarterback Baker Mayfield. “Outside factors right now don’t really matter if we don’t take care of business. It’s got to be, ‘How do we win this game?’ And it’s got to be like that every week on out.”
That means the Bucs’ next playoff game is against the Las Vegas Raiders, who visit Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, December 8. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET. It will be the Raiders’ first trip to Tampa since 2016 (when they were still the Oakland Raiders), a wild overtime contest in which the visitors racked up 626 yards of offense in a 30-24 win. The Buccaneers know a thing or two about overtime games this season, having already played three of them, and the Raiders are coming off an impressive down-to-the-wire contest in Kansas City last week.
A botched snap at the end of that Black Friday game cost the Raiders a shot at a game-winning field goal and sent them to their eighth loss in row, dropping the team to 2-10 on the season. But quarterback Aidan O’Connell had his best performance of the season, in a campaign in which the Raiders have switched starters multiple times due to both performance and injury. O’Connell completed 23 of 35 passes for 340 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
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