Going on the road in the NFL requires great focus and attention to detail which equates to execution and the final outcome is more than likely a win.
That said, it was a tough night in those mental areas on Thursday evening for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they bowed to the Chicago Bears, 20-19, at Soldier Field.
The Bucs had a plethora of chances to break open the game early and had to settle for a pair of Ryan Succop field goals when the offense couldn’t get the ball into the end zone after an 11-play, 54-yard drive and a 13-play, 73-yard drive.
It was 13-0, Bucs, midway through the second quarter as it felt like Tampa Bay had dominated the game and should have a much larger lead.
“You get behind down-and-distance, that’s not where you want to be,” said Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady who completed 25 of 41 passes for 253 yards. “We all have to do a better job. This isn’t any one position. This isn’t any one player.”
The Buccaneers were only 1-for-3 in the red zone while outgaining Chicago, 339-243. Penalties also halted Tampa Bay as they were assessed 11 for 109 yards.
“We got down and we had a sack, three penalties,” said Bucs coach Bruce Arians. “You’re not going to beat anybody with 11 penalties or however many we had, especially when we were down there once and ended up punting because of about six or seven penalties on one drive.”
The Bears seemed to slumber through the first half until the Buccaneers defense surrendered two touchdowns in the final two minutes of the first half.
The first was a 3-yard touchdown run by David Montgomery that capped a 10-play, 75-yard drive. Then, running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn’s fumble on the Tampa Bay 27 set up Foles with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jimmy Graham which gave the Bears a 14-13 lead at intermission.
The lack of execution on both sides of the ball spiraled over into the fourth quarter with the game on the line.
After Chicago kicker Cairo Santos gave the Bears a 20-19 lead with 1:17 to play, the Buccaneers’ 2-minute drill was a tough lesson in the lack of execution.
Brady was 2 of 5 on that drive as the Bears were predictably playing the 2-deep zone to try to prevent any big plays.
Brady’s last two passes were incompletions to tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Cameron Brate.
On the 4th-and-6 pass to Brate, there was talk that Brady thought it was a third down play. Arians set he knew the distance, but the pass was into coverage and of course fell incomplete.
“We knew we needed a chunk and I was thinking about more yardage,” said Brady. “It was just bad execution. We had a great opportunity there. Just didn’t execute when we needed to.”
It was even a tougher situation because the Tampa Bay defense couldn’t get a staggering Chicago offense off the field in the last three minutes of the game as Foles’ 17-yard pass to Montgomery set up Santos’ game-winning field goal.
“We need to get healthy, that’s for sure,” explained Arians. “We’ll take the break and get back to work for the next one. I feel like we left this stadium with a fourth-quarter lead and didn’t maintain it.”
Jones Factor: Second-year Bucs running back Ronald Jones had one of his best games as he carried 17 times for 106 following last week’s 111-yard performance in the win over the L.A. Chargers.
It marked the first time in his career that he had back-to-back 100-yard games and it came on a big night with Leonard Fournette still inactive with an injury. It was also the first time a Buccaneer running back hit the century mark in rushing yardage since Jacquizz Rodgers orchestrated the feat in 2016.
“The O-Line did a great job again getting push and making it easy,” he said. “Again, we just have to score points in the red zone and come away with more points overall.”
