Under the bright lights of Monday Night Football and the Manningcast, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took home a 41-31 loss to the scorching hot Baltimore Ravens and MVP candidate Lamar Jackson.

The story of the night, however, quickly became the controversial decision by Todd Bowles to play out the game and leave his starters in with a little under two minutes to play, down by 10 points, with no timeouts left, instead of letting the Ravens kneel out the game.

Unfortunately, this decision led to Chris Godwin being carted off the field with an dislocated ankle that will end his season. This was after future Hall of Fame receiver Mike Evans already left the game in the first quarter, after aggravating a hamstring injury attempting to haul in a touchdown pass.

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As for the game itself, Jackson was, as usual, the star, taking advantage of a banged up Bucs secondary that is without starting corner Jamel Dean, who went on injured reserve earlier in the week with a hamstring injury for the foreseeable future.

The Heisman and MVP award winner picked apart the Bucs for 281 yards with five passing touchdowns and added 52 yards rushing.

The Bucs also failed to contain Baltimore’s superstar running back Derrick Henry, who had close to 200 yards on the ground himself, with a receiving touchdown in garbage time sprinkled in for good measure.

On offense, Baker Mayfield struggled to avoid turnovers for a consecutive week, making it five picks thrown over the past two weeks, including a crucial second quarter interception as the Bucs faced a second and goal situation that could’ve put Tampa Bay up 17-7 had the team scored.

The Bucs’ rushing attack was fine, with 113 yards total on the ground from the trio of Sean Tucker, Bucky Irving, and the returning Rachaad White. Speaking of Mr. White, he had himself a couple receiving touchdowns in the game, a lone bright spot on what was otherwise a dim performance for the Bucs.

The first quarter got off to a hot start, with the Bucs offense rolling to a 10-point lead and the defense getting some big plays from stars Antoine Winfield, Jr., Lavonte David, and YaYa Diaby to set up a Ravens punt.

From there, Jackson and the Ravens were hard to stop, as they started to put things together on offense and cook for the rest of the three quarters while the defense stifled a limited Bucs offense.

Henry even recorded a signature long run from deep inside their own territory, going for 81 yards from the Baltimore eight-yard-line to set up tight end Mark Andrews’ second touchdown reception of the game.

For some NFL history, Mike Evans hauled in his 100th career touchdown reception, putting him on a short list of players with 12,000 receiving yards and 100 touchdown catches (of note: every other member is either in the Hall of Fame or will be when they become eligible).

In more injury woe news, Tampa Bay’s rookie safety Tykee Smith also suffered a concussion late in the first half and was out for the remainder of the game, putting his status in question, as the Bucs have to move forward without their starting outside corner and now their starting nickel.

Before the game, we knew the Bucs could lose and still rally and win this division—but after the discouraging sight of watching arguably their best offensive player be carted off with what could potentially be a season-ending injury, this is now very much a team in danger of falling behind in a winnable division.

Without Evans and Godwin, the Bucs will be forced to turn to rookie Jalen McMillan, second-year player Trey Palmer, and veteran Sterling Shepard.

We’ll see how that works out for Tampa Bay in the toughest part of its schedule, with a key divisional matchup against the Atlanta Falcons this Sunday.

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This article appears in Oct 17-23, 2024.