Monday, 4 a.m.
Oh, so that’s how the Bucs throttled the Philadelphia Eagles in last year’s playoffs.
Good quarterbacking. Solid defense. Great receivers. It all added up to a 32-9 victory.
Well, they did it again.
This time, the Bucs won a 33-16 victory, one that looked very much like the Eagles’ ouster in the playoffs a year ago. Mayfield was solid again (he threw for 347 yards and two touchdowns, compared to 337 and three in last year’s playoffs. The defense held Jalen Hurts to 158 yards (he had 250 last year). And receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin caught 14 passes for 163 yards. The Bucs started fast and didn't let up.
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“We wanted to start fast," Bucs' coach Todd Bowles said. "It’s easier said than done, but they (the players) came out and they started off real fast. They were crisp. They were clicking and they got us an early lead.”
The Bucs were able to rebound from last week's loss to Denver.
Obviously, [we] just wanted to get that taste out of our mouth for sure," Mayfield said. "It started fast because the guys were just locked in. We came out [with] a ‘hair on fire’ mentality. Everybody was locked into what the plan was and that’s why we executed that quickly, but that needs to be the case every week. Once our guys see that standard of how we start fast… now there’s still a lot left, [we] definitely had a bit of a lull there towards the end of the second quarter – but that’s how we need to start, especially knowing this team game that we have… then our defense can kind of get after it if we start fast on offense.”
The Bucs also had six sacks in the win. That may be surprising. The play of Lavonte David was not. David had two sacks and eight tackles.
“He’s our warrior," Bowles said. "He’s our captain over there. You know, he gets things done.”
Bowles also had praise for Mike Evans, who became the franchise's all-time scoring leader.
"Oh it’s huge," Bowles said of Evans' impact. "The first play of the game went to him. [When] Mike gets going, everything kind of goes from there. They start paying attention to Mike, that opens up a lot of other avenues.”
Said Mayfield: “Wow. That’s big time for Mike. That’s huge. Sometimes you take it for granted the career that Mike has had and continues to have. He’s a Hall of Famer, no doubt. That’s a huge honor for him and the fact that we get to play with him – it’s pretty special. [We] don’t take it for granted, but that’s why we tried to get him started earlier today, [to] get him going, get one of our best players the ball early on so he catches fire, and he did that. [He’s] a special player.”
It all ended up with the Bucs’ second home win of the season and a 3-1 start overall.
The Bucs were hot from the start, building a 24-0 lead. Tampa Bay had 445 yards of total offense .
Rookie Bucky Irving and Rachaad White each ran for 49 yards.
Bowles was also impressed with Mayfield.
“He made some huge plays," Bowles said. "I mean, the ball he threw to Trey [Palmer] was right in there. The DB had great coverage on that one. I think it was [Darius] Slay but it was a hell of a catch. A hell of a throw. He was sharp all day. He was on point. He scrambled when he needed to and tried to make plays with his arm more than his feet and everything worked out.”
The Bucs play Thursday night in Atlanta.
