The Tampa Bay Buccaneers found themselves in "money downs" plenty against the Washington Commanders on Sunday night during the teams' Wild Card matchup.
Unfortunately, the Bucs' defense went bankrupt time and again when they needed a stop.
Washington's Jayden Daniels and the Commanders' passing attack continually made plays when faced with a third or fourth down, which powered them to a 23-20 win over the Bucs to eliminate the latter from the playoffs.
From the outset, the Bucs had problems forcing the Commanders into punt formation. In fact, they wouldn't accomplish the feat even once the entire night. Washington punter Tress Way didn't even end up punting one single time for the game, which is a bad sign for how things went.
The Commanders started with a 47-yard drive that, surprisingly, ended on an incomplete pass on fourth and two from the Bucs' 20. That would be an exception to the rule for most of the rest of the game. Washington ended up converting 8 of 15 third downs, but they converted 3 big fourth downs on 5 attempts. The result was a dominating time of possession edge of 35:26 to 24:34 for the Commanders.
The most glaring example was the 17-play, 92-yard, 9-plus minute death march that Washington put together in the second quarter to take the lead 7-3. Washington converted three third downs and a fourth down, ending it finally with a 10-yard touchdown strike on third and goal to Dyami Brown.
After kneeling out the first half, Washington had drives of 10, 12, 4, and 10 plays in the second half. Their only touchdown came on, yes, the 4-play drive that resulted in a five-yard touchdown catch by Terry McLaurin on - yes, you guessed it - fourth down. That followed a face plant by the Bucs' offense when Baker Mayfield fumbled the snap away at his own 13-yard line. The snap issues are another whole ball of wax altogether.
With the Commanders with the ball back in their hands in a 20-20 tie, Tampa Bay had to get a stop or force Washington from at least bleeding out all of the clock. On third and six, Daniels hit Brown for a 21-yard gain to the Bucs' 45. Then, with one last chance to save time for a field goal of their own, Tampa Bay allowed Daniels to scramble for a first down on third and two. The Commanders bled out the clock, and Zane Gonzalez clanged the ball off the upright and through for the walk off win.
There were plenty of reasons the Bucs lost on Sunday. Their snap issues and offensive woes had a hand in it. But the team's inability to get the Washington offense off the field more than they did was principal among them.
Bowles and his staff are going to have to take a long, hard look in the mirror after this one. After all, the already rugged NFC just got a lot tougher to navigate with Daniels leading the resurgent Commanders moving forward.
