TAMPA, Fla. — Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield gathered his teammates at Lumen Field last Sunday and asked, “Are you ready?” as rookie wide receiver Tez Johnson studied his teammates’ faces.
“It was calm, poise, [there was] no panic,” Johnson said.
Then, he studied his quarterback’s face. Mayfield had to get the Bucs into field goal range for flu-stricken kicker Chase McLaughlin.
“I was just like, ‘He is smiling right now,'” Johnson said to himself.
But as Johnson had witnessed in each of the Bucs’ three thrilling, come-from-behind victories, he learned, “With Baker Mayfield back there controlling it, anything can happen.” Johnson also knew that “as long as there is time on the clock, we have a chance.”
In 17 breathtaking seconds, Mayfield had taken a broken play and turned it into an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Sterling Shepard to tie the score 35-35 against the Seattle Seahawks. Then, two plays later, Bucs linebacker Lavonte David intercepted a pass on a hitch route from quarterback Sam Darnold that ricocheted off the helmet of defensive lineman Logan Hall, giving Tampa Bay the ball at the Seattle 35-yard line.
And yet, Mayfield was so loose. He later jokingly chided Shepard for not celebrating, to which Shepard responded, “I felt like that position of the game, we’d just tied it up, we didn’t win it yet, so there was still business to be handled.”
The Bucs drove to the 20-yard line, where Mayfield took a knee to set up McLaughlin’s 39-yarder and a 38-35 win.
The comeback victory is part of a trend that has highlighted the first five weeks of the season. Seventeen games have featured a go-ahead score in the final minute of regulation — the most through five weeks of a season since the merger, according to Elias. The winning team trailed in the final minute of the fourth quarter in 10 of those 17 games. Tampa Bay is the only team with more than one such win, which the Bucs did in Week 2 at the Houston Texans and in Week 3 against the New York Jets.
“There’s a lot of parity in this league right now,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said. “Without a lot of people playing in training camp, these first five weeks are really preseason ballgames as far as penalties and getting everybody on the same page and doing those types of things.”
But there hasn’t been a team quite like the Bucs this season, when all four of their victories came from game-winning scores within the final minute of the fourth quarter, the most by any team in NFL history. One more would make them the first team in the Super Bowl era to win five games in a season with a game-winning score in the final minute of the fourth quarter.
Also, the Bucs are the first team in NFL history to win four of their first five games in a season by a margin of three points or fewer.
“Hopefully, that calms down,” Bowles said, “and hopefully, we can do the right things and cut down on the mistakes and stretch the games out a little bit and not win them at the end. It’s been like that all over the league, and you see it every week.”
THE START TO the season for the Jacksonville Jaguars under new coach Liam Coen has arrived in stunning fashion. They capped a 4-1 start with a 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on “Monday Night Football” — their first Monday night victory since 2011.
Trailing 28-24 with 30 seconds to go, quarterback Trevor Lawrence scrambled for a 1-yard touchdown after falling following the snap, getting up and somehow evading Jerry Tillery and Drue Tranquill diving for his ankles and then outstretching past the goal line with Jaden Hicks diving over his back.
“I can only imagine where he was at in that moment on the ground, but to get up, break, what, three tackles or whatever it was, two tackles and shed some dude off and go run it in the [end zone] — that’s an unbelievable individual effort,” Coen said of Lawrence.
Lawrence admitted he felt panic at that moment and thought the only hope was to throw the ball into the back of the end zone — which was Coen’s thought, too — because they didn’t have any timeouts.
“Whatever I could do to just get up as fast as possible, and I ended up tripping again,” Lawrence said. “I’m sure it looks pretty funny on the tape. Yeah, what a crazy, crazy finish.”
It’s about staying positive and turning the page quickly — and very quickly in Lawrence and the Jaguars’ case.
“Yeah, it’s a goofy finish, but what a tough moment for him to be able to say — he wasn’t going to lose,” Coen said. “And that’s kind of really what it comes down to. He wasn’t going to lose.”
The Jaguars rallied back from a 14-0 deficit in the second quarter, grabbing the lead in the third quarter when linebacker Devin Lloyd intercepted a pass from quarterback Patrick Mahomes at the 1-yard line and returned it for a 99-yard touchdown. But Jacksonville relinquished that lead on a 2-yard touchdown run by Kareem Hunt with 1:45 to go.
“We’re willing to fight to the end,” Jaguars safety Eric Murray said. “The game didn’t start out the way we wanted it to, but it ended up in our favor. That comes through perseverance and playing the next play. … That’s the biggest message it sends.”
THE WILDEST FINISH of the season so far might have occurred during the Tennessee Titans‘ win over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5, when a little luck and fortune helped Tennessee prevail.
Joey Slye‘s 29-yard field goal with three seconds to go might have been the difference of the 22-21 victory, but it doesn’t tell the story.
On third-and-1 from the Arizona 28-yard line, Cardinals running back Emari Demercado saw nothing but daylight by the time he reached the 35-yard line. He raced to the end zone before dropping to his knees with his arms jubilantly raised for what was initially ruled a 72-yard touchdown.
Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed waved his arms as if to say “no” — a foreshadowing of things to come.
Officials then overruled the play, determining that as Demercado slowed and started to let go of the ball while crossing the goal line, Sneed punched it loose, and officials ruled it a touchback, negating the score. Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon fumed at Demercado on the sideline, resulting in a $100,000 fine by the organization for his behavior. (Gannon apologized to Demercado and the team after.)
“I just made a mistake. … There’s really no excuse,” Demercado said. “Just let the ball go. Obviously, emotional, big play, but I just got to be smarter.”
Demercado’s touchdown would have put the Cardinals up 28-6. Titans rookie quarterback Cam Ward had completed only 5 of 16 pass attempts for 58 yards in the first half. But he responded by leading back-to-back touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, going 13-of-18 for 193 yards, plus setting up the game-winning kick.
“I wish I had started better,” Ward said. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you start, it’s how you finish.”
On the second touchdown, with the Titans trailing 21-12 with 4:53 to go in the fourth quarter, Ward saw his pass intended for wide receiver Calvin Ridley tipped by Mack Wilson Sr. and intercepted by safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson at the Arizona 5-yard line. Taylor-Demerson then fumbled the ball, and it was recovered by wide receiver Tyler Lockett in the end zone for a touchdown, making it 21-19 with the point after.
“That’s not the way we want to live, nor is it sustainable,” Callahan said. “Not having interceptions, fumbles, negative plays — that’s the biggest thing. A lot of times throughout the season, we’ve always shot ourselves in the foot. We didn’t do that towards the end of the game.”
Callahan also recognized how big a moment it was for Ward, and so did one of the team’s most respected veterans in Jeffery Simmons, who told Ward after the game, “That’s why we drafted you with the No. 1 overall pick.”
On the other side of the ball, Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray said, “I don’t really know what to think about that. I don’t even know. I really don’t even know. That’s ‘How to Lose a Game 101.’ I don’t know. It was crazy.”
Murray said he has never quite felt like he did after this loss: “This might be No. 1. … That was bad. That was bad. Bad. All around, it was bad.”
FLUKY THINGS HAPPEN, and as Callahan stated, it isn’t sustainable, which is what the Cincinnati Bengals saw with backup quarterback Jake Browning.
Browning stepped in for an injured Joe Burrow in Week 2 against the Jaguars and became the second quarterback since 2000 to throw three interceptions off the bench and still earn the win. The other instance was Tarvaris Jackson in Minnesota’s 2010 victory against the Buffalo Bills.
Browning scored the game-winning touchdown by engineering a 15-play, 71-yard drive, capped by a 1-yard quarterback leap at the goal line for the 31-27 win with 19 seconds to go.
“I had thrown three picks, and somehow, we had a chance to win the game,” Browning said. “I can’t be afraid of the fourth in that situation. The defense did a good job forcing a turnover on downs, so I had to be delusional and aggressive because the moment called for it.”
With Burrow expected to miss at least three months, Browning remained the starter. But after five more interceptions in three starts, though, the Bengals benched him after trading for Joe Flacco this week — proof that heroics can be forgotten quickly.
But unexpected moments can solidify a player’s standing on a team, although Bills coach Sean McDermott indicated that kicker Matt Prater‘s moment will likely be short-lived.
In their 41-40 victory over the Baltimore Ravens, the Bills became the first team in NFL history to overcome a 15-point deficit in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter to win a season opener, per Elias Sports Bureau. It made them just the fourth team in 2,316 NFL games to win despite trailing by 15-plus points in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter.
Prater, 41, joined the team the Thursday before the game, following a red-eye flight, after Tyler Bass was placed on injured reserve because of a left hip/groin injury. McDermott said Prater, whom some teammates thought was a coach, will hold the spot until Bass’ return. But that didn’t diminish the moment.
Prater’s new teammates hoisted him onto their shoulders, and they celebrated wildly.
“[The response] has been amazing,” Prater told ESPN, crediting the offense for giving him manageable kicks.
He made all three of his field goal attempts, including the 32-yard clincher, and kicks of 25 and 43 yards.
“I’m like, in a dream right now. That was unbelievable,” defensive end Joey Bosa said after playing his first game with Buffalo. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy after a win. Obviously, it’s just the first game of the year, and we gave up a lot of points — and I could be better in a lot of ways — but we got the win, and we gave our offense a chance. And I guess when you have Josh Allen, you just have to give him a chance, and anything’s possible.”
Allen did his part, throwing two touchdowns and rushing for two more. With the Bills in a no-huddle offense, he connected with Joshua Palmer on a 32-yard throw and then Keon Coleman for a 25-yarder with 46 seconds remaining. After three consecutive kneel-downs, it was up to Prater.
“The oldest guy in the world, ain’t he?” left tackle Dion Dawkins said jokingly. “Shoot, I’m thankful for him. Keep your old ass with the Bills. … I’m glad that somebody could come in on Thursday and help us big because every piece matters, and he came in, he understood the assignment, he got the job done.”
And then there are some finishes that were probably too close for comfort. The Bucs led the Jets 26-13 in Week 3, but Will McDonald IV returned a blocked field goal attempt 50 yards for a touchdown to give New York a 27-26 lead at the two-minute mark.
“[What were] my thoughts while he was running for a touchdown?” Bowles said. “Excuse my language, but ‘you’ve got to be f—ing kidding me.'”
With receiver Mike Evans out because of a hamstring injury earlier in the game, Mayfield had to lean on Egbuka and Shepard once again, finding them on 28- and 21-yard passes, respectively, before McLaughlin hit a 36-yard field goal with three seconds left to make it 29-27.
“It’s hard to win in this league, period,” Bowles said. “Us shooting ourselves in the foot doesn’t help it much, but the resiliency, they have to come back and win those games.”
NFL Nation reporters Michael DiRocco, Alaina Getzenberg, Turron Davenport, Josh Weinfuss and Ben Baby contributed to this report.
