Bowles agrees with no flag on Hail Mary
Baker Mayfield’s final spiral Thursday night — a soaring prayer wrapped in pigskin — had barely finished bouncing on the Highmark Stadium turf when the outcries began.
Pass interference. Bucs should have received an untimed down. Cade Otton was mugged.
The grievances were being flung around cyberspace and deliberated by national talking heads Friday morning, less than 12 hours after Mayfield’s unsuccessful Hail Mary sealed the Bills’ 24-18 triumph.
Yet far from the fray was Todd Bowles, who refused to cry foul when asked if he expected a flag on the play.
“They’re all like that at the end of the ballgame,” the Bucs’ secondyear coach said in a Zoom session with reporters Friday morning.
“When the ball’s in the air, you’re not really looking for flags. The defense is trying to box out, the offense is trying to get position. Very rarely are you going to see a flag on that play. You either make the catch and get it up in the air and get a tipped ball or you don’t.”
The Hail Mary, flung by Mayfield from just inside his own 40-yard line, appeared to bounce in the end zone untouched but within inches of the right hand of Chris Godwin, who couldn’t get his head around in time to track the ball.
But Otton — the Bucs’ secondyear tight end — appeared to get sandwiched by Bills defenders Taylor Rapp and Christian Benford near the goal line, prompting many (including Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio) to insist an interference flag should have been thrown and the Bucs should have received an untimed down.
But replays also showed Mike Evans appearing to shove safety Jordan Poyer to the turf near the back of the end zone.
“It looked like a bunch of guys laying on the ground over there,” Mayfield said shortly after the game. “I’m not sure who tripped over who. But we gave ourselves a chance.”
Other than failing to make the catch, Bowles said the execution on the play was as good as could be expected.
“We got a shot at the end zone, everybody was there,” he said. “It’s one of them things [if ] the ball bounces the right way. It didn’t happen that way.”
Injury update
The Bucs found themselves suddenly short-handed on the defensive front when nose tackle Vita Vea (groin) was ruled out prior to kickoff and second-year lineman Logan Hall was relegated to questionable after injuring his groin during warmups.
Hall logged 18 defensive snaps but had no tackles. Former USF nose tackle Deadrin Senat, elevated from the practice squad earlier Thursday, had a tackle on nine snaps.
“Vita warmed up. He was fine straight ahead, but he had problems going side-to-side,” Bowles said Friday. “The groin gave him problems, so we had to keep him out. Logan had to fight through it. He was kind of sore before the game, [but] he wanted to play. I’m surprised he went as long as he did before he went out in the fourth quarter.”
Bowles had no update on the status of left tackle Tristan Wirfs, who suffered an apparent quad injury on the Bucs’ opening possession and briefly entered the medical tent but played all 68 offensive snaps.
“He’s sore,” Bowles said. “He hasn’t come in yet, so I don’t have an update on him yet. We’ll evaluate him once he comes in and see where he’s at.”
Third-down woes persist
The NFL’s worst third-down defense did nothing to shed that label Thursday. Tampa Bay allowed Buffalo to go 7-for-13 on third down (53.8%), including 4-for-8 on third-and-5 or longer.
Those conversions included Josh Allen’s 22-yard scoring pass to rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid on third-and-12 late in the second quarter.
“Not executing the blitz and sometimes not executing the coverage,” Bowles said.
“It goes hand in hand. We can’t rush the passer without covering, and we can’t cover without rushing the passer. When one is good, the other one breaks down; when the other one is good, something else breaks down. We’ve got to be on the same page, and we’ve got to communicate there.”