NFC South Champs

Let's do the good news first. There's a lot of it.

Chris Redman had a passer rating of 0.0 against the Bucs defense yesterday. The poor guy completed only 4 of 15 passes. Just a couple weeks ago he was 16 for 24 and Falcons fans were speculating who he would compete with to be the starter. This should come to be known as the "Ryan Fitzpatrick Paradox". When an unknown quarterback does well coming off the bench, be careful of entrusting him with your enthusiasm too soon.

Bucs cornerbacks had one tackle on the day. Remember, this is good news. Passes weren't caught in front of the cornerbacks for them to get tackled. It also means that the defensive line was doing their job.

Barrett Ruud was back to the top of the tackle list again. Especially in the first half, he seemed like he was everywhere.

The Bucs had the ball for almost 43 minutes.

The running game was a big part of that. Earnest Graham continued his excellent play, Michael Pittman looked healthy again and Michael Bennett should have inspired some confidence from Jon Gruden. Granted, it was in the fourth quarter against a beaten up Falcons team, but 63 yards on 9 attempts is impressive.

I don't know what Michael Clayton has been eating lately, but the Bucs need to keep feeding it to him. Maybe it was the humility of being relegated to special teams or Maurice Stovall breathing down his neck. This is how I expected him to play in every game. Good hands and tough running after the catch.

And I suppose it's worth mentioning again: Micheal Spurlock's kickoff return for a touchdown. Bask in it. I will never, ever get tired of watching that.

Ok, now for the other stuff.

There's no way the Falcons should have been able to rush for 106 yards, including a 29 yarder. Kevin Carter lost contain on that particular play and next thing you know, Jerious Norwood is up the side. And why is his name pronounced with a short "e" and "serious" has a long "e"?

Don't get me wrong, the defensive line did a very good job yesterday. But one sack on Redman and over 100 yards rushing makes me think that a lot of it had to do with Redman just being really bad combined with outstanding linebacker play by the Bucs.

If the Bucs are going to go anywhere in the playoffs, these dropped passes have to stop. It's the reason Joey Galloway was considered expendable in Seattle. Galloway's performance for the past couple years has been exemplary and I'm not panicking or anything, but I think his mind is a little preoccupied with protecting himself for the hit rather than making the catch first. I suppose it's natural for an older guy to think that way, but if it keeps up, one of those drops is going to come at a critical time and will mean a lot more than his drops did yesterday.

The game was a blowout, but this was not an outstanding offensive performance. Take away the kickoff return and the interception return. The Bucs had three drives end in field goals, and two of those drives started at the Atlanta 26 and 23 yard lines. Are you kidding me? This is the same problem the Bucs have had all season long: the inability to punch the ball into the endzone. When the offense is given a short field, it's absolutely imperative that they take advantage of those opportunities, like the one they had that started on the Atlanta 6. If they had settled for a field goal that time, I probably would have had liver failure right there.

This means that the Bucs had two non-trivial scoring drives. One started at the Bucs 26 and ended 64 yards later with a Matt Bryant field goal (nice job in the wind, by the way.) The only really sustained touchdown drive came in the fourth quarter when the Falcons had already given up and were chugging cheap vodka on the sidelines in an attempt to go blind. And even that drive was only 55 yards. Michael Bennett came in fresh and pounded the ball to the right behind Jeremy Trueblood and Davin Joseph and it was an impressive display of blocking and speed. But at that point it kind of reminded me of an SEC game against a 1-AA team. I'm afraid that once the playoffs start and the Bucs can't sustain a real offensive drive against good competition, the Bucs will be checking out early.

All right, enough of that. It was a nice win that brings the team up to 5-0 against divisional opponents. No NFC South team has ever swept the division. It also brought an end to every curse the Bucs had against them. Cold weather victories, road playoff victories, and finally returning a kickoff for a touchdown. They've all finally happened. The Bucs will be in the playoffs and have at least one home playoff game. It's time to celebrate with some pictures.