Atlanta Falcons vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Box score, player stats and summary feat. Kirk Cousins, Baker Mayfield

The Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers faced off against each other in a NFC South matchup on Thursday Night Football. With the franchises leading the division, it was an early season clash for supremacy.

Tampa Bay entered with a 3-1 record. They are the reigning divisional champions and made it to the divisional round last season. But they have shown some flakiness in their only loss of the season to the Broncos in Week 3.

Atlanta has also been inconsistent, with Kirk Cousins taking time to settle in as their new franchise quarterback. They had a couple of good wins and two dispiriting losses to enter Week 5 with a 2-2 record. A win for them would have seen the Falcons tie the Buccaneers with a 3-2 record.

Here is how the action went down.

Buccaneers vs. Falcons box scores

Quarter	1	2	3	4	OT	Total
Bucs	10	14	3	3	0	30
Falcons	7	10	3	10	6	36

Buccaneers box score

Passing

Player	C/ATT	YDS	AVG	TD	INT	RTG
Baker Mayfield#6	19/24	180	7.5	3	0	137.5

Rushing

Player	CAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LONG
Rachaad White#1	10	72	7.2	0	56
Bucky Irving#7	9	44	4.9	0	16
Baker Mayfield#6	6	42	7	0	18
Chris Godwin#14	1	2	2	0	2
Team	26	160	6.2	0	56

Receiving

Player	REC	YDS	AVG	TD	LONG	TGTS
Chris Godwin#14	5	64	12.8	0	20	6
Mike Evans#13	5	62	12.4	2	23	7
Cade Otton#88	3	44	14.7	0	22	4
Bucky Irving#7	2	12	6	0	9	2
Sterling Shepard#17	1	4	4	1	4	2
Rachaad White#1	3	-6	-2	0	-2	3
Team	19	180	9.5	3	23	24

Defense

Player	TOT	SOLO	SACKS	TFL	PD	QB HTS	TD
Tykee Smith#23	11	9	0	0	1	0	0
Zyon McCollum#27	10	7	0	0	2	0	0
Jamel Dean#35	9	9	0	0	1	0	0
K.J. Britt#52	9	5	0	0	0	0	0
Lavonte David#54	8	6	0	0	2	0	0
Christian Izien#29	7	5	0	1	0	0	0
Jordan Whitehead#3	5	4	0	0	1	1	0
Yaya Diaby#0	5	4	0	1	0	2	0
Logan Hall#90	2	2	2	2	0	5	0
Vita Vea#50	2	1	1	1	0	1	0
Joe Tryon-Shoyinka#9	2	1	0	0	1	1	0
Anthony Nelson#98	1	1	1	1	0	1	0
Chris Braswell#43	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
Team	72	55	4	6	8	11	0

Kicking

Player	FG	PCT	LONG	XP	PTS
Chase McLaughlin#4	"3/3"	100	53	"3/3"	12

Falcons box score

Passing

Player	C/ATT	YDS	AVG	TD	INT	RTG
Kirk Cousins#18	42/58	509	8.8	4	1	114.8
Darnell Mooney#1	0/1	0	0	0	0	39.6
Team	42/59	477	8.6	4	1	112.9

Rushing

Player	CAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LONG
Bijan Robinson#7	12	61	5.1	0	28
Tyler Allgeier#25	6	12	2	0	8
Team	18	73	4.1	0	28

Receiving

Player	REC	YDS	AVG	TD	LONG	TGTS
Drake London#5	12	154	12.8	1	31	13
Darnell Mooney#1	9	105	11.7	2	24	16
Kyle Pitts#8	7	88	12.6	0	32	8
KhaDarel Hodge#12	2	67	33.5	1	45	2
Ray-Ray McCloud III#34	6	66	11	0	22	9
Bijan Robinson#7	3	16	5.3	0	6	3
Tyler Allgeier#25	3	13	4.3	0	6	3
Team	42	509	12.1	4	45	54

Defense

Player	TOT	SOLO	SACKS	TFL	PD	QB HTS	TD
Jessie Bates III#3	8	3	0	0	0	0	0
Kaden Elliss#55	7	4	0	1	0	0	0
JD Bertrand#40	5	4	0	0	0	0	0
Grady Jarrett#97	5	3	0	0	0	0	0
James Smith-Williams#50	5	2	0	1	0	0	0
A.J. Terrell#24	4	3	0	0	0	0	0
Justin Simmons#31	3	3	0	1	0	0	0
Dee Alford#20	3	2	0	0	0	0	0
Ruke Orhorhoro#98	3	1	0	0	0	0	0
David Onyemata#90	2	2	1	2	0	1	0
Antonio Hamilton Sr.#33	2	2	0	0	0	0	0
Mike Hughes#21	2	2	0	0	0	0	0
Matthew Judon#15	2	2	0	0	1	0	0
Richie Grant#27	2	2	0	0	0	0	0
Lorenzo Carter#0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0
Tyler Allgeier#25	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
Clark Phillips III#22	1	1	0	1	0	0	0
KhaDarel Hodge#12	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Younghoe Koo#6	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Kevin King#32	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Micah Abernathy#29	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Zach Harrison#96	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Team	62	38	1	6	1	1	0

Kicking

Player	FG	PCT	LONG	XP	PTS
Younghoe Koo#6	"3/5"	60	54	"3/3"	12

Buccaneers vs. Falcons game summary

The Buccaneers and Falcons played out one of the games of the 2024 NFL season, culminating in an overtime victory for the home team in Atlanta.

In the first quarter, the Falcons came out firing and Cousins connected with Drake London for a touchdown on the opening drive. Not to be outdone, the Buccaneers fired back straight away with a game-tying score of their own on the next drive, with the ageless Mike Evans getting into the endzone.

The Falcons had a scoring opportunity again to take the lead in the next drive but Younghoe Koo missed a field goal conversion, despite having two attempts at it due to an offside penalty on the Bucs. Tampa Bay kicker Chase McLaughlin had no such flutters as he scored on the next drive to leave Atlanta trailing 10-7.

The offenses were in full flow and each of the next two drives yielded a touchdown to make the score 17-14. Koo converted a field goal in the second quarter to tie the game but Baker Mayfield threw his third touchdown pass of the game to leave the score 24-17 at halftime.

The defenses tightened up a bit in the second half as the teams could not score a touchdown on their opening drives as they did at the beginning of the game. Instead, two field goals in the third quarter made it 27-20. Kirk Cousins then led a drive that led to a touchdown for Atlanta to make it a tie-game.

After another McLaughlin field goal made the score 30-27 for the Bucs, Younghoe Koo missed his second attempt of the night. Just when it seemed that the Tampa Bay offense would see the game out, Bucky Irving fumbled the ball to give Atlanta a chance to win the game within the two-minute warning. Kirk Cousins, however, threw an interception. But the Buccaneers could not capitalize on that as they had to punt the ball away after the referees missed a facemask call in their favor.

That set up a game-tying drive where Cousins spiked the ball with 0:01 on the clock to give Koo a chance to convert the field goal. After a delay-of-game penalty, the kicker was successful from 52 yards to send the game into overtime.

With the regular season overtime rules favoring the team that receives first, since the other team does not get possession if their opponent scores, the toss was crucial. The Falcons called it right and Kirk Cousins led a drive to throw a walk-off touchdown pass to KhaDarel Hodge and ensure Baker Mayfield and the Bucs never saw the ball in overtime as the game concluded with a final score of 36-30 in favor of the home team.