The Bucs Came Close Enough To Make A Statement

Style points. Moral victory. Statement game.

Usually, those are just meaningless platitudes meant to console those who post a valiant effort but ultimately end up on the short end when the final score is tallied. In falling one yard short of yet another comeback victory, and sole possession of 1st place in the NFC South division, that's what the Bucs walked away with, although those accolades might not be quite so empty in this case.

A week ago we posted a poll here, asking when/if you would believe the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are "for real" and 44% of responses said "Let's see how they do against Atlanta this week". And how they did was they lost the game, but in the process sent the message, again, that they're capable of taking an opponents shots, responding to them and that they're dangerous until the clock reads 0:00.

That's nowhere near as good as a win but as far as losses go, it certainly could have been a lot worse.