For the second time in three weeks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans have spent all week relitigating the final moments of a Monday Night Football loss. While this time around the team didn't lose anyone to injury the decision making by Todd Bowles has left most fans less than pleased.
After a masterful touchdown drive that left less than 30 seconds on the clock, the Bucs opted to kick a game-tying extra point rather than going for two and taking the lead. It was a plan that backfired once the Chiefs won the coin toss in overtime and never gave the ball back to Tampa Bay.
In the moment it felt like a questionable decision to settle for the extra point, and it's a decision that has aged worse and worse the further away from it we get. It's not just Bucs fans who are perplexed over what happend, as even Travis Kelce was surprised to see things go down the way they did.
Travis Kelce implies the Bucs let Chiefs off the hook by not going for two on MNF
On the latest episode of the New Heights podcast, both of the Kelce brother chimed in on whether the Bucs made a mistake not going for two to try and take a late lead on Monday night. Before they dove into that, Travis praised Todd Bowles and Baker Mayfield for making things about as tough as they have been on the Chiefs so far this season.
"When Baker gets hot, he is fun to watch," Kelce said. "I'm sitting there on the sideline like, man, I do not like this feeling in my stomach watching that last drive in the fourth quarter. Happy they went for the [extra point], so it gave us a chance to get our offense back out there on the field in OT."
That's where things shifted back to a place Bucs fans have been living ever since Monday night. Kelce was surprised that Tampa Bay didn't go for two, and seems to think that had the roles been reversed and the Chiefs were in that position at Raymond James Stadium they would have approached it differently.
"When you're at an away stadium, I feel like you go for it," Kelce said, sighing with disappointment. "I think you try and end it right there, especially with the overtime rules where in the regular season you're not guaranteed a possession if the other team scores a touchdown. You just don't know whether you're going to get that ball back."
Basically, it sounds like Kelce is confirming the idea that the Bucs let Kansas City off the hook by not going for two. With that said, Jason Kecle sort of defended Bowles' decision by recalling a time the Eagles tried the same aggressive move and it backfired.
That's an assumed risk in attempting a two-point conversion.
Of course, the flipside to the coin is that there was still time on the clock and the Chiefs would have come out on the ensuing drive far more aggressively than they did. Kansas City punted on 4th-and-1 to force overtime with 15 seconds left, a decision that simply is not made if the score is different.
There's a world where the Bucs win the game after going for two, but there's also plenty of universes where fans are dumping on Bowles for the way his defense gave up a game-winning drive in less than 30 seconds. Still, the fact that almost everyone seems to think the Bucs made the wrong decision isn't something that will calm an already infuriated fanbase.
