Bucs, Bills head to offseason

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Gone Fishin’ casts its eyes at two amazing teams who just needed one break to go their way: Tampa Bay and Buffalo. There are 31 teams that are disappointed at the end of every season. It’s not a business for the faint of heart. These teams should be proud of what they did. But let’s talk about why they lost and what it reveals about them.

Tampa’s injury bug and Antonio Brown’s defection crushed the Bucs at exactly the wrong time

Tampa’s comeback was the thing of legends, but the reason they fell behind in the first place was pretty easy to foresee based on last Sunday’s playoff game, where Tom Brady was sacked four times. Brady’s strong fantasy numbers (30-for-54, 329 yards, one touchdown, one pick) were more accurately told by his 14.0 ESPN QBR, and he was sacked thrice by the Rams, fumbling once. Tampa’s defense finally got things in check by generating many crucial turnovers, but it was ultimately too little, too late. The Rams were charged with being the Falcons and got off on a technicality after Todd Bowles’ Cover-0 blitz to attempt to keep the Rams out of field goal range was snuffed out by Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp.

The depth of weaponry was too shallow against a stellar defense without Chris Godwin, Tristan Wirfs, and Antonio Brown: The Bucs completed just nine of their 30 passes to players besides Mike Evans, Rob Gronkowski, and Leonard Fournette. Those passes gained 69 yards, which isn’t very nice in this context. And unlike last week, when Tampa’s receivers ran free on Philadelphia’s zones, the Rams were able to bottle up their receivers. Only Evans and Tyler Johnson were able to gain more…