Tough Mudders: Inside All The Oddities Of Buccaneers Completion-Less Win vs. Falcons

Raymond James Stadium (Tampa Bay) — This was a strange game.

In today's NFL, we might take things like the forward pass for granted, presuming them to be at least a small ingredient in the recipe for winning football. Never again.

A week ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran the ball so well (258 yards!) in a lopsided win at Carolina that quarterback Baker Mayfield, in his first game back from a thumb injury, attempted only 11 passes, one more than the fewest ever in the franchise's 51-year history.

And the Bucs clearly looked at that game, stepped back and decided they needed to focus much, much more on running the ball.

The Buccaneers faced one of the NFL's top-five run defenses in the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, but with a constant downpour creating nasty weather from the very start, they sought to assert themselves on the ground and run the ball behind Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell, and an amazing thing happened.

They ran the ball and played defense at such a high level that Mayfield threw only three passes and did not complete one to notch a 16-0 victory. They became the first NFL team to win a game without completing a pass since the 1974 Buffalo Bills, who did so in a win over the New York Jets, two years before the Bucs existed.

"Listen," Mayfield said after the game. "I'll do whatever it takes to win. That's all that matters to me."

Mayfield went 0-for-3 and easily had the better passing game Sunday, as Atlanta's Michael Penix Jr. threw four interceptions, two in the first quarter, finishing 8-for-24. That completion-less 1974 Bills win was much the same way, as Joe Namath went 2-for-18 with three picks in the loss.

A game with 56 running plays and three passes is almost perfect for an offensive lineman, mauling the guy in front of you, always on the attack, just physically imposing your will on the opponent over and over for three hours.

"It's been a blast, these last two weeks. It's every offensive lineman's dream," Bucs guard Ben Bredeson said in a joyous locker room. "That's what we strive for, being able to run it when everybody knows it's coming. We were able to do that today. It was fun. It was a muddy game out there, a little backyard ball for sure."

This was old-school, grind-it-out football, uniforms dirty and everything soaked through, so you just embrace the soggy discomfort.

"At halftime, people are like, 'Oh, should I change my socks?' Buccaneers guard Cody Mauch said. "I was like, 'It's not even worth it. You're going to get right back out, and they'll just get wet again. Who cares?'"

Buccaneers offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs said there were puddles big enough that he would line up in stance, put his hand in the ground, and his hand would get stuck in the mud. "It feels like you're a kid again," he said.

There are 285 NFL games in a season these days, and yet I'm consistently amazed how often you can cover one and see something that's either never happened or last happened to a team so old you barely knew it existed. Last time an NFL team rushed for 300-plus yards and didn't complete a pass? That would be the 1933 Boston Redskins, who did so in a game at … Fenway Park. This is the random stuff that lets the game still surprise you.

How good has the Buccaneers' run game been of late? Until a month ago, they had rushed for 240 yards or more just once in a span of 173 games, going back to 2016. When they did so Sunday, it marked the third time they'd done it in the last four weeks. Bucky Irving reset his career high with 170 rushing yards, and then backup Kenneth Gainwell took over and did the same with 140 rushing yards. The last time an NFL team had two guys get 25 carries in the same game? It's been 48 years, with Walter Payton and Roland Harper being the last to do so in 1978 with the Chicago Bears.

You'd think the sloppy conditions would also make it easy for the Falcons — the highest-scoring team in the NFL in the last five weeks — to do the same, especially with Bijan Robinson leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage coming in. Atlanta had 10 plays on Sunday that were third or fourth down and needing 2 yards or fewer to move the chains, and they went 2-for-10 in converting on those plays, gaining a total of 4 yards.

The novelty of zero pass completions in a game took away from a dominant game by the Buccaneers' defense, which had a 16-3 lead on the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fourth quarter two weeks ago, but lost in overtime. There was no such letup Sunday, and the end result was just the 12th shutout in franchise history. The last time the Bucs had a shutout on their home field was Dec. 5, 2004, also against the Falcons, and four months before rookie Buccaneers' linebacker Josiah Trotter was born.

Mayfield couldn't have asked for an easier day as any NFL quarterback in a win, but he found ways to stay busy. With seven minutes left in the third quarter, it was still a precarious 9-0 lead for the Bucs when Irving broke loose for a 46-yard gain. Two plays later, Gainwell had a 28-yard run, and as he cut back, Mayfield was motioning him to run his way, and he blocked Falcons safety Jessie Bates back straight into the end zone, the two of them landing in a puddle on the sidelines, a testament to the toughness of the day.

"You know, if I'm not going to throw the ball, I have to get active somehow," Mayfield said. "Me and Jessie were out there playing in the mud."

Two weeks ago, the Bucs were 1-5 and alone with the worst record in the NFC, and with a combined 64 passing yards in two games, they've beaten their top divisional rivals in Carolina and Atlanta and find themselves a half-game out of first place. The Bucs now have the Bears on the road on Sunday night. But the Panthers and Falcons are home underdogs this week against the Bengals and Broncos, so the Buccaneers could lose and still be a half-game out when they get to their bye in Week 10.

The emphasis on the run game was clear from the Bucs' opening play, when Irving went for 24 yards, setting the tone for a day so dominant they didn't need to complete a single pass to win.

"It takes everybody. It takes all 11," said Kevin Carberry, the team's offensive line coach and run game coordinator. "I'm so proud of them. It was exciting. Playing aggressively, and they just played well. Both runners ran their butts off."

Buccaneers RB Bucky Irving had a career day on Sunday. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Nobody enjoyed the win Sunday more than Tampa Bay's offensive line, but they've been doing that all week. On Wednesday, the folks from Nickelodeon honored Irving as their weekly "NVP," which meant a box of goodies sent to the team. In the locker room, Wirfs had a neon-orange T-shirt that said "MY GUY WON THE MVP AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS SHIRT," and the linemen got jars of green slime to pour on Irving's head as the award's trademark celebration.

In the process of slinging slime on Irving, Wirfs accidentally sent some toward center Graham Barton and it actually got in his mouth. 

"You can't ingest that stuff!" the Duke grad said, all of this on camera and posted on the team's social media accounts. Barton was a late addition to the injury report due to illness, and it was safe to wonder if the slime had gotten him.

"I said last week: 'It doesn't get better than that,'" Barton said. "It got better. Super-fun, mud bowl. I remember looking up at halftime and seeing zero pass yards and whatever rush yards and I was like 'Oh. Oh well.' You go through the second half and I don't even know if we attempted one. You're cognizant of it, but we were like, 'Hey, if it keeps working, let's keep pounding the rock.'

"It's awesome."