One-Score Games
June 24th, 2025
Not good.
There is a difference of opinion at JoeBucsFan.com World Headquarters.
One Joe wants to wing an empty beer bottle at a TV when he hears coaches use one-score games as a crutch for losing.
The other Joe believes a bunch of one-score games means a team is right there — just need a little better coaching or maybe a decent player on each side of the ball.
Last year the Bucs stunk in one-score games. There were only two teams that made the playoffs with a losing record in one-score games. The Bucs were 3-5 in one-score games. Denver was 1-6.
A one-score game that springs to mind for Joe immediately was that debacle in the rain in Kansas City. The Bucs had the world champs in their crib on the ropes with Gracie Hunt in the stadium and the world watching on Monday Night Football.
Instead of going for two and the win with 27 seconds left, Bucs coach Todd Bowles went turtle. Did Bowles have a temporary lapse of reason and think Alex Smith was still the Chiefs quarterback? That was No. 15 standing across the field for crying out loud!
Of course, the game goes to overtime and guess who wins without the Bucs touching the football? So aggravating!
The Bucs must be better in one-score games. And for that to change, Joe is confident Bowles must get out of his defensive coordinator shell and stay aggressive. “B-E aggressive” as a high school cheerleader would say!
It could mean the difference between a Super Bowl run and another early exit from the playoffs.
record in 1-score games
11-0: KC
9-1: MIN
8-2: PHI
7-2: DET
6-2: SEA
8-4: WAS
5-3: BUF
8-5: IND, LAR
6-4: PIT
7-5: HOU
4-3: CAR
6-6: ATL
5-5: GB, BAL, DAL
4-4: LAC, MIA
3-4: CLE, LV
3-5: TB
3-5: ARI
4-7: CIN
3-6: NE
3-7: CHI, NYJ
2-6: NO, TEN, SF
3-10: JAX
1-6: DEN
1-8: NYG…— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 1, 2025
June 24th, 2025 at 10:47 am
Both Joe’s are correct in their assessments. The team was right there with every team last year. If we would have pulled out a couple of those wins it’s a 12 win season. Also, Bowles’s situational awareness or lack thereof and/or his conservative mindset were significant contributors to the 1 score losses.
The KC games is a perfect use case: not only did he not go for two, but he called a time out on the one yard line with 27 seconds left with first and goal. Troy Aikman could not believe it.
You drain the clock and spike the ball to give yourself enough time for a few chances at scoring and then you go for two.
You give him under 10 seconds at most.
June 24th, 2025 at 10:59 am
Take a Bow Bowles.
One-score, prime time, post-bye … whenever the HC needs to step up, Bowles steps back.
Don’t believe it? The Bucs hired an End of Game Strategy Coach this year because he’s so historically aweful at managing the last few minutes. Hopefully it works.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:00 am
thats my #1 beef with bowles…he’s not aggressive…
with that said, i think he knows he has to change that part of his coaching and give his team the best chance to win…which is to be aggressive…
GO BUCS!!!!
June 24th, 2025 at 11:04 am
Dan Campbell, and Dan Quinn are also defensive coaches who go for it rather than count on defense getting it done.Not in todays NFL. Everyone watching knew the Chiefs were going to win when we tied, but Todd Bowles. That game, and the Ravens game,where Godwin was hurt needlessly, were the two most frustrating games last year.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:07 am
Let’s hear what other fans two most frustrating games were. Plenty to pick from, but limit it to two!
June 24th, 2025 at 11:10 am
a better Hc and DC will change that for the better…
June 24th, 2025 at 11:14 am
The WAS playoff game. 4th and 4 in the red zone, Bucs have Baker, Evans and Bucky but Bowles went for the FG and never saw the ball again. Bowles doesn’t trust Baker and the offense like he does the defense. We’ll see if that changes this season.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:21 am
Good teams find ways to close those close games out. Don’t care if its a dagger, cutlass, fork or a wooden stake we need to find ways that work for us to finish teams off situationally.
We had a chance to put KC away and go up 11 points late in the 3rd, but we kicked a FG instead of taking 6. Our last 3 drives of that game after that FG we went 3 & out twice and scored the TD that pushed us to extra time. Idk what decision Bowles could’ve made to change that, but losing games where you win the turnover(Kelce fumble) battle is more than decision making from the sideline.
That second Falcons game was much worse to me.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:24 am
This is why smart Buc fans do not trust Bowles, in one score games he consistently craps down his leg and trust the wrong side of the ball at the worst times.
Until he modifies his scheme on defense and trust the offense more than a bad defense this team is going no where
June 24th, 2025 at 11:26 am
Don’t antagonize the Bowles groupies Joe. They don’t like to hear how Todd has lost us games last year…and the year before…and the year before. I do hope he’s learned from his mistakes. Better late than never right?
June 24th, 2025 at 11:34 am
so you got beat on OT by a QB that can pick apart a defense’s weakness. Maholmes attacked the Edge and the LB’s with Kelce.
He put it on the defense to make a stop and they didn’t. Eventually they will step up.
Before that Bucs TD drive there was an 8 play drive for 30 yards and a FG, a 3 play drive for 8 and a Punt, and 3 plays for -6. Even if the Coin toss came up tails what makes anyone believe that the Offense would have dismantled the Chief Defense in Overtime.
Loss can be laid at the feet of the offense just as easy as putting it on Bowles.
You put your Defense in tough spots because eventually they will start stepping up.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:48 am
Let’s just say they usually lost to better teams. Many good teams do not play for a blowout, but play a controlled game, keeping some of their best plays until the fourth quarter. Bill Belichick, for example, was a master at playing games close, even falling behind, and then scoring enough to win at the end. A last drive field goal when tied or behind by a point or two was not uncharacteristic. He depended on his defense to get him the last possession and Brady to cash it in. KC would have stopped the 2-point conversion because they were the better team. I’m still sympathetic to going for it, because I don’t like prolonging the agony.
June 24th, 2025 at 11:56 am
Well, Coach could play more aggressively. But games that we lost he’d have rather it be on he and the defense. He figured his defense could force a game winning turnover or at least get us the ball back. Our offense lost games without a chance to counterpunch 4 times last year. KC, San Fran, Atlanta and Washington. We were winning or tied in all those games and didn’t get the ball back! Even Bowles didn’t believe how much our depth had weakened us. Also, our offense could have gotten the ball back and we could still have lost. And I would rather Bowles and Grizzard (maybe with Baker’s input) make end game decisions this year. In fact anybody who believes some end game specialist coach will be making end game decisions is having smoke blown right up their old kazoo! I’m sure he’s researching opponents late game tendencies and compiling stats that Bowles will probably discuss with him weekly during the season. What would be nice is if we could get 10 point leads instead of struggling to tie games up. The chances that we can do that this year are very high. Very high!
June 24th, 2025 at 11:57 am
It’s why bowles is a .500 lifetime coach and always will be.
Hell, Licht is what…ELEVEN games UNDER .500???
Ouch.
June 24th, 2025 at 12:14 pm
Bucs4Ever, Rome wasn’t built in a day, was it? And you can’t know that Bowles will always be a lifetime .500 coach, can you? And if we go 14-3 this year Licht will be .500 building the foundation for this next 5-10 year dynasty. You reap what you sow. The growing season is long in the NFL. But the harvest is heavy.
June 24th, 2025 at 12:18 pm
Bowles goes coi in 4th quarters of close games. It’s a pattern.
June 24th, 2025 at 12:25 pm
Fix the offensive turnovers and get more defensive turnovers -Bucs will win 13 games this year – go from a -5 turnover differential to a +5 and Bucs will host an NFC Championship game
June 24th, 2025 at 12:26 pm
Everyone says go for two and win it. Then if the coach goes for it and it doesn’t score they call for his head for being so reckless. Why doesn’t he believe in his offensive? Has he lost faith in his defense?
Lots of people thought it was better to just kick the extra point and take it into overtime and now claim of coarse they should’ve went for the win. I’m with Bobby Bowden on this one. ‘A tie is something you wear around your neck’.
June 24th, 2025 at 12:46 pm
Hodad … ‘Everyone watching knew the Chiefs were going to win when we tied, but Todd Bowles.’
Like most Bucs’ fans, I too wish that Todd Bowles was willing to take more risks. Wins & losses in the NFL often come down to the smallest things, sometimes even just a single play. Or a single coin toss.
Last year Bucs were in 3 overtimes games; won 1, lost 2. The winner of all 3 of those games won the coin toss. Coincidence? Joe doesn’t believe in coincidence, and neither do I. The reality in all 3 of those OT games is that the last team to have the ball to end the 4th qtr also won the coin toss & scored on their 1st possession in OT. No coincidence there; those are facts.
Todd was undoubtedly aware that the Chiefs do extremely well in 1-score games (as in, they were 11-0 last year?). Their record was 7-0 before they beat us in that OT game (considerably better than ours). And oh ya, they were the 2023 Super Bowl champs. If I were Todd, I would’ve rolled the dice on going for a 2-point play & the win.
But then again Hodad, if the Bucs didn’t make it, Todd would’ve been skewered for going for it instead of taking the game to OT, or he would’ve been skewered for a bad play call, or whatever. If you make it, you’re a hero, If you don’t, well, the world just gained another goat.
June 24th, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Hopefully, Mr. Bowles takes a good look in the mirror and remembers that you go for the win on the road.
June 24th, 2025 at 1:19 pm
While I get that people usually blame the coach for a poor record in one score games, there’s a lot more variance at play for those outcomes than is usually mentioned. Year to year, teams that win a disproportiante amount of one score games regress to the mean the following season. The Bucs should be around .500 in their own one score decisions if they played an equal number of superior or inferior opponents. For a quick example, the 2022 Minnesota Vikings – went 11-0 in once score games. The next season they went 6-8 (3-4 in Kirk Cousins starts). Essentially the same roster came back from the prior year. There are other examples out there if anyone takes the time to research it.
What is *far* more revealing about the quality of a team is the number of games they play which result in decisive wins or losses of 10+ points. 7 Bucs wins were decided by that many points or more, and only 2 losses. They were at or over the top in the number of blowout victories. By that stat they underperformed by being knocked out in the wildcard round, which is another conversation entirely.
Anyone interested in the 2 score win idea should go back and look at Super Bowl teams over the years. There are almost no examples of any championship team that relied on winning a majority of the games by a single possession to get them over the top. Most of them were decisive winners a majority of the time. Due to a slew of injuries Bucs in 2024 (and 2021), might have missed a window of opportunity to get to the promised land.
June 24th, 2025 at 1:22 pm
I would like to be 3-4 in one score games.
With the record of 13 – 4. Nobody blows us out and we blow out a lot of teams.
Losing a few one score games is not a problem if they’re your only losses. If nobody beats you by more than one score and you beat a lot of teams by 2+ scores, that is the real goal. Total domination!
Kansas City had a great record but they were not totally dominant thus they didn’t win the super bowl. They squeaked by in a ton of games due to luck, pretty solid defense and a savvy quarterback. They couldn’t overcome the faulty online and lack of many solid skill position players, though. This season, we have none of those weaknesses. We just need to stay healthy and gut out the close ones.
June 24th, 2025 at 1:24 pm
As I could tell, Bowles got more aggressive toward the end of the season
June 24th, 2025 at 1:38 pm
Multiple reasons for this:
– poor pass defense
– poor pass rush
– too many mistakes by our QB
I hope all three of these issues are corrected this season.
June 24th, 2025 at 1:42 pm
That KC game was pivotal, in that if the Buc’s go for 2 and win on the road in KC..on National TV,, oh my God! This team’s confidence would have been through the roof! Especially after BM6 drives down and scores and drives down again for the win. On back to back possessions.
But NO, TB played it safe for the loss!! He sent a signal to his team that he didn’t believe in them!! So the D let KC drive down the field for the win. Had he gone for the W and failed at least he sending the message… I Believe In You! We Can W in This Game Right Now!
June 24th, 2025 at 1:47 pm
BA was frustrating in the other direction. He would have a 3-2 and throw a deep incompleted pass and have to punt. Todd has become more aggressive but I agree with most fans that he’s not quite where he needs to be in today game. This is why hiring Zach Beistline was the biggest offseason addition that happened without much fanfare.
Zach Beistline as their new “director of football research” to help with game management, particularly clock management and situational decisions.
June 24th, 2025 at 2:18 pm
Preach on Joe.
Coaching matters
Niners loss was even worse.
June 24th, 2025 at 2:29 pm
The Chiefs would go 9-8 under Bowles.
June 24th, 2025 at 2:45 pm
Bowels has shown over four years he will not be aggressive. Few times he needed to be n wasn’t costed them a few times
June 24th, 2025 at 5:32 pm
Bucs did so poorly in one score games because the defense consistently failed in clutch situations. In theory, the defense should be better this year, but you still have the Bowles factor. HC Grover hit the nail on the head.
June 24th, 2025 at 6:51 pm
Same story…different year
Definition of insanity…
Bowles is a dinosaur and so is his thinking…
He’s almost extinct…soon…