As Desmond Trufant said point blankly following Atlanta's 35-22 loss, the Buccaneers "took it" from the Falcons on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Prior to Sunday's game, Atlanta's defense hadn't allowed a touchdown in 10 quarters.
RELATED CONTENT
It appeared the Falcons' defense was off to another strong start forcing a turnover on Tampa's first offensive drive in the first quarter.
But then Bucs receiver Chris Godwin caught his first pass that turned into a 71-yard touchdown and then the Falcons spent the remainder of the game chasing the Bucs.
Atlanta's defense had no answer for Godwin who finished the game with seven catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns.
Trufant and Isaiah Oliver both said Godwin "did a good job of finding the holes" in the Falcons' defense.
"He knew the coverages we were in, he knew where to sit and Jameis found him," Oliver said.
Not only were their coverage issues, the Falcons weren't able to generate a pass rush and didn't tackle well. The Falcons, who registered 11 sacks in the previous two games, didn't sack Winston once on Sunday.
"Definitely had too many mistakes early on," Oliver said. "We were just shooting ourselves in the foot with the tackling. I think that was a poor tackling game for the backend especially. It wasn't the brand of football that we had the last two weeks."
The Falcons (3-8) went into the half down 19-10 and on the first drive of the third quarter, Winston and Co. went down the field in nine plays and scored a touchdown to make it 25-10.
Once again, the Falcons found themselves digging a massive hole they would have to overcome and fell short against the Bucs (4-7).
"I think we just didn't make the plays we've usually been making," Trufant said. "We still played solid, but I think we just gave them too much early in the game and we were in the hole and couldn't recover."
