An embarrassing loss on Thursday night knocked the Tampa Bay Buccaneers out of first place in the NFC South and out of the playoff picture. Mike Evans left the field early in disgust, Todd Bowles dropped a seemingly endless stream of expletives in his postgame press conference and it felt like the bottom had finally fallen out.
Not so fast, my friend.
What the Bucs needed was for the Saints to somehow pull off an upset win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday to negate the Thursday night disaster. That's exactly what happened, and all of a sudden, Tampa Bay has a new lease on life.