Bucs fall to Panthers, 20-14, in discouraging start to new era Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune, published 8 September 2014 They were down a starting guard — Pro Bowler Logan Mankins, injured in the second quarter. They were down a starting running back — Pro Bowler Doug Martin, injured in the third quarter. Shoot, they were down 17 points, and that was in the fourth quarter. What came next can only be described as one of the most improbable yet exciting comebacks in recent Buccaneers history. There was just one problem. The comeback fizzled in a way that all but defined the day. What kind of day was Opening Day 2014 for the Bucs? Well, the Bobby Rainey fumble that came after a 14-point rally and with 1:36 left on the clock gives you an idea. But to really sum up the 20-14 loss to the Carolina Panthers, you have to go back a few possessions. Late third quarter, Bucs ball at their own 37-yard line. Quarterback Josh McCown dropped back to pass, only to have the ball slip out of the back of his hand. Miraculously, McCown picked the ball back up, but by then Panthers defensive end Charles Johnson had moved into McCown's personal space and was about to wrap him up for a sack. That's when, for the second time while seemingly being sacked in this game, McCown proceeded to throw the ball into the hands of a Panthers defender, in this case safety Roman Harper. Add to that a defense that couldn't get Carolina off the field on third down or pressure backup quarterback Derek Anderson, who started in place of Cam Newton, and the Lovie Smith era got off to what was nothing short of a discouraging start. “That's not exactly how we wanted to start the football season,'' said Smith, who in losing at home to a division rival with a backup quarterback became the seventh Bucs head coach to lose in his regular-season debut. “We were minus-three in the turnover ratio, and you just can't win like that.'' You usually can't win when you fall behind by 17 points after three quarters, either, but the Bucs put themselves in a position to win by mounting a rally that, given their previous offensive struggles, seemed wholly unlikely. Hampered by the loss of Mankins to a knee injury, but even more by a Panthers defense that seemed as stout as when it finished last season ranked second in the league, the Bucs ground out just 136 total yards the first three quarters. They didn't start the fourth quarter very well either, going three-and-out on their first series. But then something clicked inside McCown, and the offense followed suit. “I think once we started spreading it out and throwing the ball, we were able to get a little rhythm going and that helped,'' McCown said. “The other thing is, I started to sit back and just started trusting the guys and stopped trying to force things.'' Whatever it was, it worked, because a McCown who accrued a 29.3 passer rating to that point completed nine of his next 12 passes for 87 yards and two touchdowns, 19 yards to Chris Owusu and 6 yards to Rainey. That cut the Panthers lead to three points with 2:06 left on the clock and put the game in the hands of the defense, which succeeded in quickly getting the ball back, but not necessarily the way Smith had hoped. Though the Bucs forced the Panthers to give the ball up after three plays, it failed to take it away when safety Dashon Goldson failed to secure a rare errant throw by Anderson. That forced the offense to start its next drive from deep in its own end instead of deep inside the Panthers' territory, and Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly quickly made them pay by stripping Rainey of the ball. “Takeaways, that was probably the difference in this game,'' Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. “We had three and we got them in key situations. We just had a lot of clutch plays in this one.'' The Bucs had a few clutch plays, too, including a run stuff by defensive end Michael Johnson that helped set up the Bucs first scoring drive and a sack by defensive tackle Gerald McCown that helped to set up the second. There was also a 54-yard run by fullback Jorvorskie Lane that came when the Bucs were backed up at their own 4-yard line. But there were too many plays that just didn't go the right way for the Bucs. One of the most critical came in the third quarter, when McCown was dropped for a seven-yard loss on a sack by Kuechly. That left the Bucs at their own 36-yard line, which is apparently just outside of first-year kicker Patrick Murray's range. Having decided that the rookie's range limit was 52 yards, which would have required the Bucs to reach the 35-yard line, Smith opted to punt instead of trying a field goal. “We can talk about everything that went wrong throughout the game, but at the end we had a chance to intercept the ball and go in for at least a field goal and once we did get the ball we fumbled it,'' Smith said. “Those two plays really just knocked us out, and overall we just didn't play well enough to win. Their defense outplayed ours and, of course, their offense outplayed ours, too. But I did like the way we finished. We were down 17-0 and really out of it. And we went down and scored 14 points and got ourselves in position at the end against what was possibly the best defense in football last year. That's what we're going to build on.''