Lovie men come to the rescue in Bucs win Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune, published 2 November 2015 Change all the Lovies to Lucky. The Bucs pulled it off on Sunday. Their overtime win over the Falcons was a comeback on several levels. They came back from last week’s epic collapse at Washington. They bounced back Sunday after blowing another big lead, giving up an Atlanta touchdown in the closing seconds of regulation. And there was the biggest comeback of all: Jameis Winston and the defense overcame Lovie Smith’s stark raving decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 in Bucs territory — fourth and dumb. Riverboat Lovie. And he gets bailed out by his kid quarterback. The fourth-down decision was so out of Lovie character that it was painful to watch. More so when Winston’s lunge for the first down came up short. It could have cost the Bucs this game. You could just picture Lovie’s pink slip being filled out on the plane ride home. But his players came to the rescue. Jameis saved Lovie’s bacon just as we were asking for eggs, toast and juice with it. The defense, after a stunning vote of no-confidence by the head coach, stopped Matt Ryan and the Falcons after Jameis opened overtime and marched the Bucs to the go-ahead field goal. The victory doesn’t make Smith’s decision any more sensible. There’s no rational explanation for going for it from their own 40-yard line with two minutes left and Atlanta out of timeouts, not when the Falcons still needed a touchdown to tie it. You punt it a hundred times out of a hundred. It’s a low-scoring game. Your defense has played great all day. And: You’re Lovie. Maybe you see this kind of gambling with Sean Payton. Or Belichick and Brady. But Lovie? He has no idea how to swim in the deep end of that pool. Maybe how bad the Bucs defense was in Washington last week was a factor. But you can’t live in the past like that, even the recent past. You can’t operate out of fear. You trust your defense to stop someone from 80 yards away after a punt, especially on a day when your defense had already forced four turnovers. This whole thing was so un-Lovie it seemed more desperate than inspired. As if it could get worse, there was the play call. But that the Bucs even went for it was the insane portion. And a win doesn’t justify Lovie’s decision. I’d still do a CAT scan. On the other hand, these were Lovie men, and Lovie men won this game. Who didn’t think the Bucs were done when Atlanta forced overtime? Only, Winston is an NFL quarterback who now owns an NFL overtime win. He was very good when it mattered, a lot of “it” factor. Jameis was tough on those runs in the third quarter, including the one for a score. He was smart. He threw a nice touchdown pass. Jameis led. Jameis didn’t blink after coming up short on fourth down. Jameis rescued Lovie. The defense stopped Atlanta to end the game after Lovie’s open lack of faith. Kwon Alexander, doubtless playing with a hole in his heart after the death of his younger brother, stripped Julio Jones and went the other way. He intercepted Matt Ryan, too. An extraordinary performance. On the game’s final drive, that man Howard Jones sacked and stripped Ryan in one instant, then helped Gerald McCoy pressure Ryan into a fourth-down incompletion. The Bucs saved the day. They saved their head coach. The riverboat has docked. Change all the Lovies to Luckys.