Cardiac Bucs? Another 2-minute thrill, this time on the road vs. Texans Two years ago, the Bucs were broken in six seconds. Their lead gone. Their victory stolen. It was a gut punch with Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud throwing the game-winning touchdown to Tank Dell with six ticks of the clock remaining. But on Monday night, redemption belonged to the Bucs. It was Baker Mayfield with the ball last, fighting for every yard. On fourth and 10, the clock melting, he ran for a first down to save the game. A few plays later, after Rachaad White scored on a 2-yard run, the scoreboard flashed a fateful irony in a 20-19 victory. Six seconds remained. Heartache had switched sidelines. "That was on my mind, for sure" cornerback Zyon McCollum said. "I used it as motivation the entire week and when it came down to that late-minute situation, I was like, ‘Here we go again.' I was just focused on keeping the guys together, biting our mouthpiece and finishing the game out the way we wanted to finish it out.” The Bucs had a significant mismatch on the offensive line in this game, and trying to block Texans edge rushers Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. proved difficult without Tristan Wirfs. To make matters worse, right tackle Luke Goedeke re-aggravated a foot injury in the first quarter. Even so, the Bucs managed to score touchdowns on their first two possessions Monday, with Mayfield throwing scoring passes to Ryan Miller and rookie Emeka Egbuka. After that, it was all Texans. The Bucs' special teams, however, had a big hand in their demise. Chase McLaughlin clanked a 38-yard field goal off the right upright, his third missed kick of the season, as the third quarter was winding down. The Bucs had a punt blocked, and Jaylin Noel returned a punt 53 yards to set up Nick Chubb's go-ahead 25-yard touchdown run with 2:10 remaining. "I've got to see what happened on the blocked punt" Todd Bowles said. "They got back there pretty good. Look like a smorgasbord of people going back there. That cannot happen. That's inexcusable in that part. We've got to tackle a returner. We've really got to tackle a returner. We've got to have more guys going to the ball and that kind of gave them field position for two scores and gave them 10 points. That's tough to do, especially after a goal-line stand.” Credit the Bucs defense, which had three stops at their own 1-yard line in the fourth quarter, turning the ball over on downs. Just like they did opening week at Atlanta, the Bucs rallied around Mayfield in their two-minute offense. Tampa Bay ran the ball well Monday for 169 yards. Bucky Irving had 71 while White rushed for 65 and that game-winning score. But it came down to Mayfield's 15-yard run on fourth and 10 to save the game. He also was 7 of 9 passing for 63 yards on that final drive. "Yeah, me and my buddy (Texans defensive back) Chauncy (C.J. Gardner Johnson) in the open field" Mayfield said. "They did a good job. It wasn't a zero blitz, but fortunately I was able to get out of that one and get through. Seeing green grass and fourth down in a two-minute drive, trying to do anything we can to get a first down. "In these two-minute close games, we were not on the right side of things the past couple years, and it's good to see we haven't played close to our best ball in all three phases and we're still finding ways to win on the road and that's really important.” What are we watching with the cardiac Bucs? A will to win, for sure. Consider how rare this is. The last team to score a game-winning TD in the final minute of the fourth quarter in back-to-back games on the road was the Dolphins on Oct. 10 and 17 in 1999. "It was a heck of a job of situational football" Bowles said. "Really, with Baker on a fourth and 10 using his legs to get the first down and kind of catapulted everything from there. Everything we've practiced, everything we've talked about and everything we've done about finishing a ball game, they did a heck of a job finishing.” Bucs center-turned-left tackle Graham Barton stated the obvious. The Bucs' patchwork offensive line was overmatched against Hunter and Anderson. "We battled. It wasn't pretty" Barton said. "I know what you guys saw. We ran the ball well. That's a really good D-line if you guys weren't aware and we're missing two pretty damn good offensive linemen. We just fought, man. We knew we were the underdogs in that matchup. Keep fighting. There's no quit in this team. There's no quit in Baker. He never gets down on us and we just keep battling. We find a way at the end, and I think that's the story of Bucs football the past couple years. Just find ways to win.” Linebacker Lavonte David talked about the belief the Bucs have in Mayfield. He said the training camp battles prepared them for what happened in these first two games. "Just the will to win" David said. "Everybody in this locker room knows if there's time left on the clock, we've got a chance to win the football game. That's just the mentality we have. Coach Bowles and (offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard) always do a good job of working on the two-minute situation. We work on it daily. You never know when it's going to come up. Baker Mayfield, what more can I say about that guy, man? He's just true grit, a grinder. A helluva football player and I'm glad he's on our side.” As Mayfield limped from the interview room back to his locker, he made one more request. "Let's go home" he said. "But first, I need my Whataburger!” What a comeback. Rick Stroud, Tampa Bay Times, published 16 September 2025