Atlanta – Kirk Cousins threw for a career-high 509 yards and four touchdowns, the last of them a 45-yard scoring pass to KhaDarel Hodge in overtime that gave the Atlanta Falcons an improbable 36-30 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday night.
After a wild fourth quarter that featured a blocked field goal, a fumble and an interception, Cousins and the Falcons (3-2) got the ball back at their own 20 with 1:14 remaining in regulation and no timeouts, trailing 30-27.
Cousins (Michigan State) completed five passes to push Atlanta to the Buccaneers 29, then hustled to the line to spike the ball with a single second left. In all the confusion, the Falcons were called for delay of game as they lined up for a tying field goal, but it didn’t cost them.
Younghoe Koo knocked it through from 52 yards to force overtime, one week after he made a 58-yarder with 2 seconds left to beat the New Orleans Saints.
The Falcons won the coin toss in overtime and made sure Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers (3-2) didn’t get their hands on the ball again.
Cousins connected with Drake London on a couple of passes before throwing a short one to Hodge, who broke a tackle at the 40, sliced through a gap in the secondary and raced untouched to the end zone to end the game.
Mayfield threw three touchdown passes, including a pair to Mike Evans, and Chase McLaughlin booted three field goals. The last of them was a 53-yarder that put the Buccaneers ahead 30-27 with 10:23 remaining.
The Falcons tied it with a gutty fourth-down call by coach Raheem Morris early in the fourth quarter.
After Tyler Allgeier was thrown for a 2-yard loss on third-and-2, the Falcons didn’t even consider a field goal from the Bucs 12.
Atlanta lined right back up and Cousins threw a pass to Darnell Mooney, who made the grab right at the marker but wasn’t content with just a first down. He shook off a tackler and scooted to the end zone.
Mooney also had a 24-yard touchdown catch during a wild first half that ended with the Buccaneers up 24-17.
Both offenses ran up and down the field over the first two quarters, combining for 488 yards, 28 first downs and just one punt,
Cousins had an 18-yard touchdown pass to London, who finished with 12 catches for 154 yards. Mooney had nine receptions for 105.
Koo missed his first field goal of the year from 41 yards but connected from 54 and 48 yards before splitting the uprights with the tying kick.
The Chiefs put Rashee Rice on injured reserve Thursday, sidelining him for at least four weeks and likely longer, after their leading wide receiver hurt his knee when quarterback Patrick Mahomes collided with him trying to make a tackle last weekend.
Mahomes had just thrown an interception to the Chargers’ Kristian Fulton and both players were trying to chase him down. Rice got there first and stripped Fulton of the ball, just as Mahomes dived toward the pile and hit his teammate just above his right knee.
Mahomes said Thursday that he didn’t know he was the one who caused the injury until he saw the replay on the scoreboard. He said he felt bad about what happened.
“I wasn’t really worried about myself. I was worried about his injury and hopefully that it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” he said ahead of Monday night’s game against the Saints.
The NFL has determined a fan didn’t intentionally spill a drink on Bengals running back Chase Brown following Cincinnati’s victory in Carolina on Sunday.
Video showed a fan appeared to pour a drink on Brown as he left the field and entered the tunnel at Bank of America Stadium.
“The league’s review of the matter determined that portions of a drink were accidentally spilled on the Cincinnati player as Bengals’ fans attempted to catch the gloves he tossed to them,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement Thursday. “The league analyzed video of multiple angles from stadium security cameras and also social media.”
If the league believed the fan purposely spilled the drink, a lifetime ban from the stadium could’ve been part of a punishment.
