Todd Bowles' choice at the key moment of the Bucs' 30-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night has been met with a lot of controversy.
Most Tampa Bay fans and many media have criticized Bowles for going conservative and choosing to kick the extra point to tie the game at 24 with 27 seconds remaining after a 1-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Miller. Some (seemingly far fewer) have said the choice to kick was fine, that you eliminate the deficit where you can and play for overtime.
However, there was one choice that Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was hoping Bowles would make: and it was to do exactly what Bowles did.
"No, but I'm glad he did," Reid responded to a question about whether he was surprised Bowles went for two, which was met with laughter from the Kansas City media.
It's hard to blame him. The outcome game was in Bowles' control, and he ultimately handed it directly back over to Reid and Patrick Mahomes in overtime. Talk about an "uh, thank you" moment.
Bucs fans, meanwhile, aren't laughing at their coach who already knew what can happen in overtime if you allow a quarterback that you can't stop to get the ball back and beat you.
Against the Falcons in Atlanta back on October 3, the Bucs' offense couldn't get a key first down to close out the game, and their defense allowed Kirk Cousins to go 46 yards in 1:14 to tie the game and go to overtime. The Falcons won the coin toss, and 4 plays later KhaDarel Hodge and his teammates were dancing in the end zone after a 45-yard walk off touchdown. The unstoppable Cousins finished the night with a shameful 509 yards passing.
Knowing that, and with the outcome of the game fully in his control this time, Bowles bypassed a shot at winning the game, opting instead to potentially put the game on his defense in overtime against an offense that his team had zero answer for in the second half - this time against the greatest quarterback in the NFL and the undefeated Chiefs. And Bowles chose to put his team in the position of being at the mercy of a coin flip in overtime for a second time in a month. Heads, you lose. Even Baker Mayfield knew it at the time.
And sure enough, the writing turned out to be on the wall for the Bucs again, thanks to Bowles' defense who was unable to get off the field when it mattered late in the game. 14 points for Kansas City in the fourth quarter and six more in overtime. The Chiefs ended up 12/18 on third down and 1/1 on fourth down for the contest.
Bowles knew that's where his defense was at there in that point of the game, and that Kansas City was rolling, and he took the game out of his own control anyways. The result was another methodical Kansas City death march with Kareem Hunt bowling over the goal line to end a 10-play, almost 6-minute drive in the extra frame.
And Reid is very thankful on Tuesday for Bowles' show of charity. Buccaneer fans, not so much.
