Tampa Bay Buccaneers Deflated By a Foot

Can't get any closer than that.

One foot.

One foot stood between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons. One foot kept the Buccaneers from the NFC South lead. One foot kept them from a huge win. One foot will have this team shaking their heads for a while.

One lousy foot.

One lousy foot with just 2:37 left to play. One lousy foot that would have given the hard-fighting Bucs a first and goal with four cracks at it from inside the Atlanta 2-yard line.

LeGarrette Blount stretched and strained, but was one lousy foot short of impending stardom, at least for one important afternoon.

When it was all over it read 27-21 Falcons, but it was there for the taking, one lousy foot away from the taking.

These Bucs are now 5-3 and they almost pulled this one off when it looked like they'd have no chance after they let Atlanta run all over them early. Michael Turner owned them. He ran over and through the defense, as you'd expect. The Falcons were scoring on every drive.

Give the Bucs credit, they hung in there and Michael Spurlock was a one-man band with his 209 yards in returns, including that 89-yard gem for a touchdown that surely shocked the sellout Atlanta crowd.

The Bucs didn't have their A-game, and they needed it. Josh Freeman was okay; he hit big passes when he needed to, but had a couple of interceptions, and that's been so un-Joshlike. He passed for 189 yards, but it seems most of them came at the right time.

Matt Ryan put up 235 but more important, he's 17-1 at home.

And he was about a foot away from 16-2.

Blount ended up with 46 yards, 13 carries.

He needed 46 yards and one foot.

First and goal at the one.

It would have been interesting.

It is a game of inches, at times.

This time it was a game of one foot.

One lousy foot.