Defense holds as Bucs pull surprising 23-20 victory over Falcons Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune, published 2 November 2015 The defense held. At the end of the day, even when it seemed as if the coach didn’t think it could, even when there was little reason to believe it would, the defense held. “That’s how it’s supposed to be,’’ Gerald McCoy said. “You get an opportunity to finish a game off, you have to do it. And that’s what we did. It’s something to build off of.’’ Victories, no matter how they come, tend to turn into building blocks. For a variety of reasons, the Bucs believe their 23-20 overtime victory against the Falcons could prove to be just that. It was a victory hammered out against great adversity. And not just the adversity presented by the absence of a few key starters or the 17-point lead the Bucs lost down the stretch in regulation. On Friday night, rookie middle linebacker Kwon Alexander learned of the death of his 17-year-old brother Broderick Taylor II, in a shooting. On Sunday, Alexander and the Bucs paid tribute. “When you talk about the true definition of a man, you talk about the way he overcomes adversity,’’ rookie quarterback Jameis Winston said. “And the way Kwon took the field for this game, you could see it in his eyes. The look in his eyes was different than what you see when somebody is playing the game for a paycheck or because he loves the game. It was the look of a man who was playing this game with a purpose.’’ With his personal loss serving as extra motivation, Alexander forced a first-quarter fumble and intercepted a second-quarter pass to lead a four-takeaway day that staked the Bucs to a 20-3 lead with 6:06 left in the third quarter. But just as they did a week ago, during a 31-30 loss at Washington, the Bucs squandered the lead, Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan throwing for 191 of his 397 yards and both of his touchdowns in the final 21 minutes of regulation. The defensive meltdown marked the first time a team has blown leads of 17 points or greater in back to back games since 2011, when current Bucs defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier’s Minnesota Vikings did it in Weeks 2 and 3. It was, of course, Bucs coach Lovie Smith who brought Frazier onto his Bucs staff, but Smith made a far more controversial decision Sunday when he opted to go for it on fourth-and-1 from Tampa Bay’s 40-yard-line with two minutes left in regulation, leading 20-13. The move, which backfired when Winston was tackled for no gain, seemed borne out of a lack of confidence in the Bucs’ struggling defense. Smith said afterward, though, that it was borne entirely out of the growing confidence he has in the offense and Winston, who had run three times for 24 yards in the game and last week became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 200 yards in each of his first six games. “I considered that, of course,’’ Smith said of punting and handing the game over to his defense for the final two minutes. “But I felt like, it’s a seven-point game and we had an opportunity to finish it right there. I’d make that call 10 out of 10 times.’’ Ryan, who completed 37 of 45 passes, threw an 8-yard touchdown pass with 17 seconds left to force overtime. And after Connor Barth made a 31-yard field goal to give the Bucs a 23-20 overtime lead, the game wound up back on the defense’s shoulders anyway. But this time, the defense held. A sack by Howard Jones on second-and-5 from the Atlanta 44-yard line marked the beginning of the end. One incomplete pass later, McCoy reached Ryan, wrapped his arms around Ryan’s legs and forced him into one of his few bad throws on the decisive fourth-down play. “I didn’t know what had happened until I saw my (defensive line) coach running at me,’’ an exhausted McCoy said. “I assumed then that I hadn’t done anything dirty or been (penalized) for anything. And, believe me, we owed it to our offense for last week and for what they did for us this week to get it done. And at the end of the day, it was just guys stepping up and making big plays.’’ You can’t tell by looking at the 496 total yards the Falcons racked up, but the Bucs made big plays like that all day, including one by newcomer Josh Shirley, who forced a field goal after he dropped running back Devonta Freeman for a 3-yard loss on third-and-1 from the 3-yard line with 5:17 to play. “It’s always about the next man up,’’ said Smith, who started the game without his top two nose tackles, McDonald and Tony McDaniel, and finished it without starting defensive end Jacquies Smith (ankle) and reserve end William Gholston (knee). “And, to me, the yardage doesn’t matter. You have to get the ball in the end zone. And our guys did a great job of keeping that potent attack with a lot of great players out of the end zone. It’s about taking the ball away and making critical plays, and today that’s what we did.’’