Bucs steal a sloppy win from Washington Roy Cummings, The Tampa Tribune, published 13 December 2010 Raheem Morris said it early last week. We're in a battle of attrition now, he said of his team, which continued to lose that battle Sunday, when it lost two more starters to season-ending injuries. The battle for the playoffs is another matter. The Bucs slipped back into the thick of that one when Nick Sundberg's snap of an extra-point attempt with nine seconds left slipped through holder Hunter Smith's hands, allowing the Bucs to escape a rain-soaked FedEx Field with a crucial 17-16 victory against the Redskins. Coupled with Green Bay's loss to Detroit, the Bucs' first victory in three weeks left them at 8-5 and a half-game behind the Giants, who play the Vikings tonight in Detroit, in the battle for the NFC's final playoff berth. "It's like Mother Nature is on our side,'' Bucs backup quarterback Josh Johnson said, referring to the sloppy playing conditions that wound up aiding the Bucs and the snowstorm that forced the Giants' game to be moved to Detroit. Johnson seemed to have forgotten — at least momentarily — that Mother Nature or fate haven't done the Bucs any favors lately. After all, when defensive tackle Gerald McCoy went down in the first quarter with a torn left biceps and linebacker Quincy Black went down in the fourth with a broken forearm, they became the sixth and seventh starters lost to season-ending injuries in the past three weeks. "I'm glad we're not playing an 18-game schedule this year, because if we were I don't know if we would make it to the end,'' said cornerback Ronde Barber, who has seen five starters on his side of the ball go down the past three weeks. That doesn't include the loss of safety Tanard Jackson, who was suspended for at least a year for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Throw that into the mix and it's hard to believe the Bucs are competing right now, much less winning. "It's all about finding a way,'' said Morris, whose team appeared to be lost, particularly on that injury-riddled defensive side of the ball, early on in Sunday's game. A unit that had not surrendered more than 92 yards rushing in either of its previous three games allowed Redskins running back Ryan Torain to run for 101 yards in the first 10 minutes alone and for 158 in the first half. The Redskins failed to fully capitalize on the effort, however, as kicker Graham Gano failed to bail out an inefficient red-zone offense, missing two field goal tries that helped to keep the halftime deficit at a manageable 10-3. The Bucs then came out and did what they so often have in the second half this year, forcing a takeaway on the opening kickoff and shutting down their opponent's offense just long enough to allow quarterback Josh Freeman to bring them back. Bolstered by a pair of Connor Barth field goals that cut the Washington lead to 10-9, Freeman botched his first comeback attempt when he let the ball slip from his hands on a first-and-goal play from the 1 early in the fourth quarter. Given another chance by the defense two series later, Freeman completed the comeback, first by firing a 41-yard touchdown pass over the head of linebacker Rocky McIntosh and into the hands of tight end Kellen Winslow. Freeman then ran 2 yards to complete a two-point conversion that gave the Bucs their winning score, plowing through the Redskins' line with the aid of a push by running back Cadillac Williams. Black was out of the game by then and it showed as the Redskins moved quickly down the field, scoring on Donovan McNabb's 6-yard touchdown pass to Santana Moss with nine seconds left. But as Freeman walked up and down the Bucs sideline, encouraging players to stay ready for what seemed like a certain overtime, Sundberg's snap sailed through Smith's hands, giving the Bucs' playoff hopes a renewed life. "I don't know if (losing) this would have been a deal-breaker for us, but we sure would have been buried down there pretty far,'' Bucs middle linebacker Barrett Ruud said. "Thankfully we don't have to talk about that right now.'' Michael Bennett is one of the reasons they don't. An end who hasn't played the inside tackle position that McCoy plays since the 2009 preseason, Bennett stepped into McCoy's spot and played a big role in stopping the Redskins. "We put him in a position where he could get some penetration and he just shut those runs down,'' Barber said. "We had to do some shuffling there and luckily it worked out for us.'' Luckily. There was a lot of talk about luck after this one. It was rivaled only by the talk of how sloppy each team played. No one on the Bucs side was apologizing, though. "Yeah, that was one of the uglier games I've ever played in,'' linebacker Barrett Ruud said. "But you know what, this isn't the BCS. Style points don't matter. We got a win and right now that's all that matters.''