Todd Bowles explains, defends Buccaneers 2-point conversion decision vs. Chiefs The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were trailing the Kansas City Chiefs 24-17 on “Monday Night Football” when Baker Mayfield threw a touchdown pass to Ryan Miller with 27 seconds left in regulation.
That left Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles with a tough decision. Would Tampa Bay kick the extra point to tie the game or attempt a 2-point conversion to go for the win? Bowles decided to go for the tie. Chase McLaughlin converted on the extra point despite the rainy conditions to make it 24-all.
The Buccaneers never saw the ball again after that: The Chiefs failed to score in regulation, but they won the overtime coin toss. Patrick Mahomes orchestrated a 10-play, 70-yard touchdown drive that culminated in a 1-yard Kareem Hunt touchdown run to keep Kansas City undefeated.
- Bowles was asked during his postgame news conference how much consideration he gave to attempting the 2-point conversion with 27 seconds left in regulation.
- “Very minor,” he responded. “We wanted to get into overtime with the wet conditions on the field, we feel like we had to go into overtime instead of going for two. We had our shots. We lost the game.”
- Bowles was also asked if any members of his staff – specifically ones with analytics knowledge of the endgame situation – advised him not to attempt the 2-point conversion.
He declined to elaborate on the analytical reason behind the decision. We went for one,” Bowles said. “We took our shots. We had our chances all game. We just lost the game. It didn’t come down to that.”
According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Buccaneers would have had a win probability of 42.8 percent simply by attempting the 2-point conversion. Kicking the extra point dropped their win probability to 41.2 percent. That may give Bowles some food for thought moving forward.
However, he seems less focused on the process that led to Tampa Bay’s third consecutive loss and more centered on executing better to avoid having the game come down to late-game coaching decisions. “It’s tough. You don’t take anything from it but a loss,” Bowles said.
“And we can’t get used to losing, and that’s the biggest thing. We’re not going to get used to losing. We had some good plays. We took our swings. They connected more than we did. We fought, but it wasn’t good enough, so we got to get ready next week for another one.”
