It went right down to the wire, but Tom Brady did what he had always done in 20 years with the Patriots, leading them to a late go-ahead scoring drive, a 48-yard field goal by Ryan Succop with two minutes to go.
But Mac Jones led the Patriots down the field and had the team poised to wrest back the lead with 59 seconds to go but Nick Folk’s 56-yard field goal, doinked off the upright and the Bucs held on for a hard-fought 19-17 win.
While there are no moral victories in the NFL, there were plenty of positives to take away from the game, which was played in constant rain, which affected both teams.