Buccaneers 38, Seahawks 35
Q. Can you just talk to how the two quarterbacks worked tonight, going back and forth the way they did?
TODD BOWLES: I thought they both played heck of a ballgames. I thought Baker was very sharp, came out smoking on all cylinders and played that way the entire game, and Sam did a hell of a job as well. They were going play for play.
Q. What did you make of the last play, the interception by Lavonte?
TODD BOWLES: We were saving that blitz for a rainy day and we brought it out. We've been running it a lot, and we didn't run it the entire game, and everybody was waiting on it, and it finally came, and Te made the veteran play that he made. He caught the ball just like Dean did last week. He had trouble in practice catching them. It was a heck of a ballgame, and for our leader to step up and make that play was huge.
Q. Baker came into this game with the most deep passes attempted in the NFL. It seemed in the first half it was more short to intermediate. Is that just what he was seeing or was that the plan?
TODD BOWLES: That's what he was seeing. He had a few of them to warm him up, and that's what he was seeing after that, and that's what they were giving us.
Q. Can you talk about the game that Emeka had and Tez Johnson stepping up?
TODD BOWLES: Meka had a homecoming today. He continues to amaze and compete and do the things that everybody has seen him do like he did in college, and again, he was outstanding.
Tez came, it was his coming-out party today, as well. He did some great things at receiver from a route running standpoint. He was very polished, he was very quick, and he can run with the football and he was very poised. V-Mac did a heck of a job with him.
Q. In terms of Emeka, you've been coaching a long time. Have you seen many receivers this polished, this practiced on everything?
TODD BOWLES: Not this early I have not, no.
Q. What is it about him that makes him that way?
TODD BOWLES: I mean, it's the whole package. It's his mentality. It's his physical makeup. It's his willingness to work. It's his intelligence. It's his athleticism. He's just one of them guys.
He has the entire makeup and the entire package, and that's hard to get, and that's hard to see in a rookie.
Q. Can you talk about Rashad's run, his decision to get down right there and get those time-outs?
TODD BOWLES: I thought Rashad did a heck of a job understanding what was going on in the game. Again, we practice all this stuff, and everybody was very in tune with everything that was happening. He played a tough game. He had some good runs. He had some good plays on the screens. He punched it in down there. Buck and Rashad are 1A, 1B, we don't have a number 2, so he stepped in and was just No. 1 all by himself today, and he's done it before, and he did it again.
Q. I know you have a lot of confidence in Chase McLaughlin, but he was pretty ill from what I understand:
TODD BOWLES: Yeah, he probably needs to be ill more often. It wasn't quite the Michael Jordan flu game, but we'll give Chase McLaughlin his flu game up here in Seattle. He did a heck of a job.
Q. What were you expecting of AJ Barner because he had two touchdowns before this game. Were you kind of expecting plays from him?
TODD BOWLES: We were expecting big plays from anybody, but we know they spread the ball around, and Kubiak does a great job week to week of shifting his plays and not giving you a beat on certain people and a different tight end is featured every week just like a different receiver is. We had to cover the whole field. Unfortunately he got out and he made some plays.
Q. The final minute for you guys, what does it say about this group that it's able to play 59, 60 minutes?
TODD BOWLES: It says we're mature, we're finally playing 59, 60 minutes, and wins early. Got to keep stacking them. They're hard to come by. We're playing good teams, and with injured guys all over the place, and those guys come here and win with a long lean ride says a lot about them.
Q. What does it say about Baker coming all the way across the country against the No. 1 defense in the NFL by some measure?
TODD BOWLES: He was sharp. Baker doesn't try to have two sub-par games in a row. He's still pissed from last week's interception. Had a good week of practice. The focus was there with everybody. He came out and started fast, and he kept it going.
Q. What have you seen from him since he came back up?
TODD BOWLES: Understanding the system. Being in the same system for two years finally for him, settling down and having conversations with Griz and everybody else over there and him understanding what kind of team he has and getting to know his teammates more, it feels like home for him, feels like home for us.
Q. (On Baker being clutch.)
TODD BOWLES: Lots of practice. We practice two-minute religiously. He learns a lot of things. He sees a lot of things. We execute a lot of ways, and we understand the situations.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports