{"id":54932,"date":"2017-12-19T06:11:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T06:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=54932"},"modified":"2017-12-19T06:11:17","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T06:11:17","slug":"devonta-freemans-big-night-fuels-falcons-win-over-buccaneers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/devonta-freemans-big-night-fuels-falcons-win-over-buccaneers.html","title":{"rendered":"Devonta Freeman&#8217;s big night fuels Falcons&#8217; win over Buccaneers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Devonta Freeman&#8217;s big night fuels Falcons&#8217; win over Buccaneers<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Devonta Freeman&#8217;s big night fuels Falcons&#8217; win over Buccaneers:- Devonta Freeman rushed for 126 yards and a touchdown to help the Atlanta Falcons stay close in the tight NFC South race with a 24-21 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Freeman scored on a 32-yard run midway through the fourth quarter, restoring a 10-point lead for the Falcons (9-5), who then barely hung on to win for the fifth time in six games and remain one game behind New Orleans and Carolina in the division standings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Freeman also caught five passes for a team-high 68 yards and had a first-half fumble recovered in the end zone by teammate Levine Toilolo for a touchdown. Matt Ryan threw an early TD pass to Justin Hardy and finished 17 of 31 passing for 212 yards and no interceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">NFL playoff picture after Week 15<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Jameis Winston threw for 299 yards and three TDs for the Bucs (4-10), including a 16-yarder to Adam Humphries that trimmed Atlanta\u2019s lead to 24-21 with 3:51 remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Winston, who also threw TD passes of 30 yards to O.J. Howard and 42 yards to Mike Evans, got the ball back with a minute left and nearly sent the game into overtime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The third-year pro completed three straight passes to move the ball from his 29 to the Atlanta 36. Patrick Murray came on to try a 54-yard field goal to tie it, but the kick sailed wide right as time expired.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The Falcons play at New Orleans next Sunday, then close the regular season at home against Carolina \u2014 the two teams they\u2019re chasing in the division race.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The Bucs have lost nine of 11 following a 2-1 start, taking a step back after finishing 9-7 a year ago in their first season under coach Dirk Koetter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">RING OF HONOR<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Former Bucs coach Jon Gruden, who\u2019s spent the past nine seasons as ESPN\u2019s game analyst on Monday Night Football, was inducted into the Ring of Honor at Raymond James Stadium during a halftime ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Gruden was acquired from the Oakland Raiders in exchange for two first-round draft picks, two second-round draft pick and $8 million before leading the 2002 Bucs to the club\u2019s only Super Bowl championship in his first season in Tampa Bay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Gruden was fired after the 2008 season and moved into the broadcast booth the following season. The Bucs haven\u2019t made the playoffs since 2007 and don\u2019t have a postseason win since their Super Bowl run 15 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">The coach\u2019s sons \u2014 Deuce, Mike and Jayson \u2014 led the Bucs out of the tunnel before the game as the team\u2019s honorary flag runners.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Gruden is the 11th member of the Ring of Honor, joining Hall of Famers Lee Roy Selmon, Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks, as well as Doug Williams, John Lynch, John McKay, Mike Alstott, Jimmie Giles, Paul Gruber and Malcom Glazer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt\">Source: -https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2017\/12\/18\/falcons-buccaneers-devonta-freeman-atlanta-playoffs-wild-card-packers\/108737212\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/devonta-freemans-big-night-fuels-falcons-win-over-buccaneers.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Devonta Freeman&#8217;s big night fuels Falcons&#8217; win over Buccaneers Devonta Freeman&#8217;s big night fuels Falcons&#8217; win over Buccaneers:- Devonta Freeman rushed for 126 yards and a touchdown to help the Atlanta Falcons stay close in the tight NFC South race with a 24-21 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11834,110342,110341,110339,9057,17184,110340,5071],"class_list":["post-54932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-card","tag-devonta-freeman","tag-devonta-freemans-big-night-fuels-falcons-win-over-buccaneers","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-playoffs","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-wild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}