ATLANTA — The Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers established early that Thursday night’s game would be an offensive slugfest with both teams scoring touchdowns on their first possessions, so it seemed fitting the NFC South showdown would be decided by a long TD pass.
Kirk Cousins threw his fourth touchdown of the game, a 45-yard score to KhaDarel Hodge , who had just entered the contest after an injury to Drake London , to give the Falcons a 36-30 overtime victory.
Younghoe Koo ‘s 51-yard field goal as time expired in regular expired forced overtime, and Cousins took care of the rest as he set a career passing mark with 509 yards to lift Atlanta (3-2) into a tie atop the division.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
All summer long, the Bucs heard the Falcons were the team to beat in the NFC South, despite Tampa winning the division the last three years. That rang true Thursday night, with it now being a three-team race with the Bucs at New Orleans next.
Tampa Bay has a lot of players it needs to get healthy, and it have nine days to do it.