The second half, with backups at nearly all positions, wasn't pretty. Even after Brady was out of the game, the defense forced a fumble that linebacker Devin White recovered, setting up a short field for backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who threw a touchdown to receiver Russell Gage for a 17-10 halftime lead. Sunday's game began well - Brady led the Bucs to a touchdown on their opening drive, throwing an 8-yard score to tight end Kyle Rudolph. The date and time of their game will be announced shortly. Hours after they lost, the Bucs learned that would be the Cowboys, whom Tampa Bay played in Dallas in the season opener, winning impressively by a 19-3 score. 4 seed, which lined them up with the conference's best wild card. But they knew going in they were locked into the NFC's No. With Sunday's loss, the Bucs finish with a losing record at 8-9 - a first in Tom Brady's 21 seasons as a starting quarterback - and Brady also took his first loss to the Falcons in 12 career meetings. Up 17-10 at the half, the Bucs backups struggled and Atlanta outscored them 20-0 after halftime for a 30-17 Falcons victory. Knowing the outcome couldn't change their playoff seeding, the Bucs chose to pull most of their key players - beyond the nine who didn't play at all - and basically chose to take a loss rather than take any significant injury. The second half Sunday was hard to watch, and unfortunately, that's all most of the Tampa Bay starters could do. "Hopefully, we've learned a lot from what's happened over the course of this season, and now we just have to go put our best foot out there." "Everything will be determined by what we do from here moving forward," said Tom Brady, who went to the bench late in the second quarter with the score tied at the time. ATLANTA - For the Bucs, Sunday's regular-season finale against the Falcons had the awkward feel of a preseason game: key starters sitting out or getting pulled early, an outcome that ultimately didn't matter and a postgame need to look ahead and not back in any way.
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