Buccaneers Beat the Falcons 16-0 Without Completing a Single Pass - a First in 52 Years

Tampa Bay won a football game on Sunday without completing a pass. The Buccaneers beat the Atlanta Falcons 16-0 in the rain, becoming the first team in 52 years to win a game without a completed pass, National Football Post reported in a file opened by the desk this run.

The ground game did everything. Bucky Irving rushed for a career-high 170 yards and a touchdown, the report states. Irving and Kenny Gainwell, who ran for 116 yards and a career high of his own, are the first pair of Buccaneers running backs to each top 100 rushing yards in a game since Nov. 1, 1998, against Minnesota - exactly 28 years earlier, JoeBucsFan reported. The defense supplied the rest of the margin, intercepting four passes; Tampa Bay is the first team this season with four interceptions in a game, the same report states.

The historical frame is the strange part. The last team to win without completing a pass was Buffalo in September 1974, a 16-12 win over the New York Jets behind O.J. Simpson, in a game where the losing quarterback, Joe Namath, completed only two passes, JoeBucsFan noted, citing the Associated Press's Rob Maaddi for the 52-year span. Tampa Bay also led at halftime without a completion - the second team this century to do that, after the Tim Tebow-led Denver Broncos in 2011, the report added, citing ESPN's Jeff Darlington.

For Florida's football Sunday, it completes a sweep of the unusual: Jacksonville's 42-7 passing showcase over Indianapolis at EverBank Stadium, and Tampa Bay's 16-0 win with no passing at all. The desk reports the rushing and interception figures exactly as the two opened reports state them; the reports differ on the team's total rushing yardage, so no team total is asserted here.