They did it!  It doesn’t matter how they got there, but they did it.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are NFC South Champions for the fourth consecutive season.  They came from behind to beat the Saints at Ray-Jay, 27-19.  And Mike Evans has his eleventh straight 1,000 season.

Let’s just skip past the first half, because that was as bad as it gets.  The first 30 minutes was a Todd Bowles special.  Heck, it looked grim for Tampa Bay for quite a while.

But in the second half, especially the fourth quarter, the Bucs turned it around. A TD reception by Payne Durham.  Another one by Jalen McMillan – an outstanding throw and catch.  A few plays earlier, McMillan made arguably the play of the game: a long catch on fourth down that was brought back 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.  Then late in the fourth, Bucky Irving took a backward pitch and ran it in to put the Bucs up by 8.  But these are the Bucs, so you knew they’d try to let the Saints come back at the end.  New Orleans got down to about Tampa Bay’s 30-yard line, but the Bucs turned the Saints over on downs.

But there was one more order of business: Mike Evans needed 5 yards to reach 1,000.  The Bucs came out in the shotgun, and Baker Mayfield found him for a 9-yard reception to give him the milestone.  Oh, and that last catch got big Mike an extra $3 million.  The crowd at Ray-Jay went nuts.  What an insane moment to end the game.

Next up – the playoffs!  We’ll find out later tonight who the Bucs will host next weekend, and when.

Photo courtesy: Tampa Bay Buccaneers