Joe Buck did not want to be right. With 1:20 remaining in their game Monday against the Baltimore Ravens, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a third-and-17 at their own 18, down 10 points. They had no timeouts.
In Buck’s mind, it was time to concede the game.
“I know it’s a 10-point game, and I know you don’t give up on games, but at some point, you want to get out of here and live to fight another day,” said Buck, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” play-by-play voice, on the broadcast.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield converted the first down completion to wideout Chris Godwin. It was immediately apparent, however, that something was wrong.
Godwin crumbled to the ground, injured.
“Oh no,” Buck said on the air. “He can’t get up. I’m told from our production truck, we are not going to show the replay.”
(Content warning: The video below of the call shows Godwin’s injury, too.)
Godwin’s ankle, it was later revealed, was dislocated. He will likely miss the remainder of the season after surgery on his ankle.
Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles had his reasons for trying to play to the end and not give up, even if a comeback was unrealistic. There is an argument for playing the full 60 minutes, and in this case, one big play could’ve still given the Buccaneers an outside chance.
However, Buck, 55, has been calling games for decades, so he has seen a lot, and he thought the Bucs would be better off either running the ball or taking a knee.
“I’d rather be wrong,” Buck told The Athletic. “I would rather nothing had happened. Not that anybody is different than anybody else, but Godwin is one of the really great guys in the league.”
Buck said that Bowles knows more than him about his team and he understood where he was coming from.
“None of these guys, none of these head coaches, want to look like they’re giving up on a game, but from where I sat at that moment, it was a really physical game that whole night, and it felt like we have already seen Mike Evans go out with a bad hamstring and that didn’t look good,” Buck said.
“They are kind of down to Godwin and everybody else. It just ran through my mind, after a really physical game, like: ‘What is there really to gain?’”
Following the loss, Bowles was asked why Godwin was still in the game with the outcome almost certainly out of reach.
“He’s a player, we’re trying to win the ballgame,” Bowles said. “We’re still down 10, we’re trying to get extra points and kick another onside kick, and this happened. We didn’t have that many receivers left as it was, so we play what we got.”
After the game, which the Ravens won, 41-31, Buck said he walked out of the booth with a pit in his stomach.
“You kind of feel sick that happened,” Buck said.
GO DEEPER
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(Photo of Joe Buck: Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images; video: courtesy of ESPN)