Tom Brady: No one feels good about where Buccaneers are at

play

For a player who's made a living off winning contested catches, Mike Evans had what should have been one of the easiest deep touchdown catches of his career.

The closest defender was less than 10 yards away at the time the pass arrived.

The grass in front of him was green. He dropped the thing. The game was not decided by a touchdown.

Evans said that no one play was the sole reason for the loss. The life of us went out of control. It took me awhile to play again. We're taught to play the next play, but it was difficult because it was one of the best in the game.

The Bucs fell in stunning fashion to the panthers on Sunday as they dropped their fourth game in a row to fall to 3-4. They faced a team they were expected to beat by double digits, led by a backup quarterback and lacking a lot of star power.

Brady, who finds himself below.500 seven games into the season for the first time since 2002, said "No one feels good about where we're at, no one feels good about how we're playing or what we're doing"

All of us are in it. We need to pull ourselves out of it.

Multiple players sat at their lockers and stared at the floor in shock, but coach Todd Bowles wasn't at a loss for words.

We aren't playing well. He said that they weren't playing well as a team. We're not doing a good enough job. It's all around. We're not getting enough points on the board. We need to stop them more on defense. We have to wear this on our sleeves. We need to be grown ups. How many people can deal with adversity? Right now, it's as dark as it will be.

Guys who are going to step up are going to show up this week. They are going to lead. They are going to coach. We are going to dig and keep our heads down. There is a football game. Either you can or you cannot. We are going to see how many people fall when it's dark and how many people step up and start playing better.

"We as a team, starting with me and the coaches, and the players have to be accountable as well -- it's a dark day for us losing the way we did and with the mistakes that we had," he said. Picking up your shirt by the tail is the only thing you can do. To a man, we have to own it, we have to stand up here, and we have to start digging.

Touted as one of the best offenses in the league, the Bucs have gone from an average of 31.43 points per game last season to just 16.71 points this season. Leonard Fournette ran up the middle on a third-and-1 in the third quarter, but was stopped on a fourth-and-1 pitch. The team had three dropped balls.

With 13:53 to go in the fourth quarter, Brady failed to connect on three straight passes to Russell Gage, Evans and Chris Godwin, forcing them to settle for a field goal.

There were multiple communication issues and coverage busts due to the absence of Carlton Davis, who missed the game with a hip injury, and Sean Murphy-Bunting, who was held out with a thigh injury. Cornerback Jamel Dean didn't go deep when DJ Moore scored a 20 yard touchdown. The rookies hesitated and were out of position on PJ Walker's touchdown throw.

Through seven games last year, the Bucs were the league's top-ranked run defense, giving up 67.43 rushing yards per game, but they have surrendered 118.29 rushing yards per game this year. On Sunday, they gave up 173 rushing yards with a 60-yard run from D'Onta Foreman and a 17-yard touchdown run by Chuba Hubbard.

It will be a big test for us. We'll find out where we are. Evans said that they would see what they were made of. We've been here before, that's for sure." We have been through difficult times. We know how to keep playing. It is going to hurt. The 24 hour rule will be done by us. We have to prepare for the Baltimore Ravens. Thursday is a good day to play. We have to get it.

"We're all checked in," the coach said when asked if he was worried about players starting to mentally check out. We are not playing well enough.