The Atlanta Falcons do so close to 0-5.

They don’t care, and neither should they. For the third time this season, the Falcons found themselves staring at defeat and somehow pulled off a miraculous victory. This time it was a showdown on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Falcons had a huge drive in the final two minutes of regulation to tie the game as the fourth quarter expired. Overtime didn’t last long.

KhaDarel Hodge caught a pass in overtime, broke a tackle and scored a 45-yard touchdown on the first drive of overtime and the Falcons earned a 36–30 overtime victory. Kirk Cousins ​​threw for 509 yards in a fantastic performance. The Falcons are 3-2 after the win, tied with the Buccaneers atop the NFC South.

The Falcons looked ready a few times on Thursday night. But somehow they pulled off an unlikely victory, the third time in five weeks.

An explosive 1st half

The Falcons and Buccaneers had no trouble moving the ball in the first half. They started the evening with a long drive that ended with a Drake London touchdown. The Buccaneers came right back with a Mike Evans touchdown.

Both quarterbacks continued to throw uppercuts. In the first half alone, Cousins ​​completed 21 of 28 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns. Cousins ​​hadn’t played anywhere near that level through the first month of his Falcons career. On the other end, Baker Mayfield was 12 of 15 for 131 yards and three touchdowns. Maybe that all had to do with two tired defenses in a short week — according to Next Gen Stats, the Falcons were the first team all season without quarterback pressure in the first half of a game — but it still made for an entertaining half.

Mayfield’s third touchdown was a fantastic throw. He rolled to his right and stuck it into a well-covered Sterling Shepard in the end zone for a touchdown. There was almost no separation, but Mayfield found a way to squeeze a score into it.

The Buccaneers finally stalled on the Falcons’ final drive of the half and led 24-17 entering halftime. Not counting Tampa Bay’s kneeler period to end the first half, they scored on all four of their possessions in the first half, while the Falcons scored on three of five, with a missed field goal and a punt keeping the offenses from being perfect for rest.

The game is close until deep into the 4th quarter

In the second half the defenses finally tightened up a bit. Yards were harder to find. For the third quarter and first half of the fourth quarter, either team’s only touchdown came when Cousins ​​hit Darnell Mooney for Mooney’s second touchdown of the game.

However, Mooney made a big mistake in the fourth quarter. On third-and-6, Cousins ​​had a nice throw to Mooney, who had gotten open, but he dropped it at about the 15-yard line. Younghoe Koo came in for a 54-yard field goal that was blocked.

It looked like the Buccaneers would win the game a few times after that, but the Falcons wouldn’t go away. Buccaneers rookie running back Bucky Irving was on his way to a first down just before the two-minute warning when safety Jessie Bates III reached his reach and knocked the ball out. Atlanta recovered but couldn’t move the ball, then Cousins ​​threw a fourth-down interception. However, the Falcons still had their timeouts and used them to force a punt.

Then, as he did against the Eagles in Week 2, Cousins ​​put together a great two-minute drill. He hit London up the middle and the Falcons scored on it another second. There was a serious delay of match penalty before Koo’s attempt to tie the match, but it didn’t matter. He hit the ball from 52 yards out and the match ended in extra time. Last week, Koo hit a 58-yard field goal in the final seconds to give the Falcons the victory, and his clutch kick on Thursday night kept the game alive.

The Falcons won the coin toss to start overtime and won it quickly. London left with an injury after extra time, putting Hodge in the spotlight and he came through with the winning score.

Atlanta has three razor-thin wins, but the Falcons aren’t complaining.