NFC Notes: Spencer Rattler, Sean Tucker, Buccaneers, Falcons, Saints

Buccaneers

Buccaneers RB Sean Tucker took advantage of an injury to Rachaad White and never looked back on Sunday, rushing 14 times for 136 yards and a touchdown. He also caught three passes for 56 yards and another touchdown.

“Just whatever I got, I wanted to take advantage of it,” Tucker said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “I wasn’t really worried about how many touches I would get. I just wanted to play great out there.”

• Buccaneers LB K.J. Britt was fined $6,231 for Unnecessary Roughness (hit on a defenseless player), and DT Vita Vea was fined $14,069 for Unsportsmanlike Conduct (violent gesture) in Week 5.

Falcons

Atlanta dominated the Panthers in Week 6, rushing for 198 yards en route to a 38-20 win. Falcons RT Kaleb McGary discussed how great it felt to be able to line up and run the ball at will all game.

“It’s amazing. That is the best feeling there is,” McGary said, via Josh Kendall of The Athletic. “To feel like you are not just running the ball — every offensive lineman likes running the ball, that’s half our personality — but to feel yourself impacting the game, you feel yourself marching toward that final W. It’s amazing.”

Atlanta HC Raheem Morris was impressed with his team’s dominance in this game and reflected on how important it was to win three straight divisional games.

“You have to go look at tape and look at those cutups, and you’re saying, ‘They’re able to do anything they want to do,’ that’s impressive,” Morris said. “We talk about outrunning the South, to get three straight wins against the South, that is always awesome, and that’s what we want to be about. Why not just keep winning? Why not us? Somebody’s got to do it.”

Saints

Saints HC Dennis Allen spoke about the debut of rookie QB Spencer Rattler when meeting with the media after the team’s loss to Tampa Bay in Week 6.

“Overall, I thought he did some good things,” Allen said, via a transcript from the team. “There were some encouraging things, some things he’s going to learn from, from a mistake standpoint on his part. I don’t think we did enough around him to help him. It was hard for us to be able to run the football. I thought they really won the interior part of the line of scrimmage, really probably on both sides of the ball on the line of scrimmage. I thought he did some things really well early in the game, in particular the first half. In the second half, it kind of went on. I thought they started pressuring him a little bit more. We weren’t able to be as good in protection, which made it a little more challenging for him.”