Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman threw three touchdown passes for the third game in a row as the Buccaneers snapped a nine-game road losing streak with a 36-17 victory at Minnesota.
The Buccaneers, who had not won away from home since a victory in September of last year at Minnesota, improved to 3-4 to claim sole possession of second in the NFC South division. The Vikings, second in the NFC North, fell to 5-3.
No prior Tampa Bay quarterback has thrown so many touchdown passes over so many games as Freeman, who completed 19-of-36 passes against the Vikings for 262 yards.
“You get more and more excited,” Freeman said. “You can spread the ball around week in and week out. We have a lot of talented players.”
Rookie running back Doug Martin ran the ball 29 times for 135 yards and a touchdown and caught three passes for 79 yards and a touchdown as Tampa Bay dominated possession time.
“I just wanted to come out and play Buc football, adequately run the ball,” Martin said. “The blockers did a nice job opening up some holes. We were being more physical. I just did my job. I might feel tired tomorrow or the next day.”
Tampa Bay jumped ahead 13-0 with Freeman sandwiching a 1-yard touchdown toss to Erik Lorig between field goals of 28 and 40 yards by Connor Barth.
Christian Ponder put Minnesota on the scoreboard with an 18-yard touchdown pass to Percy Harvin but Freeman answered with a 3-yard touchdown throw to Mike Williams before Blair Walsh’s 51-yard field goal pulled the Vikings within 20-10 at half-time.
Freeman put the Bucs ahead 27-10 with a 64-yard touchdown pass to Martin just 81 seconds into the third quarter and Barth added a 38-yard field goal to put Tampa Bay ahead by 20 points.
Adrian Peterson ran 64 yards for a Vikings touchdown but Tampa Bay answered on a 1-yard touchdown run by Martin, although a conversion throw was missed to leave the visitors ahead by the final margin.
The high-flying Atlanta Falcons, the NFL’s last unbeaten team at 6-0, tries to continue a perfect season when they visit Philadelphia (3-3) as Michael Vick leads his new club, the Eagles, against the Atlanta squad he guided before being jailed for his role in a dogfight gambling ring.
National Conference NFC West division leader San Francisco (5-2) will try to keep that tag at Arizona (4-3) on Monday night while the NFC East-leading New York Giants (5-2) visit Dallas (3-3) and NFC North leader Chicago (5-2) will play host to Carolina (1-5).
Only three teams in the AFC have winning records and two of them, division leaders Houston (6-1) and Baltimore (5-2) are idle this weekend, with Buffalo and Cincinnati also enjoying a bye week.
The other AFC front runner above .500, AFC East leader New England (4-3), will visit St. Louis (3-4).
Other games Sunday find San Diego at Cleveland, Seattle at Detroit, Miami at the New York Jets, Washington at Pittsburgh, Jacksonville at Green Bay, Oakland at Kansas City, Indianapolis at Tennessee and New Orleans at Denver.
Freeman powers Tampa Bay over Minnesota
