2021 Game: Cowboys vs Buccaneers, Week 1

 

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as defending Super Bowl champions, get the privilege of kicking off the entire 2021 NFL season on Thursday night, and they'll do it on the very same field they won Super Bowl LV in February. Coming to Raymond James Stadium to share in the annual "Kickoff Game" spotlight are the Dallas Cowboys, who are hoping to see Dak Prescott lift them back into playoff contention after a lost 2020 campaign.

The Buccaneers made history on February 7 when they became the first team in NFL history to win (or even play in) a Super Bowl in their own home stadium. That championship will be celebrated in front of a sold out crowd on Thursday night but Bruce Arians and his crew are eager to turn the page and focus solely on 2021. As Arians has said repeatedly since February, and as his players have echoed on myriad occasions, this is a new Buccaneers team and last year's Lombardi Trophy doesn't do anything to help Tampa Bay win in 2021.

Arians' message about putting in the work is a good one and has been well-received, but there actually is quite a bit about the current team that is familiar. General Manager Jason Licht managed to navigate through a free agency minefield to keep the champions' entire core intact, including every 2020 starter and virtually every key reserve. Where this continuity is likely to have its greatest effect is on the Tom Brady offense, as the legendary quarterback will start his second season in Tampa with a much better grasp of the offense and a greater connection with his talented group of pass-catchers. The Buccaneers are hoping to start the season on the same kind of roll they were on over the last two months of 2020.

Tampa Bay's defense was arguably riding even higher at the end of last season, particularly in a memorable Super Bowl performance that saw the Bucs hold Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs without a touchdown. That defense has a rising star at the middle of it in third-year inside linebacker Devin White plus an exciting new piece for the edge rush rotation in rookie outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. The Bucs will need to get pressure from their front seven on Thursday night to help a young, rising secondary against Prescott and a Dallas offense that rivals Tampa Bay's in terms of top-level talent.

Prescott was on a record-setting pace for passing yards last season before he suffered terrible ankle injury in the Cowboys' fifth game. Because the injury was so severe, Prescott has been under the microscope all offseason in regard to whether he would be ready to go at the start of this season. A shoulder injury that kept him out for much of training camp didn't help, but Prescott is reportedly all set for Thursday night. He'll have a lot of help with the likes of Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, Michael Gallup, Ezekiel Elliott and Dalton Schultz.

The Dallas defense, meanwhile, will get a serious season-opening test as it tries to rebound from a very tough 2020 season. The Cowboys have put in a lot of work to retool that defense in the offseason, most notably with the selection of dynamic Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons in the first round of the draft, but they also have some early-season injury concerns. Rookie cornerback Kelvin Joseph, a second-round pick and possible starter, and starting defensive tackle Neville Gallimore were two of six players Dallas put on injured reserve after the roster cutdown to 53 players.

The Buccaneers and Cowboys have actually met in Week One two times before, with Tampa Bay winning in Dallas in 2001 and the Cowboys getting revenge in Tampa in 2009. Neither game was quite like this one, however. In fact, the Buccaneers have never played in a game quite like this one. When they won Super Bowl XXXVII at the end of the 2002 season, they were sent to Philadelphia the next year for a Monday Night Football showcase in Week One. The Kickoff Game tradition began shortly after that and now the Buccaneers will take part in it for the first time. The title defense officially begins on Thursday night.

GAME AND BROADCAST DETAILS

Dallas Cowboys (0-0) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-0)

Thursday, September 9, 8:20 p.m. ET

Raymond James Stadium (capacity: 65,618)

Tampa, Florida

Television: NBC (Local WFLA Channel 8)

TV Broadcast Team: Al Michaels (play-by-play), Cris Collinswoth (analyst), Michele Tafoya (reporter)

Radio: 98Rock (WXTB, 97.9 FM), Flagship Station

Radio Broadcast Team: Gene Deckerhoff (play-by-play), Dave Moore (analyst), T.J. Rives (sideline)

GAMEDAY INFORMATION

Coming to the game or enjoying pregame festivities? Check out our Tailgate Packages or visit the Buccaneers Gameday Page for everything you need to know about Bucs Beach and more!

ALL-TIME HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES

The Cowboys lead the all-time series with Tampa Bay 13-4, 15-4 if one includes the postseason, and it basically has been as lopsided as that sounds. However, the Buccaneers may now be in position to chip away at that Dallas lead, just like they did two decades ago.

Basically, there was no Bucs-Cowboys rivalry during the first decade-and-a-half of the former club's existence. From 1966-85, Dallas made the playoffs 18 times in 20 seasons and played in five Super Bowls. Midway through that run, the Buccaneers were born as a 1976 expansion team and they got their first crack at the Cowboys in 1977. The quarterback matchup was Roger Staubach against Gary Huff, and Dallas won easily, 23-7. The two teams would meet only seven more times over the next two-plus decades, with the Cowboys taking each contest. It didn't help that seven of those eight games were played in Texas; the Bucs are 1-10 on the road against the Cowboys all-time but a respectable 3-3 at home.

The expansion Buccaneers did make a rather impressive rise to playoff contention in just four years, even advancing to the NFC Championship Game in 1979. That John McKay-Lee Roy Selmon-Doug Williams squad also qualified for the playoffs in 1981 and 1982; the problem was that each of those postseason runs began – and ended – with a trip to Dallas.

The series turned around, at least for a short stretch when the Buccaneers turned things around as a franchise in the latter half of the '90s. The Bucs and Cowboys didn't meet for nearly that entire decade then finally got together again in 2000. The Bucs, coming off a season in which they advanced to the NFC Championship Game for the first time in 22 years, won that meeting handily, 27-7, sparked by Warrick Dunn's 70-yard touchdown run less than five minutes into the game.

The Bucs beat the Cowboys twice more during their first Super Bowl era, 10-6 in Dallas to kick off the 2001 season and 16-0 in Tampa in 2003. The latter of those two games came with the defending Super Bowl XXXVII champions in the middle of an up-and-down title defense season. The defense took over, allowing just nine first downs and 178 yards of offense and getting key interceptions from Jermaine Phillips and Ronde Barber.

After that run, Dallas reestablished control of the head-to-head series, winning seven of the last eight, most recently a tight 27-20 contest near the end of the 2018 season. Two years before that the Buccaneers also went to Dallas late in the season, this time with both teams in playoff contention. Dallas dealt the Bucs' playoff hopes a serious blow with a 26-20 win most famous for running back Ezekiel Elliott's leap into a giant Salvation Army bucket behind the end zone.

Tampa Bay's most recent win in the series came in 2015, and it was another defense-driven decision. The Buccaneers held Dallas to 216 total yards but couldn't pull away thanks to a pair of interceptions thrown by rookie quarterback Jameis Winston. Winston also had a nearly disastrous goal-line fumble erased by a Dallas penalty, after which he ran in the winning touchdown on a bootleg for a 10-6 Bucs lead. Safety Bradley McDougald then sealed the game with an interception.

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