Tom Brady Led A Bucs Game-Winning Drive After The Cowboys Played For A Field Goal Late

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosted the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night to open the 2021 NFL regular season, as Tom Brady and company began their quest to repeat as Super Bowl champions. On the other side, Dak Prescott was looking to show he was all the way back after missing most of last year with a broken ankle — and dealing with some shoulder issues this training camp.

Both offenses showed out in what became a high-scoring affair, led by the two star quarterbacks. Prescott was sensational for the Cowboys, throwing for 403 yards (on 42-of-58 passing), three touchdowns, and one interception, as he seemed to quickly regain his form. On the other side, Brady was likewise excellent with 379 yards (32-of-50), four touchdowns, and two interceptions, and down the stretch the two traded big drives in what ultimately ended in a 31-29 Bucs win.

The craziness started with the Bucs looking to go up two scores with five minutes to play, as Brady connected with Chris Godwin, who fought his way near the goal line but tried too hard to reach the end zone, getting hit and fumbling to give Dallas new life.

On the ensuing drive, Prescott was magnificent in pushing the Cowboys down the field, with some help from his playmakers like CeeDee Lamb who made a tremendous play on 3rd and 11 to get Dallas into Tampa territory.

However, once they got it into field goal range, the Cowboys got conservative, most notably with an inside handoff on 2nd and 10 that only netted them four yards and seemed to signal that, despite a monster game from Prescott and an inability to run the ball all night, the Cowboys were not about to put the game fully in Dak’s hands. After a hold and a short pass to get back to where they started, Greg Zuerlein, who had missed two field goals and an extra point already, came on and drilled the go-ahead field goal, but everyone aside from Mike McCarthy seemed to know what was coming with Tom Brady getting the ball back with over a minute to play and a timeout at his disposal.

After Brady and Gronk got them inside Dallas territory, it was Chris Godwin’s turn for redemption with the most controversial play of the drive, as he hauled in a back shoulder throw from Brady to get them firmly into field goal range thanks to what many felt was a pushoff that should’ve resulted in offensive pass interference.

From there, Brady threw it away three straight times, setting up a Ryan Succop game-winner.

It was a terrific opening game for the NFL, as the stars showed out in big ways, but the talk of the game will be how conservative Dallas got once in field goal range despite Tampa having all of their timeouts at the time, as well as the Godwin no-call on the Bucs game-winning drive.