Brett's Cowboys Corner

The Cowboys will take on the Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football, a game where we were waiting to be flexed out but a good Tampa Bay team and well the value of America’s Team in prime time is just too good to pass up.

The Bucs are playing for something Sunday, they have a 1 game lead on their divison, currently first play in the NFC South at 8-6. This Bucs team has seen a lot of injuries, including losing star WR Chris Godwin.

They saw a 4 game losing streak this season. Going into their bye week and coming out with a 4 game win streak. They will look to extend it Sunday.

OFFENSE

Graham Barton: The Buccaneer’s rookie center was on the Cowboys radar in the 2024 NFL Draft. He had one of the top 5 highest grades for a center, all-time coming out of the combine. Dallas ultimately traded down instead of taking him at 24, and Barton went a few picks later. While the Bucs offensive line has graded highly as a unit, PFF has him graded at below average of NFL centers at 53.9. A highly touted prospect, and will be interesting to watch him handle Osa and Mazi on Sunday.

Baker Mayfield’s 2nd Career

Mayfield has definitely found himself a new home in Tampa Bay. After years with Cleveland, and bouncing around Carolina and Los Angeles, he has found himself a welcoming spot over the past two seasons. He currently is 4th in passing yards and 3rd in touchdown passes.

Watching the film on the Bucs, it is clear they have most of their success in the short catch and run passing game. Mayfield gets the ball out quickly and accurately. He has the 3rd highest passer rating, 113.4, in quick throws.

Mayfield likes to find the flats often, getting his running backs involved in the passing game and letting them be playmakers. He will also find Cade Otten his tight end often, usually as the safety valve.

Baker Mayfield has thrown for 2,238 yards and 20 touchdowns on passes under 10 air yards this season, both the most in the NFL and the most in a single season in his career.

Everything is done in short yardage.

One stat that is positive for Dallas, Mayfield has lost each of his last 8 primetime starts since 2021, making him the only quarterback since 2021 to make at least 5 primetime starts without a win.

Mike Evans Looking For 1k

Mayfield will air it out a couple of times a game. That is because of his big target, Mike Evans. A dominate contested catch receiver, who is looking break 1,000 receiving yards this season for the 11th consecutive year.

Mike Evans has 749 receiving yards in 2024, meaning he needs to average 83.7 receiving yards over his final three games to extend his NFL-record streak.

The Cowboys should look to start DaRon Bland, Israel Mukuamu, and Jourdan Lewis in the slot. With Bland and Izzy on the outside, this will give Dallas the size and physicality they will need to deal with Evans. While Lewis can work Jalen McMillan in the slot.

The Bucs will feed Evans early and often, on slants, posts, out routes, and deep shots. Evans has caught 4 successful go routes this season, and has brought all of them to the endzone.

Since 2018, Evans leads the NFL in touchdown receptions on Go routes (31) while his 67 receptions rank 2nd-most and 1,912 yards ranks 3rd.

Great Protection

This offensive line may be one of the best you will face all season. They are the most consistent at the very least. The starting offensive line (Wirfs-Bredeson-Barton-Mauch-Goedeke) have played together on just over half of the Buccaneers offensive snaps this season (53.1%), the 8th-highest percentage of plays in the NFL.

Luke Goedeke is the only one that has missed significant time. While the guards and center have only missed 10 total snaps together.

You can’t let these lineman get set in their stances, they will block forever. And with the quick pass game of Tampa Bay, they really don’t always need to hold up forever.

When we see sacks against the Bucs, they come on blitzes. Sending the safety or slot corner on the backside can create pressure on Mayfield. We saw Lewis get home on the sack last week. Mayfield will get happy feet in the pocket when he sees pressure, take away his dump offs and give him pressure…he will make mistakes.

This defense has played well, but this is the best passing offense they have seen in awhile, Zimmer will have to get creative this week and especially, Zimmer can’t fear sending an extra linebacker down the middle.

Killer Backfield

Bucs rookie Bucky Irving has ran the ball well for the Bucs this season, while he is not loaded up with a bunch of carries. There is a lot of production coming out of the back field. On just 157 carries, he has totaled 852 yards on 5.6 yards per carry.

Bucky Irving is a shorter runner, but his compact build helps him navigate the field, he catches the ball well and forces people to miss tackles. He has forced a missed tackle on 36.8% of his touches this season, the highest in the NFL

He also has a running partner to assist him. Rachaad White usually gets the start, as he is the veteran but is normally tasked with the tougher runs. Short yardage situations and just pounding it up the middle. He is a little bit better of a blocker in a pass heavy offense. Which also allows him to go into the flats and be a pass catcher, the 4th leader in receiving yards on the Bucs.

DEFENSE

Todd Bowles: Coaching in the NFL since the early 2000’s and serving as a HC of the Jets in 2015, getting them to a 10 win season but in the following years, after drafting Sam Darnold, the Jets did not see a lot of success and parted ways with Bowles. He came to Tampa Bay in 2019 as the DC and got promoted to HC in 2022. He is known to run a lot of deep coverage, the idea is to bend not break with Bowles. He will allow the small gains making sure you don’t shred him with big plays.

Quality Pass Rush and Blitz Heavy

This is a strong defensive line, and they like to bring the pressure. They will send linebackers like Lavonte David, 29 pressures, a league high for middle linebackers and Yaya Diaby, 45 pressures this season, the most by any Buccaneer

The three defensive tackles have dominated the inside and bring the pressure on the guards. Tackle’s Logan Hall and Calijah Kancey have been converting pressures into sacks at a high rate. 1/3rd of the time for Hall and 1/5th of the time for Kancey. The known entity on the inside is Vita Vea, and this rotation has wrecked shop.

This will be a big day for Tyler Smith, Cooper Beebe, and Brock Hoffman. Cooper Rush will need to get the ball out for Dallas, he has not played well with pressure. Rush averages a league low of 4.8 yards per completion when handling pressure.

The Buccaneers have generated 105 quick pressures this season, the 2nd-most in the NFL, and their 2.57 seconds average time to pressure ranks 4th-quickest in the league.

It Will Be Tough To Run

The Buccaneers have loaded the box on 58.2% of plays this season, the highest rate in the NFL. They are designed to stop the run, a skill that has been helping Dallas win games. Rico Dowdle has been key in the past few weeks, Rico usually runs down the middle but he will see a set of elite DT’s his way.

Teams try to avoid the DTs, so much so that teams run to the outside 56% of the time which is amongst a league high. Tampa Bay tackles well and doesn’t allow much more than 3 yards per carry.

Injuries and Struggles In The Secondary

Teams have had success scoring on Tampa by working their way down the field slowly. The secondary will allow a lot of catches in front of them, but do their best to avoid run after the catch.

The Buccaneers have allowed the 7th-fewest yards after the catch per reception this season (5.3), but lead the NFL in allowed completions. They bank on making the tackle.

This Bucs defense has dealt with injuries all season. The main loss this week is likely going to be their safety, Antoine Winfield Jr, who is a leading tackler and is often utilized as a weapon in the blitz game.

I don’t think this is a game where Dallas will be able to keep up with the Bucs offense. The Tampa Bay defense is playing better than the numbers suggest, but their bend don’t break style is complimented with their offense putting up 30 points a night.

TB is playing to stay in 1st of NFC South, a win can help play a role in eliminating some other teams from playoff contention. Which includes the Cowboys, a loss will officially eliminate Dallas but even if Dallas wins, a Washington Commanders win will eliminate the Cowboys regardless.