The NFL is back where it left off in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers hosting the Dallas Cowboys. This season Tampa Bay can end the longest drought in NFL history without a repeat champion as the 2003-04 Patriots were the last to do so. For Dallas, all eyes are on the return of quarterback Dak Prescott after he broke his ankle in Week 5 last year. Tampa Bay is a 7.5-point favorite at many of the top sportsbooks. Do the champs cover for a fourth game in a row, or do the Cowboys start improving on last year’s league-worst 5-11 ATS record with a crucial upset win?
Dallas Cowboys vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Thursday, September 9, 2021 – 08:20 PM EDT at Raymond James Stadium
Reasons to Like the Cowboys
Unless you were betting against them every week, the Cowboys were the worst bet in the NFL in 2020, going 5-11 ATS. But there is some good news here thanks to regression to the mean. Of the last 44 teams to go 5-11 or worse ATS, only one of them (2007-08 Broncos) had a worse spread record the following season. These 44 teams improved by an average of 3.7 spread wins the following season, and one of the biggest improvements was Dallas in 2016. After going 4-11-1 ATS with four starting quarterbacks in 2015, the Cowboys went with Dak Prescott in 2016 and finished 10-6 ATS. Guess who started four quarterbacks last year and is getting Prescott back this year?
Not many NFL games have closed with lines of exactly a 7.5-point spread and a total of at least 52 points. This would only be the 19th such game since 2001. In the first 18 games, the favorite was 15-3 SU but just 3-15 ATS, a remarkable difference. With Dak Prescott back, the Cowboys should be a formidable offense for Tampa Bay to face right out the gates. In his last three full starts of 2020, Prescott became the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for over 450 yards in three consecutive games.
Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb should explode in his second season. In Prescott’s five starts last year, Lamb averaged 86.6 yards per game, but that number dropped to 45.6 in the final 11 games with backup quarterbacks throwing him the ball.
- Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians is 5-8-1 ATS (.393) as a favorite of 7.5 points or more.
- Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady is 66-60 ATS (.524) as a favorite of 7.5 points or more (3-3 ATS in Tampa Bay with Arians).
- Dallas coach Mike McCarthy is 0-12 SU and 5-6-1 ATS (.458) as an underdog of 7.5 points or more.
- Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott is 3-1 ATS (.750) as an underdog of 7.5 points with three SU wins.
Dallas is rarely this big of an underdog under Prescott. All four of the times they were a 7.5-point underdog came late in the 2018 season. Prescott led the Cowboys to wins in the first three games but failed to cover with a 30-22 loss in the divisional round of the playoffs at the Rams.
Reasons to Like the Buccaneers
Tampa Bay was floundering through 12 weeks last year, but after a late bye week, the team reeled off eight straight wins, including a 31-9 thrashing of the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. The Buccaneers are now the first team in the salary cap era to return all 22 starters from its championship roster. That is remarkable and even a lot of the depth players are back as well.
On paper, Tampa Bay looks to be better on both sides of the ball than the Cowboys. Dallas had one of the worst defenses in the league last year, did not add a ton of new pieces to the lineup, and new defensive coordinator Dan Quinn is the coach who blew two double-digit leads in the fourth quarter of Super Bowls to Tom Brady with the 2014 Seahawks and 2016 Falcons. What a way to start his Dallas tenure.
The Cowboys have also been dealing with COVID, and it was announced over the weekend that All-Pro right guard Zack Martin will be out Thursday night after he was placed on the COVID reserve list. Now a guard will not move the point spread, but that means a lesser player will be in his place, and defensive tackle Vita Vea, one of the only Buccaneers who was injured last year as they were the NFL’s healthiest team, should be ready to feast in this matchup. The Bucs were the top rushing defense last year, so with Martin out, this figures to be a rough night for Ezekiel Elliott on the ground.
Dallas has a historic split going over the last two seasons. The Cowboys have not won a game in which they failed to score at least 30 points since the 2018 NFC Wild Card win against Seattle (24-22). Over the last two seasons, the Cowboys are 14-2 when they score at least 30 points and 0-16 when they do not.
Tampa Bay only allowed three teams to go over 27 points last year, including twice against the Saints, and the Buccaneers have scored at least 30 points in seven straight games. In his career against playoff teams, Prescott is 10-19 SU and 11-18 ATS, including records of 4-11 SU and 6-9 ATS in road games. Tampa Bay still looks like a playoff-caliber team to me. Dallas? We’ll have to find out.
Prediction
Championship banner night in Week 1 is becoming old hat for Brady as this will be his seventh one. The only loss so far was in 2017 to the Chiefs, a 42-27 stunner to open that season. A competitive game here should shock no one, but until someone knocks the chip off this Tampa Bay team’s shoulder, I am going to pick the champs to cover to get my NFL picks started this season.
NFL Pick: Buccaneers -7.5 (-115) with Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
