TAMPA -- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers inflated two Silver Lombardi trophies on the night, unveiling a video featuring pirate ships, swords, fire and players in between, and then announcing the same with videos of the same players. As for how happy they are that fans are back, the NFL's season opener managed to reward fans — all fans — on their long-awaited return to football. Smoke, hoarseness, flag waving, noise. Flexibility. tirelessness. It was all back then, with millions of fans across the country missing out on watching last season in person, and a promise that both the Bucks and the Cowboys could deliver in the new.
It seemed entirely appropriate that fans here screamed for a field goal coming from behind, which was kicked off in a 31-29 thriller with seven seconds remaining, before it even hit the plane of the 5-yard line. Can clean Bucs fans had waited a long time - through a pandemic and a Super Bowl - to cheer on their team. They couldn't wait any longer.
"There was no doubt that we were going to win the game," said head coach Bruce Arian. "with them ..."
"Snow" was definitely Tom Brady, and while everyone had seen his story before—a game-winning drive with less than 2 minutes to spare—he wasn't entirely thrilled with the nail-biter. The process of defending a Super Bowl championship shouldn't have started with four turnovers, and Brady's scream as he walked off the field told that part of the story. Ariane specifically mentioned wanting lower turnover during the summer, and Brady said the obvious - there was a lot to clean up.
But Brady somehow looked better, more mechanically perfect than ever. His knee is healthy, and his comfort level with his receivers - a work in progress for much of last season - was evident. Two opening throws—one thumped through traffic to Rob Gronkowski, another deep throw to Antonio Brown—showed what this offense is now capable of, as did a pinpoint-back-to-back Chris Godwin on a game-winning drive. Shoulder throw was done. .
"In tough ballgames, we have a ton of confidence. To me, just, don't put yourself in that position," Arian said. "Let's play better and we should have a 14-point lead ... The confidence is real. It's earned."
Brady was 32 out of 50 with four touchdown passes and fulfilled his quarterback coach Clyde Christensen's prediction during the summer: A healthy and familiar Brady would lead an offense while at his most efficient in Super Bowl LV, Still not clicking. all cylinders. Now, presumably, it's drawing to a close — Christensen insisted they were still operating a snap deficit this summer — with massive firepower. Books are not a finished product; Ariane's smiling face at the end of the game underlined this point. But the offense didn't fire for nearly 12 weeks last season, and Brady played the season on a bad knee. The knee is now healed, and the offense was on fire before this season was 12 minutes old.
"Last year sucked after the first game," Brady said of the 34-23 loss to the New Orleans Saints that began his Tampa stint. "I've come a long way from 365 days ago. It felt quite lonely after the game last year. Again, we won. That's great. But we know it was far from perfect. , and we have to get back to work and clean up a lot of stuff."
However, the Bux's chances of success were never really in doubt, although somehow Brown feels people are sleeping on the defending champion. He returned all 22 starters on his Super Bowl team in keeping with this trajectory. It's the Cowboys who started this season with questions, and they left the game with the only answers that really mattered.
Dak Prescott is healthy, throwing with precision and playing without any clear boundaries.
If defeat in a 17-game season could almost be beside the point, it was. The Cowboys will not face the Bucs again in the regular season and will certainly face some defenses that discourage races like those of Tampa. All-Pro guard Jack Martin will return from the reserve/COVID-19 list. Zeke Elliott will run for over 33 yards. The revamped defense won't try to stop the Brady attack every week. And the Cowboys' offense will be similar to the one they played in the first quarter of last season, before their franchise quarterback lost for the year. It's worth remembering that, according to NFL Research, Prescott has had at least 400 passing yards in four games since the start of the 2020 season, the most by any player in the NFL, regardless of where he was in that campaign. Missed the last 11 games. .
Prescott said the Cowboys want to be aggressively more balanced than they were on Thursday night. But if Prescott can continue to throw as fearlessly to his ankle or shoulder as he did tonight—he was 42 out of 58 for 403 yards and three touchdowns—he wouldn't lose many, and it's hard to imagine. That's how Dallas won't be in the NFC East race until the end.
"We played better supplemental football than we did during our time," Prescott said of the offense and defense working together against the Bucs.
Prescott acknowledged that a team can be great and still lose. The Cowboys might not be great yet, but they saw what their greatness looked like across the field, and they were closer to it than expected.
"The margin of error is slim in the NFL," Brady said. "One or two plays, the game always goes on like this."
For fans who may have forgotten how these games go while they're away, Thursday was a reminder of how spine-tingling they are.