Four weeks of nothing, and then Tampa Bay figured out the obvious. Hand the ball off. The Buccaneers beat the Cowboys 24-16 on Thursday night, and they did it by running for 241 yards against a Dallas defense that had no answer for any of it.
That is the whole story. Tampa Bay piled up 419 total yards and barely needed to throw. Todd Bowles, who spent the first month of the season as the consensus pick to be the first coach fired, is 1-4 instead of 0-5.
Bucky Irving Was the Entire Offense
Irving carried 21 times for 165 yards and a touchdown, then added two catches for 10 yards and another score. Two touchdowns, 175 yards from scrimmage, and a Dallas front seven that looked like it wanted to be somewhere else.
Jalon Daniels made his second start in place of the injured Baker Mayfield and went 19-of-25 for 189 yards and a touchdown. He was not asked to win the game. He was asked not to lose it, and he did that cleanly.
The third quarter decided everything. Tampa Bay outscored Dallas 17-0 and outgained them 197 yards to 59 in those 15 minutes. A game that was 10-7 at halftime stopped being competitive in about nine minutes of football.
The Fourth-and-Goal Was Indefensible
With 8:36 left and a two-score lead, Bowles went for it on fourth-and-goal from the Dallas 1. Sean Tucker got stopped. Dallas then drove 99 yards in 10 plays, George Pickens caught an 18-yard touchdown, and the two-point try failed to make it 24-16.
Take the field goal there and this is a 13-point game with no drama. Bowles coached that sequence like a man who has been told his record needs to look better, not like a man protecting a lead. It nearly cost him.
He survived because his defense made plays. Yaya Diaby picked off Dak Prescott. Miles Killebrew forced a fumble that Kevin Knowles recovered. On the final drive, a Prescott pass bounced off Jake Ferguson’s hands and Alex Anzalone intercepted it with 1:16 to go.
Dallas Has a Real Problem
Prescott threw for 316 yards on 42 attempts with a touchdown and two interceptions. Pickens caught nine of them for 130 yards. Those are numbers that look fine on a stat sheet and mean nothing when your team gets gashed for 241 yards on the ground.
The Cowboys are 2-3 and now get a mini-bye before Green Bay on October 18. They need that time. A defense that gives up this kind of rushing night to a one-win team is not a defense that holds up in the NFC.
As for Bowles, one win does not change the math. It buys him a few weeks. Tampa Bay found an identity on a Thursday night in October, which is better than never finding one, and the rest of the season will tell us whether anyone on that staff can repeat it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.