- Replacement glory. Undrafted free agent Milestone Daniels had a cinematic showing on Thursday night. Making his second career start — and doing so in prime time against one of the most popular teams in North American sports — Daniels didn’t let the moment get too big for him. Instead, he was too fast for the Cowboys, too poised and too good. Daniels became only the second UDFA quarterback to start and defeat the Cowboys, joining Washington’s Ed Rubbert in 1987. That game was also a prime-time affair, a memorable Monday night amid a strike-shortened season in which Washington’s replacement players bested Dallas. It was the inspiration for the movie “The Replacements.” On this evening, Daniels did his best Shane Falco impression from the start. He scrambled like a madman from the opening drive, fearless and fast, holding the ball a bit too long, but it didn’t matter. On an odyssey of a 15-play, 73-yard march, Daniels rushed twice for 11 yards and was 8-of-8 passing for 49 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown pass to Bucky Irving. In his first start filling in for an injured Baker Mayfielda close loss last week to the Green Bay Packers, Daniels looked overwhelmed at times but showed promise. In this one, Daniels completed 19 of 25 pass attempts for 189 yards, the TD and rushed for 23 yards, but more impressively, he ignited a stagnant 28th-ranked total offense and an 0-4 squad to its first win and the offense’s finest performance of the year. Mayfield will heal up and return, but this glorious showing from Daniels will be remembered for quite some time.
- Deplorable night from Dallas D. A porous defense that was viewed as the 2025 Cowboys’ downfall is an ill that isn’t close to being remedied in 2026. At home facing a lowly ranked Buccaneers offense with an undrafted rookie at the helm, Dallas, conceivably, was looking at a get-right game. Instead, this was a prime-time viewing of all that’s wrong. Tampa Bay racked up a season-high 419 yards of offense while playing turnover-free ball for the first time this year. Once upon a time an All-Pro, DaRon Bland (allowed three receptions on five targets for 91 yards, dropped potential pick-six) was dreadful, and fellow cornerback Reddy Steward (five receptions on five targets for 25 yards, TD) wasn’t much better. New addition Joey Porter Jr. could’ve helped, but he was ruled out prior to the game due to an illness. Jalon Daniels was pressured just seven times, and the Bucs rushed for 241 yards. After the Bucs’ lengthy opening drive, they were held scoreless in the first half but erupted in the second half. Tampa obliterated and embarrassed the Cowboys, scoring touchdowns on back-to-back drives that took just seven plays and equated to 161 yards and 14 points. The Bucs added a field goal on their third drive of the latter half, and this looked like a laugher. The closeness of the final score doesn’t truly encapsulate just how problematic Dallas’ defense looked again.
- Bad night for Bowles. Todd Bowles and the Buccaneers avoided the franchise’s first 0-5 start since 2013, but the night didn’t end well in more ways than one. Most concerning was that Bowles went down to a knee on the sidelines during the end of the game in a concerning scene. Prior to that, he made a call that awoke a sleeping Cowboys offensive giant and nearly squandered a stellar Buccaneers night. With Tampa leading, 24-10, with 8:36 to play, Bowles elected to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the Cowboys’ 1-yard line. A field goal would have put the Bucs up by three scores and seemingly salted away a win. Instead, Bowles said go for it and Sean Tucker was stuffed. The Buccaneers head coach is known for being aggressive on defense. That paid off Thursday as Dak Prescott looked out of sync for the majority of the night. However, his unconventional aggression when it comes to rolling the dice on the offensive side of the ball threw the Cowboys a life preserver. Prescott and Co. responded with a 10-play, 99-yard TD drive. A Prescott incompletion on the two-point try gave the Bucs an eight-point cushion, but Tampa Bay’s offense had lost its mojo and went three-and-out to give the Cowboys one more chance. Alex Anzalone’s interception on a tipped ball sealed the victory, but there was no reason for Tampa to have to escape with this one.
- Dak and Co. lost in lights. Ugly as the Cowboys’ defensive performance was, Dak Prescott and the offense weren’t much prettier. It started well enough when Dallas marched 70 yards on nine plays to score on the game’s first drive, but after that, the Cowboys were held to three points over their next seven drives. Prescott looked out of sorts and CeeDee Lambcoming off a career-best 17-reception showing, was held to one catch for 4 yards in the opening half. More problematic was he left early with a quad injury. Late in the game, the body language and expressions of the Cowboys on the sidelines looked like those of a team down 44-10, rather than 24-10. When the Cowboys held the Bucs on fourth-and-goal, Prescott and his squad were clearly awoken, but it wasn’t to be. They had three total turnovers and were stymied by the Bucs’ blitz and stellar games in coverage by the Zion McCollum and Jacob Parrish. Parrish gave up some big plays late, but for the most part, the Bucs’ defense came to play and the Cowboys’ offense did not.
- Big night for Bucky. Jalon Daniels was the feel-good story for Tampa, but Bucky Irving was the engine driving them. Irving was stellar to the tune of a career-high 165 rushing yards and two total touchdowns. Unbelievably, it was the third-year back’s first career game with multiple touchdowns (5-yard TD catch in second quarter, 1-yard run in third quarter). His biggest play was the NFL’s second-longest rush of the season in which he wiggled around some shoddy Cowboys tackling for a 72-yard run on the opening play from scrimmage in the second half. On the next play, Emeka Egbuka scored his first career rushing TD on a 14-yard end-around. On the Bucs’ final drive, it was Irving who clinched it after Anzalone’s pick. Once more, Irving broke loose, gaining 22 yards on second-and-12 to allow Daniels to kneel away the win. If Irving can hit his stride against defenses of a better ilk than the Cowboys’, it bodes huge for the Bucs.
Next Gen Stats Insight for Buccaneers-Cowboys (via NFL Pro): Bucky’s Irving’s 72-yard run in the third quarter — the second-longest rush of the season — covered a total distance of 90.50 yards and saw Irving reach a top speed of 20.43 mph.
NFL Research: Tampa Bay’s first offensive drive, in which Bucky Irving caught a 5-yard touchdown on the 15th play, encompassed 73 yards and 10 minutes 58 seconds. It was the longest drive in terms of time elapsed for Tampa Bay since Nov. 4, 2007, against the Arizona Cardinals (11:59). It was the third-longest Buccaneers drive since 2000.
Source: www.nfl.com
