It’s finally here! The NFL season opened on Thursday night with our beloved Buccaneers taking on the Dallas Cowboys. Before the game, the 66 thousand fans in attendance were treated to seeing the stadium sides that read “2020 Champions”. With the Bucs bringing back all 22 starters from last year, pundits have largely alluded to the fact that they will probably repeat this year. This game perfectly showed that.
The Bucs came out hot, especially Tom Brady, who just keeps defying father time and keeps making playing in the NFL look easy. This man is 44! In the first half Brady was electric, connecting on throws in tight coverage, finding players downfield (most notably Antonio Brown), and getting his release time down to a ridiculous .35 seconds. Brady would end up finishing with 379 yards and 4 touchdowns. Quite a start for the 44-year-old.
Another player that surprised me with his play was Antonio Brown, who looked just like the All-Pro receiver we saw just a couple of seasons ago. From a purely football-playing standpoint, Brown can hang with the best of them and showed it in this game. Brown caught 5 passes for a whopping 121 yards and one touchdown.
Let’s not forget that the Buccaneers played great as well. If we were facing any other quarterback besides Dak Prescott (the boy can absolutely ball) then this would have been a very different game. The defensive player that concerned me the most was Jamel Dean, who often looked a step behind the play and out of sync with his teammates.
Another aspect that wasn’t running well for the Buccaneers was the run game. In one of my earlier articles, I alluded to this, and lo and behold, it came to fruition. The Buccaneers were held to just 52 rushing yards, accented by a Ronald Jones II fumble in the first half. Although the run game was staggered, it’s not a big deal, seeing as they have Tom Brady still playing as if he’s in his prime.
This game was an absolute thriller, and the Buccaneers absolutely showed out tonight! The chemistry was on point, everything just seemed to be clicking for the defending champs. I have to call a spade a spade as well and say that the Cowboys absolutely held their own and were an excellent challenge for the Buccaneers.
All I can say is, the title defense is on!