The Dallas Cowboys vs the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday night football matchup in Dec. 18, 8:30 p.m. ET at AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas. The Cowboys offense is still a match up nightmare for most teams in the NFL. If you think they’ve been “figured out” more and more over these past few weeks, you’ve set your expectations too low for a group of wide receivers that are going to start making more plays.
The Dallas Cowboys are called “America’s Team” for a reason: no NFL club draws better television ratings in the United States. And it’s not a coincidence that this Sunday night the Cowboys play in prime time for the third straight week — and they will again on Monday in Week 16 — when they host the red-hot Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a potential playoff preview. This game wasn’t originally scheduled for a Sunday night slot but was “flexed” into that a few weeks ago because it became such an intriguing matchup with Tampa Bay’s surge.
These teams played one of the ugliest games of 2015, a 10-6 Tampa home win. Winston scored the winning TD on a 1-yard run with 54 seconds to go. The forgettable Matt Cassel was the Dallas QB that day. Obviously both clubs are much better this season, although I’d be a bit worried if I was a Cowboys fan right now.
The vaunted Cowboys offense was on a historic 11-game win streak before running into a buzz saw in the New York Giants. They’ll now try to bounce back against a Buccaneers team that has surged to five-straight wins after losing three of their first eight games.
And Tampa Bay would love nothing better than to hand the Cowboys their first losing streak of 2016.
The Cowboys are 11-2 after dropping a close one to the New York Giants. Don’t miss any breaking news, take a second to sign up for our FREE Cowboys newsletter!
The numbers on the Bucs will floor no one which leaves the door wide open for the Cowboys to win a game they’re heavy favorites to come out on top of.
Tampa Bay depends on big plays and takeaways to defeat teams, and without those two attributes they tend to fall flat on their proverbial faces. They are 15th in the NFL in total offense (355.2 yards per game) and 18th in points scored (22.5). They’re far from world-beaters in any aspect offensively as both their rushing and passing attacks land at 17th (104.8) and 15th (250.3) in the NFL, respectively.
This smells like cinnamon to a Cowboys defense that is fifth in points allowed (18.3) and has only given up 12.5 points in the last two outings.
These teams played one of the ugliest games of 2015, a 10-6 Tampa home win. Winston scored the winning TD on a 1-yard run with 54 seconds to go. The forgettable Matt Cassel was the Dallas QB that day. Obviously both clubs are much better this season, although I’d be a bit worried if I was a Cowboys fan right now.
