The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys do battle Monday in the NFL NFC Wild Card round from Raymond James Stadium.
The Dallas Cowboys enter as the #5 seed after going 12-5 in the regular season. Dak Prescott has thrown for 2,860 yards, 23 touchdowns and 15 interceptions on 66.2% passing while Tony Pollard leads the Cowboys in rushing with 1,007 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns and Ezekiel Elliott has 876 rushing yards with 12 TDs as well. CeeDee Lamb leads Dallas’ receiving group with 107 grabs for 1,359 yards with 9 touchdowns while Noah Brown and Dalton Schultz each have 500+ receiving yards as well this season. On defense, Donovan Wilson has a team-high 101 total tackles while Micah Parsons has a team-high 13.5 sacks this season.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers come in as the NFC South Champions after an 8-9 mark last season. Tom Brady has thrown for 4,694 yards, 25 touchdowns and 9 interceptions on 66.8% passing while Leonard Fournette has a team-high 668 rushing yards this season. Mike Evans also has a team-high 1,124 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns while Chris Godwin has 1,023 receiving yards and Leonard Fournette has 523 receiving yards and 3 TDs as well this season. On defense, Dein White and Lavonte David each have 124 total tackles with White logging 5.5 sacks this season.
Dallas is 0-4 ATS in their last 4 playoff games and 0-3-1 ATS in their last 4 games against a team with a losing record while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 games overall. Tampa Bay is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a winning record and 3-12-1 ATS in their last 16 games overall while the under is 15-5 in their last 20 games against the NFC.
I get the case to be made for either side in this game, but I’m backing Tampa Bay here. I still don’t trust the Cowboys to wake up and put forth their best effort to make it out of the wild card round for the first time in a while, but as bad as Tampa Bay’s been, they still have Tom Brady leading the offense and he’s fully capable of leading the Pats to a win so I’ll side with the Bucs here.