It took five games, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a win.
The Bucs defeated the Dallas Cowboys on prime time in AT&T Stadium on Thursday Night Football to move to 1-4 on the year. It wasn’t the prettiest win, with problems still present and the Cowboys almost coming back, but the Bucs got it done and outplayed the Cowboys to secure the victory 24-16.
It’s a win, but there’s still room for some overreactions after the game. Here are three of them as the Bucs get ready for a long week off after their Thursday Night Football matchup:
David Walker Is the Buccaneers’ Best Edge Rusher
Walker is playing what is technically his rookie season after he tore his ACL in training camp last year, and boy, has he made the most of it. He pressured quarterback Dak Prescott multiple times on Thursday, disrupting the passing game and helping the defense in a big way. He also tipped a ball in coverage that resulted in a Yaya Diaby interception.
Walker is OLB5 on the depth chart behind Rueben Bain Jr., Yaya Diaby, Al-Quadin Muhammad and Anthony Nelson. So far this year, he’s been better than all of them, and he needs the snaps to match.
Jalon Daniels Has Proven This Coaching Staff Right
Yes, this Cowboys defense is awful. But quarterback Jalon Daniels has executed fairly well these last two weeks, and he’s played better than most expected him to for an undrafted free agent.
The Bucs took a chance on him after the draft and took an even bigger chance on him by making him QB2. Some were skeptical about what he could do as a UDFA, especially now that the Bucs need him to play, but he’s done exactly what he needed to do and played about as well as he can over these past two games to prove the Bucs were right to gamble on him. He wasn’t perfect — he almost threw a disastrous pick six — but he has run the offense and got a win out of it.
Eventually, Mayfield will be back. But the Bucs will feel very comfortable with Daniels behind him.
There’s No Fix to These Offensive Penalties
The Bucs had an absolutely brutal night of penalties in the win, with 13 penalties for 87 yards. A good chunk of those were offensive penalties, with everything from holding to false starts plaguing Tampa Bay throughout the night.
The Bucs have no discipline on the offensive side of the ball. When the play is in motion, wideouts and the quarterback end up in various places the Bucs line doesn’t expect them to, and as a result, the team suffers from a good number of penalties every game.
There doesn’t seem to be a fix to these issues in sight, even with this win. The Bucs have to be smoother in their entire operation from the ground up to find a way not to go backwards every week.
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