Buccaneers 31, Cowboys 29:
Brady leads Super Bowl champs to win on late field goal.
Tom Brady threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns, helping the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers open the NFL season with a mistake-filled 31-29 victory over the Cowboys on Thursday night in Tampa, Fla.
With seats in a NFL stadium filled to full capacity for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Ryan Succop won it with a 36-yard field goal with two seconds remaining. Brady set up the field goal with a last-minute drive directed on the same field where the Bucs became the first team to play and win a Super Bowl in its home stadium seven months ago.
For Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl winner, it was the 300th regular-season start in a sparkling 22-year career — a record for a quarterback. The 44-year-old also joined Drew Brees as the only players to throw for 300-plus yards in a game 100 times.
Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown caught first-half touchdown passes for the Bucs, who extended their winning streak to nine games dating to December. Brady’s second TD pass of the night to Gronkowski put the champs up 28-19. Succop’s field goal came after Greg Zuerlein put the Cowboys ahead with a 48-yarder with 1:24 to go.
Dak Prescott threw for 403 yards and three TDs for Dallas in his first game since suffering a severe injury ankle that ended his 2020 season after just five games. The sixth-year pro didn’t play in the preseason after straining his right shoulder early in training camp, and limitations on his throwing weren’t lifted until about two weeks before the opener.
The Cowboys have not beaten Brady, who improved to 6-0 against them, with five of the victories coming during his historic 20-year run with the Patriots.
Prescott, with help from a revamped Dallas defense that forced a fumble and intercepted a pass that glanced off Leonard Fournette’s hands to set up a touchdown and field goal, pushed the defending champs to the limit before 65,566.
Ultimately, though, Brady made the Cowboys pay for kicking woes that contributed to Dallas scoring only 16 points in the opening half. In addition to missing a 31-yard field-goal try, Zuerlein had an extrapoint attempt clank off the left upright in the second quarter.
Seven of the Cowboys’ first eight possessions either started or ended in Tampa Bay territory, yet Prescott still faced a nine-point deficit before Dallas cut its deficit to 28-26 on Amari Cooper’s 21yard scoring reception with less than a minute remaining in the third quarter.
Cooper finished with 13 catches for 139 yards, including a 5-yard TD reception in the second quarter. CeeDee Lamb had a 22-yard scoring reception for the Cowboys, who finished 6-10 with Prescott missing the final 11 games of last season.
Brady completed 32 of 50 passes and was intercepted twice, one on a desperation pass at the end of the first half. Ronald Jones and Chris Godwin also lost fumbles, with the latter’s mistake preventing the Bucs from putting away the game in the closing minutes.