TAMPA, Florida – Tom Brady threw 379 yards and four touchdowns, helping Super Bowl defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers kick off the NFL season with a 31-29 error win over the Dallas Cowboys Thursday night.
With seats in a fully-fledged NFL stadium for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Ryan Succop won it with a 36-yard field goal with 2 seconds left. Brady set it up with a last-minute drive headed to the same field where the Bucs became the first team to play and win a Super Bowl at their home stadium seven months ago.
“Obviously, there’s a lot to clean up,” Brady said after completing 32 of 50 passes with two interceptions.
The Bucs, hoping to become the first team to repeat as champions since Brady led the 2003 and 2004 New England Patriots to consecutive titles, spun the ball four times.
“We won,” the five-time Super Bowl MVP said, “but we know it was far from perfect.”
For Brady, a seven-time champion, it was the 300th start of the regular season in a brilliant 22-year career, a record for a quarterback. The 44-year-old also joined Drew Brees as the only players to throw more than 300 yards in a game 100 times.
Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown took touchdown passes in the first half and the Bucs (1-0) extended their winning streak to nine games that began last December. Brady’s second pass of the night to Gronkowski increased the defending champions 28-19. Succop’s field goal came after Greg Zuerlein put the Cowboys ahead 48 yards with 1:24 left.
“As I told our guys, a long time ago I learned that we learn nothing more from losing than you from almost losing. We have a lot to learn,” Bucs coach Bruce Arians said. “Obviously, I was not satisfied with the start of the game, I loved the goal. Our boys are winners, they will finish ”.
Dak Prescott threw 403 yards and three TDs in Dallas in his first game since suffering a serious ankle injury that ended his 2020 season after just five games. The sixth-year professional did not play preseason after forcing his right shoulder at the start of the training camp and throwing limitations were not lifted until about two weeks before the opening.
The Cowboys never beat Brady, who improved to 6-0 against them, with five of the wins during his historic 20-year career with the New England Patriots.
But Prescott, with the help of a renewed Dallas defense that forced a uproar and intercepted a pass that looked at Leonard Fournette’s hands to establish a touchdown and a field goal, pushed the defending champions to the limit in front of a crowd of 65,566 without masks.
Ultimately, however, Brady made the Cowboys pay for problems that contributed to Dallas only scoring 16 points in the first half. In addition to losing a 31-yard field goal, Zuerlein had an extra point on the vertical left during the second quarter.
Seven of the Cowboys’ first eight possessions began or ended in Tampa Bay territory, though Prescott still faced a nine-point deficit before Dallas got between 28 and 26 receiving 21 yards from Amari Cooper. with less than a minute into the third quarter.
Cooper finished with 13 catches for 139 yards, including a 5-yard TD catch in the second quarter. CeeDee Lamb had a 22-yard reception for the Cowboys, who finished 6-10 with Prescott losing the last 11 games last season.
Brady was intercepted twice, once in a pass of despair at the end of the first half. Ronald Jones and Chris Godwin also lost traps, with the latter’s error preventing the Bucs from withdrawing the game in the final minutes.
Brown received five receptions for 121 yards, including a 43-yard TD before the break. Godwin had nine catches for 105 yards, but collided with the Cowboys 1 to stop a potential boost before Prescott led Dallas to Zuerlein’s field goal.
Due to attendance restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, the largest crowd in any NFL game last season was 24,845 for the Super Bowl played at Raymond James Stadium in February.
Fans arrived Thursday night for a brief pre-match ceremony, celebrating Tampa Bay’s second championship, the first in nearly two decades. They roared as co-owner Bryan Glazer approached the microphone and reminded them that the Bucs are the only franchise that has been proclaimed a crown on their turf.
“One thing was missing,” Glazer said. “All of you.”