The final contest of the 2023 Super Wild Card Weekend took place in Tampa Bay as the 8-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosted the 12-5 Dallas Cowboys. The road team was victorious as the Cowboys defeated the Bucs 31-14 to pick up their first road playoff win since the 1992-93 season.
Dak Prescott was a man on a mission as he ended the contest with five total touchdowns and 329 total yards in the game. Two of Prescott’s four touchdown passes went to arguably his favorite target, tight end Dalton Schultz; Schultz added five more catches for 95 yards along with the two scores. Aside from his play, Prescott had this look in his eye that he was more than focused and ready to play some playoff football.
In the receiving department, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup each had a receiving touchdown of their own. In his first playoff game since being named a first-time Pro Bowler, tailback Tony Pollard had an excellent showing, finishing with 77 yards on fifteen carries to go along with three catches for twelve yards.
On the defensive side for Dallas, their superstar multi-positional second-year player Micah Parsons had another heavily impactful game as he had two tackles for loss, two pass deflections, plus two quarterback hits and a sack on Tom Brady. Something that stood out for the Cowboys was their ability to deflect passes, as six of their players deflected twelve of Brady’s passes.
As for the Bucs, they were never able to get it going on either side; on the offense, it was their usual problem this year of not being able to establish a run game, therefore overly relying on Brady and their passing offense. Leonard Fournette finished with just eleven yards on five rushes and could not contribute heavily on such few opportunities. With that said, one of the only bright spots on the night was the play of rookie running back Rachaad White; in his first career postseason game, he finished with 41 yards on seven attempts and had four catches for 36 yards.
Simply put, the Cowboys were the overall better team, which was shown throughout this game.
Something of note regarding Dallas, kicker Brett Maher missed an NFL record four extra point attempts; therefore, a decision must be made quickly to determine whether to keep Maher or to pick up another kicker for their upcoming matchup in the divisional round.
The Cowboys will now head to San Francisco to face off against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, January 22, at 6:30pm ET.
As for Tampa, it will be another drama-filled offseason as they await along with the rest of the football world on what Tom Brady will decide to do next.
Something of note, with a little over two minutes to go in the contest, Buccaneers wideout Russell Gage suffered a scary-looking hit that would lead to him being unable to stand up and, thus, leading the medical staff to bring out a stretcher for the former Falcons receiver. As of now, reports are suggesting that Gage has a concussion and possible neck injury, but the bright side is that he has movement in his extremities. We want to send prayers and well wishes to Russell and his loved ones.
Gage has now taken to social media to thank everyone for the support and to let everyone he is doing great.
https://twitter.com/GageRussell/status/1615424099676786692?s=20&t=J3w5tEKOFotYgYkOA0qYVQ
Let us know what you think about the Cowboys eliminating the Buccaneers by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
