The 2021 NFL regular season gets underway on Thursday 9th September (or technically, 1:20am very early on the Friday morning for us) with the battle between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Stacked Buccs Looking Dangerous
The Buccaneers are entering the season as the reigning Super Bowl champions with a fully stacked roster from top to bottom. They were able to retain all 22 of their starters from their championship run which yet again makes them an automatic contender for the Super Bowl. Also, it’s common knowledge by now that if a team has Tom Brady on it, they are going to be good. Brady has a ton of weapons to throw the football to, with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and Scottie Miller all splitting up the targets again. They also held onto their running back room and should be splitting up the reps between Ronald Jones II and Leonard Fournette.
Safe to say this offense is going to be among the best in the league and shouldn’t have to worry too much about opposing pass rush because their offensive line proved to be a top unit in 2020. Flipping over to their defense, they are pretty good there as well. Devin White and Lavonte David were a lethal linebacker duo last year and are going to be even better this season with another full offseason to get better. Their pass rush was average at times, but their run defense was ranked number one for the majority of last season. Even their secondary came along towards the end despite massive concerns about it when the year first began.
Just getting started
pic.twitter.com/nCaS10YcpL
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) August 31, 2021
Questions to Answer for the ‘Boys
Meanwhile, the Cowboys have a lot of questions to answer ahead of this season. Dak Prescott will be making his triumphant return to the football field after suffering a gruesome ankle injury just a couple of games into the 2020 regular season. Nobody is quite sure how Prescott will be returning to the field, but the team has surrounded him with enough weapons to make him feel right at home. Their offensive line could use some work, but they still have Ezekiel Elliott to take some pressure off this offense by utilising the run game. If Elliott gets going then this group is wildly difficult to slow down. Prescott will have Amari Cooper, Ceedee Lamb and Michael Gallup running routes for him in this season opener to give opposing defensive coordinators headaches. Though, their defense is the complete opposite of their offense. They were arguably the worst defense in the entire league last year and they didn’t do that much to improve. They did make a couple of quality signings but overall, I don’t think they did enough to completely flip the script on those issues, and the rookies will most definitely need to have each others backs.
Rooks have each other's back
#HardKnocks pic.twitter.com/NB1uFTucEg
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) September 1, 2021
This is going to be a very fun, high scoring matchup between two ridiculously talented offenses. The Cowboys are a pretty massive underdog here which makes them an enticing pick, but the fact of the matter is that they simply won’t be able to keep up with Brady and the Buccaneers offensively. Yes, these offenses are closely matched, but Tampa Bay’s defense is leaps and bounds better than the Cowboys. The Buccaneers are going to put up a lot of points and Dallas is going to struggle at times to get this ball moving. I feel like if the Cowboys get stuffed a couple of times at the beginning of this game, it might be over quickly.
Fancy a peek at some of the betting markets for this game?
- Match Result: Bucs 1/4, Cowboys 3/1.
- Match 1st Half: Bucs 5/12, Cowboys 21/10.
- Match 1st Quarter: Bucs 10/21, Cowboys 7/4.
WATCH: Dallas Cowboys @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Friday 10th September on Sky Sports NFL (00:30) and Sky Sports Main Event (00:30)
*Note, odds correct at time of writing. Find out the latest NFL betting odds and additional markets at MansionBet today.
