2022-23 Wild Card: Cowboys 31, Buccaneers 14 (Dynasty/Fantasy Analysis Game Report)
This game was a joke…18-0 at the half (should’ve been 21-0 if Dallas had a kicker) and 24-0 (should’ve been 28-0 if Dallas had a kicker) as we approached the end of the 3rd-quarter. Tampa Bay finally scored to get it down to 24-6, and the crowd was feeling like a Brady comeback was in order…but Dallas answered right back with a TD and put the game away for good. It was a no contest.
I don’t wanna be that guy, but I have a reason to say this: I told you the Buccaneers were terrible…they’ve been poorly coached all year and they’ve been a bottom 10 team (in my scouting eyes/tape study) since Week 2. I said the game script is always the same with them: the Bucs get down and then just start throwing aimlessly with Brady more-and-more getting jumpy in the pocket and throwing errant passes. I mention all this not to brag, but to put this game in context…this was not the quality-win the media and fans think it is.
Dallas beat a bad team…period. BUT because they looked so good on national TV MNF, and against holy Thomas Brady…everyone is convinced what they saw is the Dallas team that will play like that every week right to and through the Super Bowl.
Check out my early betting notes on this week’s Dallas game from our website post. If you’re betting games this weekend -- you’ll want to consider my bet I’m already taking positions on. Or you can wait until our Friday free report on all the playoff games for picking, betting, props, FF, etc. and our Video Show is planned for Friday night 10pmET to live talk about the slate of games, the props, the ATS plays, etc., this week.
Dallas moves on to play San Francisco…a team very much NOT Tampa Bay.
The Bucs now go into an offseason of turmoil. The team built for ‘one more run’ in 2022 ran out of gas (in 2021) and is a team that needs to be totally blown up and made over. They likely won’t do that. Instead, they’ll keep everyone in place on the staff as much as they can…Bruce Arians protecting all his ‘kids’…and they’ll work to get a veteran QB in a trade or free agency and try and regroup for another run with what they have (is my early projection).
Brady will leave. He may give it one more shot if Miami wants him bad enough to move heaven and earth and the coaching staff and ownership in the team percentages to do it. He could consider San Francisco, but I don’t think they want/need him at this stage. If all else fails, and he really wants to play, he’ll reunite with Josh McDaniels in Las Vegas. It’s also possible that in 2022 season…Brady saw the writing on the wall and leaves/retires before the total collapse of his mindset and skill erosion. But NFL players never leave on time…they typically have to crash to rock bottom.
*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a ‘split’ stat on our definition of a ‘quality start’ (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 for a QB…point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.
A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the mark, and 2 times they did not.
Fantasy Player Notes…
-- Two Sundays ago, Dak Prescott (25-33 for 305 yards, 4 TDs/0 INT) played the worst game of his NFL career. He’d been up-and-down for weeks, having some turnover issues but also throwing for good TD counts -- but Week 18 vs. WSH was a total disaster of QB play. It almost looked like Dak had ‘the yips’…the equivalent of Brett Maher kicking in this game was Dak throwing Week 18.
I was wondering which Dak, which Dallas team would show up to this game against an easy foe. Dak’s first drive, more of the same from the prior week -- wobbly passes, off target throws, a quick three-and-out…and I thought, ‘Oh, boy…this is going to be a mess of a game’. From that point on, Dak was good and got in a groove.
Because the public saw THIS Dak in 3-4-5-6x the viewership numbers more than they saw Week 18 bad-Dak -- it's now case closed, Dak is great, and Dallas has gotten it altogether and onto the Super Bowl they go. Not so fast my friend. There’s a big difference between that poorly coached, poorly executed Tampa defense (one that allowed Sam Darnold to throw for 341 yards and 3 TDs/1 INT in their last meaningful/critical game prior to this) and the 49ers defense.
-- Tom Brady (35-66 for 351 yards, 2 TDs/1 INT) looked as bad as he has every week for like the last 16-17 weeks of the season. Again, it’s not totally him -- it’s the O-Line and a terrible plan (where’s all the…’Byron Leftwich is the bright young star of the coaching community’ talk at lately?).
It’s not all the coaching and O-Line. We are starting to see the Brady erosion…the nervous and seeing ghosts aging veteran disease is starting to creep in. This was not some master defensive plan by Dallas…it was the same exact flawed/terrible Brady offense we’ve seen for 16-17 weeks.
The people who will be suckered by this televised Tom Brady collapse event…
1) The NFL team that hires Dan Quinn as head coach because of this event being seen as an amazing defensive feat.
2) The media that will swoon to pick Dallas to win over SF on TV and podcasts this week because they think Dallas has got it all together just in time and certainly, they’ll beat lowly drafted Brock Purdy -- all that ‘analysis’ because of the emotions, wrong context thinking from this game.
3) The public/fans who will follow the media and follow their eyes from watching MNF, who now think Dallas has got it all together just in time and certainly they’ll beat lowly drafted Brock Purdy.
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-- As you know, another reason I picked/bet Dallas -2.5 over Tampa last week is because among all the other issues the Bucs have on offense, the Bucs self-sabotage with wanting to push Leonard Fournette (5-11-0, 1-6-0/1) when Rachaad White (7-41-0, 4-36-0/6) is clearly their best/only hope.
They tried to get Lenny going, after the usual ceremonial Rachaad start, and it went nowhere, and the game got out of hand and Rachaad was thrown to the wolves at the end to increase his odds of tearing an ACL to end the season while the other RBs far less valuable stood and watched from the sidelines.
That’s the stupidity of this Tampa Bay coaching staff…and it’s been present all season. And it’s all coming back for another round of lunacy in 2023. Whether Fournette returns, and how to properly evaluate Rachaad for 2023+ for Dynasty -- we’ll be exploring that all offseason, and it’s planned to be one of my first Dynasty valuation articles of the 2023 offseason program.
-- Speaking of fading RBs, Ezekiel Elliott (13-27-0, 1-9-0/2) is a similar boat anchor to his offense as Fournette was to his in the 2022 season. And I am counting on Dallas to self-sabotage their offense this week with too Zeke like Tampa did/does with Fournette.
Elliott has been under 3.65 yards per carry in a game for five straight games…and in nine of his 16 games played this season. All total for a career low 3.8 ypc for Elliott in 2022. Zeke hasn’t been an impact RB since 2019, but Jerry doesn’t think so…so McCarthy doesn’t think so…so I am confident Dallas will go there one more time with 12-15+ wasted carries again this week.
NFL teams tend not to change their plans/tendencies weekly…especially they don’t do so when they arrogantly believe that the reason they got to this point of the season is because of their genius system/plan -- so no reason to change what’s working!
So, a Zeke-led offense it will be, to start, this week vs. SF.
-- Dalton Schultz (7-95-2/8) had a sweet output game here.
He has 4 TDs in his past three games. 9.0 targets per game the past three weeks. Dak has rediscovered him, but this week he faces the TE-killer defense of the 49ers…TE killers for 2+ years now.
-- It was wild, and sad, to watch Brett Maher (1/5 XP) miss four straight XPs. You have to think he’s going into the SF games with ‘the yips’ and is another reason to go against Dallas this week. It’s too late to bring in another kicker, after Maher was so good all season…and likely Dallas will ‘go for it’ more in this game anyway to try and hang with SF.
