Coming off the most exciting win of the 2026 season, the Dallas Cowboys offense has a quick turnaround in week five, hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a pivotal NFC conference matchup.
The Cowboys offense started out slow in their 34-30 win over the Houston Texans, but unleashed on a quality Texans defense in the second half to seal the victory. A lot of went right for the Cowboys offense in the second half against Houston should be heavily leaned on in this Tampa Bay matchup.
The Cowboys took a
more conservative approach in the first half against the Texans and that led to struggles putting up touchdowns and sustaining drives. In the second half, they came out and played their typical style of football. They aggressively pushed the ball downfield while getting better pass protection.
The Tampa Bay defense has played pretty well to start their season, despite their 0-4 start. Their defense currently ranks fifth in EPA/play and sixth in success rate. With that said, the Cowboys passing game should look to attack the Tampa Bay corners early and often.
The Buccaneers starting three corners showcase rookie Keionte Scott in the slot, and Jacob Parrish and Zyon McCollum on the outside. Scott and Parish have played well to start the season, but both players are young and undersized compared the Cowboys trio of wide receivers. Scott is feisty nickel who does most of his damage as a run defender and blitzer, but he can be had in coverage and will lineup across from CeeDee Lamb on a high percentage of snaps.
That is a clear advantage for the Cowboys and they should look to involve Lamb in all areas of the field, just like last week, and take advantage of the rookies inexperience against arguably the best wide receiver in football through four weeks. On the outside, George Pickens will also have an advantage over Parrish and McCollum. To make matters worse for Tampa Bay, they will be without their best secondary player in Antoine Winfield Jr., limiting their ability to control the middle of the field.
While we should expect the Cowboys top two receivers to feast in this game, the matchup for all the pass catchers favors the Cowboys. Rookie linebacker Josiah Trotter has been fantastic to start the season, but getting tight ends Jake Ferguson and Brevyn Spann-Ford matched up on him in coverage with Winfield out gives the Cowboys more size advantages against the Buccaneers coverage defenders.
Through four weeks, the Cowboys have seemingly needed to score 30+ points to win these games. Even with Baker Mayfield not expected to play, the Cowboys passing game will likely need to carry the weight of this game again, but they should have a much easier matchup in week five than they had in week four.
