The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
finally looked like the team they have been trying to become all season. Tampa Bay traveled to Dallas on Thursday night and beat the Cowboys 24-16 for its first win of the 2026 season, putting together its most complete performance in five weeks. The Bucs controlled the football, ran effectively, created turnovers and, most importantly, finished a game when Dallas made its late push.Jalon Daniels deserves a large share of the credit. Starting in place of Baker Mayfield, Daniels finished 19-of-25 for 189 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions while adding 23 rushing yards. The numbers were efficient, but the bigger takeaway was how comfortable he looked running the offense. Daniels worked through reads, escaped pressure
without panicking, and repeatedly took what the defense gave him rather than forcing the football into danger.
That composure showed up immediately. Tampa Bay answered Dallas' opening touchdown with a 15-play, 73-yard drive that took 10:58 off the clock, with Daniels completing every pass on the possession before finding Bucky Irving for a five-yard touchdown. The Bucs have spent much of the season playing from behind the sticks and asking their offense to recover from negative plays, but Daniels consistently kept Tampa Bay in manageable situations.
There were still stretches when offensive coordinator Zach Robinson's play-calling made things more difficult than necessary. Tampa Bay went conservative at times and leaned heavily on screens in situations where Daniels had already shown he could create outside the pocket. Still, Daniels repeatedly elevated the offense around those calls. His 64-yard completion to Tez Johnson was one of his best plays of the night, as Daniels worked left before coming back across the field and finding Johnson wide open down the right sideline.
Robinson deserves credit for how Tampa Bay opened the second half, though. Irving exploded for a 72-yard run on the first play of the Bucs' opening third-quarter drive, using his patience behind the line before bursting into the secondary. Two plays later, Emeka Egbuka took a jet sweep 14 yards for a touchdown, giving Tampa Bay a 14-10 lead and immediately changing the feel of the game.
Irving was the engine of the offense from there. He finished with 165 rushing yards and a touchdown on 21 carries, averaging 7.9 yards per carry, and also caught the early touchdown from Daniels. Tampa Bay finished with 241 rushing yards on 39 carries, averaging 6.2 yards per carry, while Dallas managed only 50 yards on the ground. That advantage allowed the Bucs to dictate pace instead of chasing it.
The time-of-possession difference showed exactly how much control Tampa Bay had for most of the night. The Bucs held the ball for 39:21 compared with 20:39 for Dallas, and finished with 24 first downs, converting 7 of their 13 third downs. Tampa Bay totaled 419 yards of offense, and for the first time this season, the offense had a clear identity built around Irving, efficient quarterback play, and staying ahead of the chains.
The defense matched that energy. Dak Prescott finished 24-of-42 for 316 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, but even those numbers do not fully capture how uncomfortable Tampa Bay made him for stretches. David Walker was regularly around Prescott and created pressure even when it did not turn into sacks, while the secondary contested throws and kept Dallas from consistently sustaining drives.
Jacob Parrish finished with nine tackles and four passes defensed, while Keionte Scott added seven tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass breakup. Josiah Trotter also finished with seven tackles and a tackle for loss. The Bucs had 10 passes defensed as a team, and their coverage held up long enough for pressure to affect Prescott throughout the night.
Tampa Bay also finally took advantage when the football bounced its way. Yaya Diaby came down with an interception after Prescott's pass was tipped multiple times in traffic, and Alex Anzalone later grabbed another tipped pass intended for Jake Ferguson with 1:16 remaining. Mike Killebrew also forced a KaVontae Turpin fumble on a kickoff, with K. Knowles recovering at the Dallas 37. Tampa Bay turned that takeaway into a Chase McLaughlin field goal, stretching the lead to 24-10.
There were still mistakes that need to be cleaned up. Tampa Bay committed 14 penalties for 92 yards, and the biggest first-half mistake came when a delay-of-game penalty pushed the Bucs back before what would have been a 61-yard field-goal attempt. Tampa Bay ended up punting, and Dallas later added a field goal to take a 10-7 lead into halftime. Against a better opponent, those mistakes can be the difference between winning and losing.
Dallas eventually made things uncomfortable late. Prescott found George Pickens for an 18-yard touchdown with 5:26 remaining, cutting Tampa Bay's lead to 24-16. The Cowboys went for two, but Scott stayed with Ryan Flournoy and broke up the pass, preserving the eight-point lead and leaving Dallas still needing a touchdown and a two-point conversion just to tie the game.
Tampa Bay had a chance to end it on offense and nearly gave Dallas life when DaRon Bland got his hands on a Daniels pass that could have turned into a game-changing interception. Bland dropped it, the Bucs punted, and Dallas got one more possession. That drive ended when Anzalone came down with the tipped interception, and Irving finished things from there with a 22-yard run with 1:11 left that moved the chains and allowed Daniels to kneel out the clock.
That final sequence mattered because Tampa Bay has been in close games before this season and failed to finish them. This time, the Bucs did. They survived their own penalties, answered Dallas' late touchdown, made a defensive play when they needed one, and then ran out the clock behind their best offensive player.
There are still issues to fix, especially along the offensive line and with penalties, and Robinson's play-calling was not perfect. But Tampa Bay ran for 241 yards, got efficient quarterback play from Daniels, forced three turnovers against Dallas, and controlled the game for nearly 40 minutes. After four straight losses, the Buccaneers finally played with urgency, confidence, and purpose for four quarters, and they left AT&T Stadium with their first win of 2026.
This article originally appeared on Bucs Wire: Initial reaction: Jalon Daniels, Bucky Irving led Bucs to first win
