Cowboys vs Buccaneers Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 1

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 1 Dallas Cowboys at Tampa Bay Buccaneers Thursday Night Football game.

• Home teams are 15-3 in the Thursday Night season openers (11-3-4 ATS).
• Tampa Bay went from scoring on 39.6% of their drives in 2019 all the way up to 51.8% in 2020 (third) while they went from scoring a touchdown on 25.1% of those drives in 2019 all the way up to 34.9% (fourth) a year ago.
• Through five games with Dak Prescott last year, Dallas had scored a touchdown on 32.8% of their offensive drives (10th in the league) while averaging 32.6 points per game.
• After Prescott was injured, the Cowboys scored a touchdown on 16.9% of their drives (31st) and averaged 21.1 points per game (24th).
• Dallas allowed opponents to gain five or more yards on a league-high 41.3% of their rushing attempts.
• Tampa Bay allowed opponents to gain five or more yards on a league-low 29.2% of their carries.
• The Buccaneers allowed a league-low 2.1 runs per game that went for 10 or more yards.

Trust = spike production for that player
Bust = down-week production for that player’s standards

Quarterback

Tom Brady (TRUST): In his first season with Tampa Bay, Brady closed the year as the QB8 overall and the QB11 in points per game (21.1) at age 43. His 40 passing touchdowns were tied for second in the league as his 6.6% touchdown rate was his highest in a season since 2011. 

Brady got better as the season wore on, throwing multiple touchdown passes in each of his final 11 games of the season. With a full offseason and the Buccaneers rolling back their entire offense from a year ago with the addition of a better safety valve satellite back to the passing game, Brady is not ready to slow down.

He opens the season with a strong draw against a Dallas defense that was 25th in passing points allowed per game (16.8) and 29th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.53) in 2020. The transition of Mike Nolan to Dan Quinn helming the operation could be a boost or at worst addition by subtraction, but Dallas has made enough splash additions defensively to suggest altering our course this season as a team to proceed with caution on, especially against a top offense in the league on the road.

Dak Prescott: Prescott dealt with a shoulder strain in his throwing arm that kept him sidelined for nearly the entirety of training camp and the preseason, but by all accounts, he is back up to full speed and ready to go without limitations to open the season.

Prescott was pacing the position a year ago at 26.9 points per game through five games prior to missing the remainder of the season with a gruesome ankle injury. That scoring was under extreme offensive conditions as the Cowboys were forced to drop back with Prescott 48 times per game over the opening five weeks, which would have paced the position over a full season.

A full touchdown underdog on the road, we can expect an outline that may be similar. Plus, we have the Tampa Bay defense, which is a pass funnel in itself. In neutral game scripts outside of the fourth quarter, opposing teams threw the ball 64% of the time against Tampa Bay, the highest rate in the league since they allowed a league-low 3.6 yards per carry in those same conditions. 

The Bucs ranked third in yards per completion (10.1 yards), 11th in yards allowed per attempt (6.9 Y/A), 16th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.42), and since opposing passers attempted the fourth-most passes in the league against them, they were 19th in passing points allowed per game (16.2). This is not a glowing matchup for Prescott’s return and the Cowboys have one of their lowest team totals we will see them have all season, but volume paired with rushing ability should still give him enough of a floor as a lower-end QB1 to not completely flatline from a fantasy stance.

Running Back

Ezekiel Elliott (BUST): Last season, Elliott averaged a career-low 4.4 yards per touch, but was still a workhorse and averaged 19.7 touches per game. Elliott had six touchdowns and 22.3 PPR points per game in the five games with Dak Prescott active compared to just two touchdowns and 11.2 points per game after Prescott was lost for the season. Not only did Elliott play 11 games without Prescott, but Tyron Smith, La'El Collins, and Zack Martin combined to miss 36 games in 2020. He also began the offseason with COVID and suffered a calf injury in-season to compound the list of things to go wrong for him in 2020.

All of the buzz on Elliott has been positive this offseason, and while I expect him to have a bounce-back season after a down 2020, this is as tough of a matchup as we could draw to open. We are going to need Elliott to get a short touchdown or stack a lot of receptions here.

Just 15.5% of the fantasy points allowed by the Buccaneers last season were via rushing, the lowest rate in the league. League average was 23.6%. Tampa Bay ranked first in the NFL in rushing points allowed to running backs per game last season (8.3) after ranking second in 2019 (8.6). They allowed just four top-12 scoring weeks to running backs all of 2020 and just four in 2019. 

The outs Elliott have are running into a short score and providing receptions as Tampa Bay was 28th in receiving points allowed per game to backfields (10.9) a year ago.

Buccaneer RBs: All of Ronald Jones, Leonard Fournette, and Giovani Bernard are going to be a part of this offense early on, much to our chagrin. We should expect a lot of oscillation on who delivers fantasy weeks we care about and they will be hard to predict entering the week. Many of them will rely on when and who finds the end zone. 

If the preseason tune-up against Houston is any indicator of things, Jones will be the first early down back with Fournette working in. 

Jones has improved every year in the NFL, increasing his touches, yards per touch, and touchdowns scored from the year prior. But 87% of his touches came in the running game as he caught two or fewer passes in 10 of his 14 games played in the regular season while running a pass route on just 31.9% of the Tampa dropbacks in his games played. 

A late-season injury to Jones reopened the door for Fournette, who scored seven touchdowns over the final seven games for the Buccaneers, including all four postseason games in which he helped his cause for a new contract somewhere with 448 yards. Fournette had just two games as an RB2 or better in the 14 games that Jones was active last season, but had an edge as a pass-catcher, running a route on 45.3% of the team dropbacks. Now, the addition of Bernard compromises that role.

Bernard has played exclusively on third downs in the preseason and we can expect him to be the back in the two-minute offense and pass-heavy script playing from behind. Tampa Bay did target their running backs 19% of the time last season, which was 11th in the league. Bernard is dealing with an ankle sprain and the Bucs should not have to spam passing snaps playing catch up here. At minimum, Bernard is a thorn in this backfield as a pass-catcher, but is only a floor option in PPR formats with both Jones and Fournette ahead of him in the running game. 

Both Jones and Fournette are touchdown-dependent FLEX options (with a lean towards Jones) as we hash things out early on as large home favorites against a Dallas defense that was 23rd in points allowed per game (23.2) to opposing backfields in 2020.

Wide Receiver

Amari Cooper: Cooper continued to be a steady producer in Dallas in 2020, catching 92 passes for 1,114 yards and five touchdowns. Cooper was the WR8 through five weeks with Dak Prescott, but still managed to be the WR22 overall Weeks 6-17 without Prescott as he was the one pass catcher in this offense we could still depend on for some production after Cooper has dealt with an ankle injury this offseason, but has already suited up in the preseason and appears good to go to open the season. 

The Buccaneers were 21st in points allowed per game to opposing WR1 options, but a lot of that ranking was influenced by the 57.9-point bonanza surrendered to Tyreek Hill in Week 12. Outside of that game, the Bucs only allowed two other top-12 scoring weeks to lead wideouts, coming from Calvin Ridley and Robert Woods. With the expected passing script, Cooper is still in play as an upside WR2.

CeeDee Lamb: Lamb reeled in 74 passes for 935 yards and five touchdowns as a 21-year-old rookie. It was the fifth-highest scoring season for a 21-year-old wideout in league history. 

Lamb was the WR11 in scoring and the WR10 in targets (40) through five weeks with a healthy Prescott. He posted those numbers on just 7.8 targets per game and a 16.5% target share. Then after Prescott was injured, Lamb was the WR35 in scoring and the WR39 in targets. 

Lamb ran 93.6% of his routes in the slot as a rookie, which limited him to running a pass route on just 72.3% of the Dallas dropbacks, which ranked 43rd among wideouts. Dallas has already suggested that Lamb will be used all over the field in his second season to keep him on the field and grow in Year 2, and we could see him take over as the feature wideout even with a healthy Cooper on the field

That said, attacking the slot was the way to go versus the Buccaneers last season as Sean Murphy-Bunting allowed a 126.9 rating in slot coverage last season, which was the fifth-highest in the league in 2020.

Despite that, the Bucs still allowed just six WR1 scoring weeks all of 2020.

We should not expect a ceiling week from any of the Dallas wideouts coming in, but Lamb has the best matchup assuming he is still the primary slot receiver and he has enough upside paired with anticipated team volume to make him a solid start on rosters. 

Michael Gallup: Gallup went from 21.0% of the team targets in his games played down to 17.0% a year ago with the addition of Lamb. After a 66-1,107-6 line in 2019, Gallup caught 59-of-105 targets for 843 yards and five touchdowns. 

In the five games with Prescott under center, Gallup closed as the WR57, WR63, WR7, WR81, and WR37 as he was used as a lid-lifter only, receiving five or fewer targets in four of those five games despite the Cowboys averaging over47 pass attempts per game. 

Gallup can really benefit from Lamb moving around the formation in 2021, as it could open the door for diversification for his own role in the offense. We also could see Gallup’s routes run per dropback flip-flop with Lamb this season in that event, which would make him more volatile. Gallup ran a pass route on 88.4% of the Dallas dropbacks, which was 15th among all wideouts. 

If there is no role change for Gallup, the Bucs allowed just 2.9 completions per game of 20-plus yards, which was good for sixth-best in the league, leaving Gallup as a boom-or-bust FLEX option.

Mike Evans: Evans snuck over the 1,000-yard barrier for the seventh consecutive season in 2020, becoming the first player ever to hit that mark in each of his first seven seasons in the league. 

Despite setting history in extending his 1K streak while also posting a career-high 13 touchdowns, the 2020 season did have some blemishes for Evans. He also set career-lows in targets (6.8), receptions (4.4), and yardage (62.9) per game with a career-low 14.4 yards per reception (although that mark was second on the team). Evans ranked 36th among wide receivers in target per game last season (6.8), receiving just 17.4% of the team targets that he played in, it was the lowest target share that Evans has had over his career. Evans had three or fewer receptions in seven regular season games, and then in three of the four playoff games for the Bucs.

This caused Evans to lack the typical boom weeks gamers have previously chased in 2020. He had four WR1 scoring weeks, the fewest amount of WR1 scoring weeks for his career.

At the end of the 2020 season, a career-high 13 touchdowns and 11.9% touchdown rate elevated Evans over his actual opportunity. 31.4% of his fantasy output stemmed from touchdowns alone, his highest dependency in that department over his seven seasons. His 11.9% touchdown rate per reception was the first time he hit a double-digit rate in his career.

That said, this is the matchup you would want from a downfield target and one who is highly targeted in the end zone. Dallas was dead last in the NFL in fantasy points allowed per deep pass attempt and target last season while allowing a league-high 25 touchdowns to opposing wideouts in 2020. Their starting cornerbacks Trevon Diggs, Jourdan Lewis, and Anthony Brown still are not moving the needle early on to avoid. Evans may not be the volume receiver he was in years past, but this matchup plays right into his hands as a vertical and end zone target to be on the board as a lower-end WR1.

Chris Godwin: In Godwin’s first season with Brady, he averaged 5.4 receptions (WR22) and a team-high 70.0 yards per game (WR17) while finishing as the WR15 in points per game (15.9) and turning in seven touchdowns. Godwin had just two WR1 scoring weeks, but also had just three outside of the top-30 scorers, to illustrate that he still held a high floor. 

Godwin also played just 12 games, missing time with a concussion, hamstring, and a broken finger. But when the Buccaneers had the entirety of their receiving corps healthy, Godwin’s 19.2% target share was neck-and-neck with the 19.8% share that Evans had. The diversity of the Tampa Bay passing game may keep us from seeing Godwin bounce back to 2019 output, but he is the Tampa Bay wideout I want to bet on this season and he draws a positive outlook for Week 1 as highlighted with Evans above. Godwin did pick up a late quad injury on Tuesday, but was still able to get in a limited practice. We will monitor his practice availability Wednesday. Dallas allowed multiple top-24 scorers in the same game seven times last season, so treating all the Tampa Bay wideouts as having strong outlooks as lower-end WR1/high-WR2 is not overly worrisome. 

Antonio Brown: Brown was the WR21 from Weeks 9-17 after joining the Bucs while ranking 25th in targets (62), 18th in receptions (45), and 27th in yardage (483) to go along with four touchdowns. His totals were impacted when Evans played just 11 snaps in Week 17 against the Falcons. Brown blew up for a season-high 14 targets, catching 11 of them for 138 yards and a pair of scores in that game.

In the 10 full games (including the postseason) that Brown played alongside both a healthy Evans and Godwin, Brown was third on the team with 15.9% of the team targets and 5.9 targets per game while Evans (19.8%) and Godwin (19.2%) were more neck-and-neck in opportunity. 

Brown and Brady clearly have chemistry and this target share could be tighter than it was a year ago, but Brown is more of an upside-based WR3 in a good matchup until we see where the targets are consistently doled out in this offense.

Tight End

Buccaneer TEs: Rob Gronkowski caught 45-of-77 targets for 623 yards and seven touchdowns. His 2.8 receptions per game were his fewest in a season since he was a rookie in 2010, catching three or fewer passes in 11 games. Gronk led all tight ends with 14 end zone targets as a separator, but was even out-targeted for the closing stretch of the season by Cameron Brate while the team is getting O.J. Howard back, who had two end zone targets over his four games played a year ago.

Dallas only faced 5.3 targets per game in 2020 to tight ends (second-fewest) because they were busy getting gauged by opposing wideouts, but they were 29th in catch rate (73.8%) and 27th in touchdown rate (8.3%) allowed on those targets. If chasing a score, Gronk is a touchdown-based TE2 option. 

Cowboys TEs: Through five weeks with Prescott, the Cowboys were 14th in success rate targeting tight ends (56%) while 11th in yards per target to the position (7.9 yards). For the remainder of the season, Dallas was 23rd to tight ends (6.6 yards). Dallas is getting Blake Jarwin back off of missing all but 25 snaps a year ago. Jarwin has turned in 8.8 yards per target and 11.6 yards per grab over his early-career sample, but coming off his ACL injury, Dalton Schultz could still impact his playing time to open the season. Schultz went on to rank ninth among all tight ends in targets (89), but was limited to 6.9 yards per target and 9.8 yards per catch playing with subpar quarterback play. This is a situation not to chase early in the season without clarity. Tampa Bay was mid-pack defending tight ends, allowing 1.83 points per target to the position, 17th in the league.

More Week 1 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet:

DAL at TB | PHI at ATL | PIT at BUF | NYJ at CAR | MIN at CIN | SEA at IND | SF at DET | JAX at HOU | ARI at TEN | LAC at WFT | CLE at KC | GB at NO | MIA at NE | DEN at NYG | CHI at LAR | BAL at LVR