Cowboys Week 1 Vs. Brady's Bucs: 'Must-Win' Game?

The Cowboys will play 17 games in 2021, but none more hyped than opener against defending Super Bowl champs

Grant Afseth | Jul 22, 2021

FRISCO - To open the 2021 NFL season, the Dallas Cowboys will take on the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.

It will be a strong test for the Cowboys to see where they're at early on. Some seem to think it holds far more importance than just another run-of-the-mill regular season game.

During an appearance on Fox Sports One's First Things First, analyst Kevin Wildes described the Cowboys' Week 1 matchup with the Buccaneers as being a 'must-win game.'

"[The Cowboys] basically already are in the Super Bowl. Week 1, you open up in Tampa Bay. That is a must-win game, so rather than talking about after Week 17 and after the playoffs we get to the Super Bowl...Win the first game. You are in where the Super Bowl was, you're playing Tom Brady, and you have a huge audience. After that [the Cowboys] don't play a team with a winning record last year until Week 11...If they lose that first game, I will be out on the Cowboys and I will invite you to join me."

One of the reasons Wildes mentioned for the Cowboys needing to win this Week 1 matchup is that head coach Mike McCarthy has had eight months to prepare for a Buccaneers team that has brought everybody back.

"Mike McCarthy had eight months to prepare for this game," Wildes said. "The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got no new players. They brought everybody back. They are going to do the same stuff."

It's difficult - borderline ridiculous - to call any Week 1 matchup a 'must-win' game, but achieving a victory would help the Cowboys in a variety of ways. It would send a message to the rest of the league and would help Dallas to position themselves in the event of a tie-breaker scenario for playoff seeding purposes down the line.

Published Jul 22, 2021

GRANT AFSETH