What the Cowboys Must Do to Stop Tom Brady and the Buccaneers Offense

The matchup between the Cowboys’ pass rush and the Buccaneers’ protection will likely determine the outcome of next Monday Night’s Wild Card Playoff game. This is good news if you’re a Cowboys fan because, in a vacuum, this is a mismatch that heavily favors Dallas. Taking advantage is easier said than done, though.

Tom Brady’s average time to throw was faster than any quarterback in the NFL this season, according to Pro Football Focus. That means he plants his back foot and the ball is out. So it doesn’t matter what the mismatches are in the trenches. It doesn’t matter what pressure schemes are dialed up. Dallas won’t have the chance to even get to Brady or disrupt his throws unless he is forced to hold onto the ball. Everything Dan Quinn does must be with this objective in mind. Coverage choices will dictate how effective the pass rush can be.

Not the Same Bucs Offense

Brady knows his offensive line is a problem, by the way, particularly on the interior. He knows he has to get the ball out. That’s one reason why the Buccaneers statistically have the best protection in the league (1st in sacks allowed, sack percentage, and pressure percentage) and yet the offense is in the bottom 10 in the NFL in scoring. Brady has spent the entire season anticipating pressure and getting the ball out quickly to prevent it.

So while he’s been able to avoid taking the punishment that Tampa’s O-line would otherwise allow for, the passing game has been condensed and constrained. Brady finished with a paltry 6.4 yards per pass attempt in 2022, the second-lowest rate of his career.

There is one way this offense operates efficiently, though, and that’s when the timing can still be a factor. When Brady can get the ball out quickly underneath against soft coverage and there is room for his receivers to run after the catch, the offense can get rolling (especially in 2-minute situations). When he can hit his back foot and immediately deliver the ball within the timing of the play, he can complete those intermediate seams and digs. Even Tampa’s recent big plays downfield have largely come against soft coverage with Brady able to get the ball out at the top of his drop. Just look at Mike Evans’ big touchdown receptions against Carolina two weeks ago:

You allow the timing to stay intact, you play into the hands of the Bucs’ passing game, plain and simple. This means that whatever they do, the Cowboys absolutely cannot sit back in soft coverage and consistently give free releases.

Dan Quinn’s Approach

So what can the Cowboys do to force Brady to hold onto the ball? How can they disrupt the passing game? There is no blueprint for doing this necessarily, meaning there isn’t one coverage that will get the job done. The Cowboys will need to mix their looks, sometimes using jams to disrupt Tampa’s receivers at the line, sometimes using disguise to disrupt Brady’s ability to process quickly.

There are a multitude of tactics that teams around the league have used successfully this season to achieve that disruption. Oftentimes, it hasn’t just been about getting Brady to hold onto the ball to generate sacks. It’s been about putting him in a position where if he does want to get rid of it quickly, the easy uncontested completions aren’t there. And when that happens, the drive-thwarting incompletions, throwaways, and even turnovers start to pile up.

For instance, many defenses have opted to show blitz looks before dropping out, often rushing with just 3. The muddied looks and disguises have led to some uncharacteristic bad decisions and forced passes into clogged throwing lanes by Brady, as we showed against the Bengals just a few weeks ago.

We even saw the Cardinals and their 31st-ranked scoring defense have success using this approach in Week 16. Here they forced an incompletion on 3rd down:

Here they forced an interception:

The Cowboys were able to fool Brady for an interception in their Week 1 matchup by using a similar approach. Below, you can see the pre-snap blitz look with safety Donovan Wilson threatening to rush in the A-gap. He would bail at the snap and Dallas would rush just four. Brady didn’t see Wilson drop out, though, and tried to get rid of the ball quickly to Evans over the middle:

I can’t tell you what exactly has been going on with Brady this season. His internal clock certainly seems sped up. It’s as if he doesn’t have the faith to sit behind his line, read the defense, and get the ball to the right place. So he’s making more decisions pre-snap instead. Perhaps that’s why these disguised looks have been so effective.

As many of you know, I provide Cowboys coverage for The Dallas Morning News. To see several other ways that Dallas can stop the Bucs offense, you can read the rest of this breakdown over on their site by clicking here.