Cowboys Bash Bucs

The Dallas Cowboys play on. Tom Brady goes home to confront an offseason of disappointment and uncertainty.

How’s that for a role reversal?

The Cowboys secured their first postseason victory on the road in three decades in what may have been Brady’s final game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — or even in pro football entirely. They did it convincingly by overwhelming the Buccaneers, 31-14, on Monday night at Raymond James Stadium in what was supposed to be the glitziest matchup of a mostly captivating opening round of the NFL postseason.

Quarterback Dak Prescott threw four touchdown passes, two of them to tight end Dalton Schultz, and ran for a score. The Cowboys scored the first 24 points and never looked back, overcoming four missed extra points by Brett Maher. That was the most in an NFL game since 1932, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The fifth-seeded Cowboys advance to a divisional-round matchup with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in Santa Clara, Calif. They ended the season of the fourth-seeded Buccaneers, whose struggles had made them the sixth team in league history to reach the playoffs with a losing record.

Brady’s football future is unclear. He is eligible for free agency in the offseason. The legendary quarterback turns 46 in August and has not said whether he will continue playing, after retiring and then un-retiring last offseason. He just endured his first losing season in the NFL, further complicated by public scrutiny of his personal life and marriage. Some associates say they believe it’s likely that Brady will play another season — but with the caveat that it’s not certain.

He lost to the Cowboys for the first time in eight career meetings. The Cowboys, for a change, are not the team trying to figure out what went wrong. They have another game to play next weekend.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had said last week that Mike McCarthy was not coaching for his job Monday night. But some people in the league had suspected that a loss in this game would have led Jones to fire McCarthy and pursue Sean Payton, the Super Bowl-winning former coach of the New Orleans Saints.

Instead, the Cowboys steadied themselves and avenged their loss to the Buccaneers in the season-opening game in which Prescott suffered a fractured right thumb. Prescott missed five games and had an uneven season when he returned. There were times when his presence made the Cowboys resemble a Super Bowl contender. But he threw 15 interceptions during the regular season, tied for the most in the NFL. He threw at least one interception in each of the Cowboys’ final seven regular season games. They were coming off a dreadful performance in a Week 18 loss at the Washington Commanders.

But they were sharp almost from the outset Monday, aside from their kicking misadventures. The Cowboys led 18-0 after a first half in which Prescott had touchdown throws of 22 and 11 yards to Schultz. He also ran for a one-yard score.

But Prescott showed his frustration on the sideline after Maher sent his third extra point sailing wide left, following misses to the right on the first two. The Buccaneers did little on offense. Brady threw his first red-zone interception as a Buccaneer with an errant throw into the end zone on second and goal from the Dallas 5-yard line.

Prescott threw a third-quarter touchdown pass to wide receiver Michael Gallup, who stepped out of bounds along the rear of the end zone but was back in bounds by the time he made the catch. That was legal only because the pass was tipped by a Buccaneers defender, as an instant replay review confirmed. This time, Maher sent the ball off the right upright.

The Buccaneers finally broke through when Brady threw a ­30-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Julio Jones as time expired in the third quarter. Brady then threw an eight-yard score to tight end Cameron Brate and a two-point conversion pass to wide receiver Mike Evans with 2:04 remaining.

Maher drew cheers from the crowd when he finally connected on a fourth-quarter extra point following Prescott’s touchdown pass to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.