Bucky Irving’s Career-High 165 Yards Power Winless Buccaneers Past Cowboys 24-16 for First Win of Season

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers walked into AT&T Stadium on Thursday night still searching for their first win of the 2026 season, and walked out with one — riding on the shoulders of a running back who refused to let the losing streak reach five games. Bucky Irving rushed for a career-high 165 yards and scored twice as Tampa Bay beat the Dallas Cowboys 24-16, handing the Bucs a victory their fans had been waiting nearly a month to see, according to Reuters.

It was a win built the old-fashioned way. Tampa Bay ran the ball 39 times for 241 yards, held the football for nearly 40 minutes, and leaned on an undrafted rookie quarterback just enough to keep the offence moving. The Cowboys, meanwhile, watched a 10-7 half-time lead dissolve into a 17-point third-quarter swing, committed back-breaking mistakes late, and lost their second straight game to fall to 2-3 on the season.

For a team that had lost its first four games of the season — every one of them by seven points or fewer, according to The Spun — this was as much relief as it was triumph. When the game was over, Irving’s final contribution was the quietest one of the night: after Alex Anzalone’s interception sealed the game, Irving took a handoff and ripped off a 22-yard run with 1:11 remaining, moving the chains one final time and allowing the offence to kneel out the clock.

The third quarter that flipped everything

Tampa Bay trailed 10-7 at half-time, and whatever was said in the visitors’ locker room during the break, it worked. The Buccaneers needed just two plays to open the third quarter with a touchdown. Irving broke left for a 72-yard gain to the Dallas 14-yard line — shedding tackles and racing downfield before being pushed out of bounds — and on the very next play, Emeka Egbuka headed left on a jet sweep for a 14-yard scamper that gave Tampa Bay a 14-10 lead, according to Reuters.

The onslaught continued. Later in the quarter, Prescott’s pass caromed off players from both teams and floated into the air before YaYa Diaby grabbed it at the Tampa Bay 25-yard line for his first career interception. The Buccaneers capitalised, and when Irving found the end zone on the ground later in the third, Tampa Bay had outscored Dallas 17-0 in the quarter and outgained them 197 yards to 59, according to NBC Sports.

The 72-yard run was, by itself, a statement about what Irving had been doing all night. As The Spun noted, Dallas loaded the box with extra defenders and still could not contain him — his patience behind the line and change of direction turned a crowded running lane into the game’s defining play.

A rookie quarterback, protected by the run

Jalon Daniels, an undrafted rookie out of Kansas, completed 19 of 25 passes for 189 yards and one touchdown, according to Reuters. It was just his second NFL start, and he was pressed into service after Baker Mayfield was sidelined with a dislocated thumb.

Daniels was at his best when Tampa Bay’s running game set the table for him. The Bucs’ opening drive set the tone: after Dallas had opened the game with a touchdown, Tampa Bay answered with a 15-play, 73-yard drive that lasted 10 minutes and 58 seconds and ended with Daniels finding Irving for a five-yard touchdown, according to Bucs Wire. Instead of quickly handing the ball back to Dak Prescott and the Dallas offence, Tampa Bay essentially consumed the rest of the opening quarter, tied the game, and gave its defence a long rest.

The tone never really changed. The Buccaneers controlled the ball for 8:38 of the first quarter, 10:51 of the second, 10:24 of the third, and another 9:28 of the fourth, per Bucs Wire’s breakdown. Dallas never held the football for more than 6:22 in any quarter. By the time the Cowboys needed to mount a fourth-quarter comeback, they had spent most of the evening watching from the sideline.

Dallas’s late rally falls short

The Cowboys did not go quietly. The Buccaneers led by 14 when Sean Tucker was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 8:32 remaining — a goal-line stand by Dallas that gave the home crowd hope, per Reuters. Dallas then sped 99 yards on 10 plays, and Prescott hit George Pickens on an 18-yard touchdown pass with 5:26 left. The two-point conversion attempt failed, leaving Dallas behind by eight.

The Cowboys were driving again, down at the Tampa Bay 24, when Prescott’s pass bounced off the hands of tight end Jake Ferguson and ricocheted high into the air. Anzalone made a diving grab at the Tampa Bay 12-yard line, and the Bucs ran out the clock, according to Reuters.

It was a cruel kind of luck for Dallas. Prescott finished 24 of 42 for 316 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions — and both interceptions came off caroms and tipped passes rather than poorly thrown balls, per the Reuters account. Pickens was Dallas’s brightest spot, catching nine passes for 130 yards and a touchdown, and Javonte Williams rushed for a score.

But the night’s biggest storyline for the Cowboys might be who left the field. Star receiver CeeDee Lamb managed just two receptions for nine yards before leaving in the second half with a quadriceps injury. Left tackle Tyler Guyton also departed in the fourth quarter with a back injury, and cornerback Joey Porter Jr. was scratched before kickoff with an illness, according to Reuters and NBC Sports. Dallas now heads into a mini-bye week before facing the Green Bay Packers on October 18.

A defence that finally finished

The win was not only about the offence. Tampa Bay’s defence recorded three second-half takeaways, according to Reuters, and made the stops that had eluded the team through its first four losses.

Consider what this team had been through. The 0-4 start was the franchise’s first since 2013, and every one of those four losses came by a touchdown or less. Tampa Bay fans had seen this movie before, as The Spun put it: a close game, a late drive, a loss. Thursday night in Arlington, the ending finally changed — the defence made the final stop, and Irving ran out the clock.

The individual performances stacked up across the board. Irving’s 165 rushing yards on 21 carries averaged an impressive 7.9 yards per attempt, and his total nearly surpassed what Tampa Bay had averaged per game (106 rushing yards) entering Thursday, per Bucs Wire. Egbuka’s jet-sweep touchdown added another dimension to the ground attack, and McLaughlin was perfect on kicks (one field goal, three extra points), according to Sportradar’s stat line.

For the Cowboys, the ledger was thinner. Beyond Pickens’ nine catches, the offence never found rhythm, and the defence — which had held Tampa Bay to 10 first-half points — could not get off the field in the second half.

Analysis: Why It Matters

A blueprint, at last. For four weeks, Tampa Bay had searched for an identity and found only close losses. Thursday night offered the clearest possible answer to the question of who this team is: a run-first outfit that protects a young quarterback, controls the clock, and asks its defence to play with a lead. When a team commits to its strength that completely — 39 carries, 241 yards, 39:21 of possession — even a previously winless roster can look like a bully in someone else’s building. The question now is whether this formula travels, or whether it was a one-night marriage of a desperate team and a Cowboys defence that could not adjust after half-time.

The undrafted rookie storyline is real now. Jalon Daniels arrived with almost no expectations — an undrafted free agent from Kansas starting because the veteran was hurt. Two starts in, he has completed 76 per cent of his passes (19 of 25 on Thursday) and managed a game without a catastrophic mistake. That is not a small thing: most young quarterbacks thrown into bad situations start throwing the ball to the wrong team. Daniels was asked to be a game manager, and he managed the game. The clock is ticking, though — Mayfield’s thumb will not be dislocated forever, and the Bucs will eventually face the kind of quarterback decision that fractures locker rooms. Every competent Daniels start makes that conversation harder.

Dallas is in a dangerous spot. A 2-3 record with a losing home record is not a season-ender in October, but the shape of this loss should worry the Cowboys more than the record does. Their star quarterback threw for 316 yards and lost. Their defence could not stop a one-dimensional offence in the second half. Their two best offensive weapons on the line of scrimmage — Lamb and Guyton — are now health questions heading into a short week before Green Bay. And the loss had a humiliating frame: as NBC Sports put it, they lost at home to a previously winless team starting an undrafted rookie quarterback. That is the kind of loss that changes the temperature of a season — fair or not.

Time of possession is a strategy, not a statistic. It is tempting to read 39:21 vs 20:39 as a trivia item. It was the game. By keeping Prescott off the field, Tampa Bay did not just rest its own defence — it starved the one matchup that favoured Dallas all night. When your opponent’s best path to beating you is their quarterback, every minute he spends on the sideline is a minute he cannot hurt you. The Bucs executed this with a precision that suggested it was the entire game plan, and the Cowboys had no answer until the game was nearly gone.

What to watch next

Can Irving keep it up? A career high is, by definition, an outlier — but 165 yards on 21 carries with 7.9 per attempt is the kind of performance that changes how defences scheme. If opponents start loading the box the way Dallas did, Daniels will have to beat them through the air. Tampa Bay’s season may hinge on whether this night was the start of a rushing identity or a one-off explosion.

The Cowboys’ mini-bye is now a repair job. Dallas gets extra rest before the October 18 game against Green Bay, and the injury report will be the most important document in the building. Lamb’s quad and Guyton’s back are the two names to watch — Dallas’s offence without Lamb was a different, smaller thing.

Mayfield’s return timeline looms. Two solid Daniels starts have not resolved anything; they have complicated everything. A dislocated thumb is measured in weeks, not months. When Mayfield is healthy, the Bucs have to choose between the expensive veteran and the kid who just won Thursday night football.

The division picture. At 1-4, Tampa Bay is still well behind in the NFC South, but a division is often decided by which team survives September and October intact. One win changes the arithmetic of the season: 0-4 is a crisis; 1-4 with a statement win is a bad start with a foundation. The difference between those two sentences is worth more than a game.

Sources

• Reuters: Jalon Daniels, Bucky Irving carry Buccaneers past Cowboys for first win
• NBC Sports: Thursday Night Football — Bucs upset Cowboys 24-16
• USA Today Bucs Wire: Bucky Irving carries Bucs to upset win on TNF
• The Spun: Buccaneers found the formula they needed all along