Not much to take away from an ugly Bucs playoff loss, but we’ll give it a try. The Bucs just didn’t show up in their 31-14 defeat by the Cowboys. What looked like an encouraging start to the game on defense quickly unraveled. leading to four straight touchdown drives for the Cowboys. The offense wasn’t able to get anything going all game until quarterback Tom Brady took over in hurry up offense late in the second half. Still, it was too little, too late and there wasn’t enough time to mount a realistic comeback.

There were a few bright spots in the loss. Here are the Most Impressive from the Bucs wildcard loss to the Cowboys.

Vita Vea

On the Cowboys second drive of the game and the team facing third down, Vea blew by blockers enroute to sacking Prescott for a eight-yard loss. Vea was relatively quiet for the rest of the night although he did get a couple of additional pressures on Prescott throughout the rest of the game while contributing a total of two tackles on the night.

Antoine Winfield Jr

Bucs DB Antoine Winfield Jr. – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Winfield was one of the lone bright spots for Tampa Bay’s defense all night. He was solid in run support and didn’t allow any passes to go for big gains. He finished third on the team in tackles with seven.

Julio Jones

Jones came down with a spectacular catch on a great throw by Tom Brady to end the third quarter. Streaking down the left side of the field Jones reeled in a 30- yard catch to give the Bucs their first points of the game and prevent the shutout. Jones finished the night with seven catches on 11 targets for 74 yards and the aforementioned score.

Tristan Wirfs

While Brady was pressured throughout the evening by a relentless Cowboys pass rush, very little of it came from the right edge. While Wirfs did allow Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons to beat him for a single sack on a wicked inside spin move, that was about all he allowed on an evening where most of the rest of the offensive line was beat like a drum.

Chris Godwin

Godwin finished the first half reeling in all six of his targets for 46 yards. Those completions accounted for three first downs, including a shovel pass from Brady he took for 11 yards deep into the red zone. Each catch Godwin made seemingly was a contested catch as he grabbed tight window throw after tight window throw. He finished the game with 10 receptions on 13 targets for 85 yards.

Giovani Bernard

After facing scrutiny for his special teams blunder against the Bengals, Bernard had a heck of a game on special teams. He had a massive hit on KaVonte Turpin that stalled any progress on a punt return and came up with the recovery on Tampa Bay’s onside kick attempt.

Mike Evans

Bucs WR Mike Evans – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Evans was targeted six times in the first half, but only reeled in two receptions for 14 yards. It took Brady going to the hurry up offense to find any rhythm between the two. When Tampa Bay moved to a no huddle offense Evans caught four passes for 60 yards. He finished with six catches for 74 yards on 10 targets. He also caught a late 2-point conversion. Evans did drop a wide-open touchdown after the Bucs recovered the onside kick with two minutes remaining that would have trimmed the Bucs deficit to 11.

Cameron Brate

Brate scored the Bucs’ second and final touchdown of the night on a difficult grab along the sideline reaching across the pylon to punch it in. With only one year remaining on his deal, this may have been Brate’s final catch in a Buccaneers uniform. Fitting that it was a touchdown.