The road to Super Bowl LVII has begun. The opening round of the NFL playoffs has kicked off, and it'll now be a mad dash to Glendale, Arizona in February. Each Super Wild Card Weekend game featured a rematch from the regular season, marking just the fifth time this has occurred since the 1970 merger.
That includes Cowboys-Buccaneers on Monday night -- the final game of the playoffs' opening week, after we saw the Giants and Jags pull off upsets, while some big favorites survived scares (check out our updated bracket here, along with a look ahead to the divisional round).
As we do every week, we've collected all of the best picks and gambling content from CBSSports.com and SportsLine and put them in one place, so you can get picks against the spread from our CBS Sports experts. There's only one game to go, so let's jump in.
All NFL odds via Caesars Sportsbook.
Which picks can you make with confidence during Super Wild Card Weekend? And which Super Bowl contender goes down hard? Visit SportsLine, as its incredible model simulates every NFL game 10,000 times and is up almost $7,000 for $100 players on top-rated NFL picks since its inception.
Cowboys at Buccaneers
Time/TV: Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET (ESPN), stream on fuboTV (try for free)
Open: Cowboys -3
If you're looking to wager in Cowboys-Bucs, you're best served seeing what SportsLine senior analyst Larry Hartstein thinks of the matchup. On top of entering the 2022 NFL season 427-344 all-time on NFL side picks (plus $3,764 for $100 players), Hartstein is 15-3 (+1170) on his last 18 picks involving the Cowboys, meaning he's uniquely qualified to make this pick. We can tell you he's leaning Over on the total, but to see his pick against the spread you'll have to go to SportsLine.
"The Cowboys usually wait until the postseason to fall apart, but this year, it seems they've started things a little bit early. Dallas lost two of its final four regular-season games and big reason that happened is because Dak Prescott has apparently forgotten how to play football.
"Since returning from his right thumb injury in Week 7, Prescott just hasn't been the same quarterback and although you'd think he would be slowly improving each week, that simply hasn't been the case. Since Week 12, Prescott has thrown 11 interceptions, which is more than any other QB in the NFL over that span.
"Thanks to those 11 interceptions, Prescott finished tied for the NFL lead with 15 picks on the season, which I'm only pointing out because it makes him the FIRST QB IN NFL HISTORY to miss at least five games and STILL lead the league interceptions. That's up there with "who can eat the most tubs of butter in 90 seconds" on the list of records you don't ever want to break.
"Basically, on one side of this game, you have a quarterback who can't stop throwing interceptions and on the other side, you have the most successful NFL quarterback of all-time: Tom Brady. If Brady could have hand-picked his opponent for the wild-card round, I'm guessing he would have picked the Cowboys and that's mainly because if there's one team the Bucs will be extremely confident in beating, it's Dallas. For one, the Buccaneers already beat the Cowboys this season, and two, Brady has NEVER LOST TO THE COWBOYS IN HIS CAREER (7-0).
"Also, this game is being played in Tampa Bay, which is notable, because they have a grass field in Tampa and Dallas tends to struggle on grass for some reason. The Cowboys have played five games on grass this season and they've gone 1-4 in those games. They lost to the Eagles, Commanders, Jaguars and Packers, and their only win came against a Titans team that was forced to start a quarterback (Josh Dobbs) who had only been on the roster for nine days. Even then, the Cowboys still had trouble putting Tennessee away (The game was 17-13 in the fourth quarter). From a defensive standpoint, the Cowboys surrendered an average of 27.2 points in their five games played on grass. In the 12 games that weren't played on grass, the Cowboys surrendered just 17.1 points per game, which is a huge 10.1-point difference.
"On paper, this game feels like a mismatch, but Tom Brady doesn't believe in paper so I'm going to ignore the talent disparity and just go with the team that I trust more right now and that's the Buccaneers." -- CBS Sports NFL writer John Breech on why he likes the Bucs to upset the Cowboys, 20-17. To see all of his picks for Super Wild Card Weekend, click here.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cowboys (-2.5) at Buccaneers |  |  | | | | | | |
