Cowboys vs. Buccaneers playoff thread: The winner plays the 49ers on a short week

The 49ers played on Saturday. The Cowboys and Buccaneers are playing on Monday. The second the NFL decided to add a standalone game on a separate day, one of the teams was going to have the rest disadvantage.

The NFL is a business, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re thinking about how to profit from their product. They’ve done this for decades, and the league isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Last season, the Los Angeles Rams beat the Cardinals 34-11 on Monday Night Football in the Wild Card round. They won on the road the following week. It may not be fair, but it’s not impossible.

The winner of tonight’s game between Dallas and Tampa Bay will have a short week to prepare for the 49ers. Kyle Shanahan and his coaching staff will spend all day Monday watching both teams. Shanahan said he’ll be watching tonight’s game like a “normal person:”

No, we’ll get ahead today. We’ll be watching a lot of film on both Dallas and Tampa and by the time it gets to them, we probably have watched enough on both teams to where now we’re just waiting for the end of that game, so I’ll probably just sit back and relax tonight when that starts and just watch the TV copy like a normal person and after it probably get to work a little bit before we start on Tuesday.”

Dallas has struggled to block in recent weeks. Todd Bowles is going to blitz early and often, which should lead to big plays for the Cowboys. We can also expect turnovers and punts. I have a hard time seeing Tom Brady lose to Mike McCarthy in the playoffs.

The Cowboys are 3-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook, with the total on the game at 45.5.