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Buccaneers and Falcons battle for NFC South lead on TNF

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Tampa Bay handled the Philadelphia Eagles with relative ease in week four, while the Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints with a late field goal as time expired.

The NFL season is well underway with four weeks of play already in the books and bye weeks beginning to commence for squads such as the Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Chargers and Tennessee Titans. The Eagles may need the bye week more than any other team listed, as the squad continues to await the returns of star wide receivers AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith.

Philadelphia traveled to Tampa Bay to take on the Buccaneers and were easily beaten by a score of 33-16 without its top pass catchers, including going down 24-0 just halfway into the second quarter. The Buccaneers will now receive a short rest as the franchise travels to Atlanta to play its NFC South division rival Falcons on Thursday Night Football. 

Atalanta has gotten off to a bit of a shaky start this season, falling to the Pittsburgh Steelers at home in week one before making a remarkable comeback against the Eagles in week two. The Falcons then lost to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football in a game it easily could have won, especially with the refs missing a possible pass interference on Kansas City towards the end of the game. After seesawing back and forth between losses and wins to kick off 2024, the Falcons managed to get back to 2-2 with a late victory over the New Orleans Saints in week four after kicker Younghoe Koo nailed a 58-yard field goal to win the game as time expired. 

Tampa Bay has begun its 2024-2025 NFL season much like it ended last season, executing a strong offense led by quarterback Baker Mayfield along with wide receivers Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. The Buccaneers defense is still coming into its own, but has held opponents to just 52 points in three games if one were to excuse the 26-7 defeat in week three at the hands of the Denver Broncos.

Mayfield has been playing his best football ever since arriving to Tampa Bay after making stops in Carolina and Los Angeles to act as a backup. He won the Buccaneers starting quarterback job at the start of the 2023 season and, after leading the franchise to the divisional round of the playoffs, was given a three-year, $100m contract to stay in Tampa Bay. 

Now the two franchises will square off in a game that could help determine the NFC South standings for the remainder of 2024-2025. Currently the Buccaneers lead the division with a record of 3-1, while the Falcons are in second place at 2-2. If Atlanta is able to claim victory on October 3, it would then move past Tampa Bay for first place due to achieving the tiebreaker.

According to DraftKings, Atlanta is the favorite in its matchup with the Buccaneers, containing odds of -125 on the moneyline and being favored by one-and-a-half points on the spread. As quarterback Kirk Cousins continues to shake off the rust from missing the majority of last season with an achilles injury, some concerns still remain for Atlanta fans even outside of their new $180m signal caller. 

The Falcons defense was expected to keep games close after the team traded for pass rusher Matthew Judon from New England and signed safety Justin Simmons after he was waived by the Broncos. While Atlanta has yet to allow more than 24 points in a single game up to this point in the season, the defense could still do a better job at creating turnovers and giving Cousins short fields for easy scoring opportunities. Both defenses could turn it up for the impending game against a division rival, so betting under 44 points to be scored could be an intriguing play for bettors on DraftKings.

Taking the under while parlaying the Buccaneers to cover offers users odds of +264, but it could be wiser to just take the moneyline for Tampa Bay and improve those odds to +291 with such a low spread. If one believes Atlanta will walk away with a win, parlaying its moneyline odds with the under is listed at +243 for DraftKings’ users. 

Each squad offers plenty of playmaking on offense to support its high-priced quarterbacks, including the likes of Evans and Godwin for Tampa Bay while Atlanta uses wide receiver Drake London and running back Bijan Robinson to move the ball down the field each week. Both Buccaneers wide receivers are veterans and have received passes from a number of quarterbacks during their tenure with the franchise. London and Robinson are still on their rookie contracts and how the Falcons choose to utilize both, along with tight end Kyle Pitts, has become one of the bigger mysteries of the NFL world this year. 

All three of London, Robinson and Pitts could most likely be given even more opportunities to show why each was a top 10 draft selection in consecutive years from 2021-2023. Especially in the case of Robinson, the Falcons chose to take the former Texas running back eighth overall despite a lack of history in the NFL of running backs being selected that high.

To begin his NFL career, however, Atlanta is questionably still allowing running back Tyler Allgeier to steal a number of carries from Robinson, despite the clear difference in talent between the two. If the Falcons let its three youngsters get creative and put their respective skill sets to work, it would begin to make Cousins’ life that much easier, especially coming off a major injury. 

Tampa Bay mainly just has to continue the play which has led the franchise to sole possession of first place in the NFC South throughout the entire season to this point. New Orleans seemed to be a worthy challenger after scoring more than 80 combined points between weeks one and two, but have now lost two straight after its defeat by the Falcons in week four.

The temptation is to say that the Buccaneers can force Cousins to move out of the pocket and create plays on his own, something he has struggled with mightily since coming back from injury. This method of defense has been the biggest struggle for Atlanta, so if Tampa Bay executes this strategy well, it could lead to an easy victory despite the road atmosphere. 

One-and-a-half points is a very low spread for a team that is playing at home, which gives an example as to how operators such as DraftKings still hold doubts over just how good the Falcons really are. The team will have its chance to prove the doubters wrong on October 3 and could use the victory to jumpstart a string of wins heading into the middle of the 2024-2025 season. 

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