Atlanta Falcons vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers Point Spread Picks

Tampa Bay opened the season with a 23-20 win over the Falcons, and now the Buccaneers need to beat them again to stay atop the NFC South while Atlanta is playing the spoiler role, having lost seven of eight, including a 37-9 blowout by Seattle last week. The Buccaneers have lost five of seven, but most of those losses have come against the top teams in the league, until they inexplicably were defeated 24-20 by lowly New Orleans. That will get the Bucs motivated to bounce back, and Baker Mayfield may get his two top receivers back from injuries as Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan are off the injured list. Kirk Cousins is 1-3 in four starts for Atlanta since taking over for Michael Penix Jr, who is out for the season. The OVER is 4-0-1 in the Falcons' past five games after allowing more than 350 yards their previous game, and they are 3-0-1 OVER after scoring fewer than 15 points. The Falcons have gone OVER five of six overall while allowing 26.5 points per game. Five of seven Atlanta road games against Tampa Bay have gone OVER, and 14 of the past 19 meetings overall have sailed OVER. Tampa Bay has gone OVER its past four December games. Take the Buccaneers on the moneyline, and bet this one to play OVER as my top play.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will open their season in Atlanta against the Falcons. The Falcons finished shy of .500 last season with an 8-9 record. The Falcons tend to lack depth on both sides of the ball, and it is reflected in the start they had last season. All of their first three games played under the total, and 58.8% of their games overall played UNDER. The Falcons over the first month of the season are 6-2 to the UNDER the last two years. The Bucs have been a high-scoring team recently, as they are also a team that seems to start slow. Over the previous two seasons, the Bucs are 3-0 to the UNDER when playing on the road or at a neutral site. Make the play on the UNDER.

Tampa Bay lost in more ways than one last game vs. Baltimore. The Buccaneers came out on the losing end of a 41-31 final. That isn't the worst of the bad news. Tampa Bay lost their top two WRs in the game Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Godwin has been lost for the season, while Evans is estimated to miss five weeks. The Tampa Bay offense, which has really looked good, will not have the same look for the foreseeable future. Atlanta has played four of their seven games UNDER the total, and I think they will be loading up the box, as Tampa Bay will try and run the ball to shorten the game and make a lot of short passes to keep the clock moving. I don't think the total has been adjusted enough here and will make the play UNDER the total. 

Tampa Bay rebounded nicely from a loss to Denver and pounded Philadelphia 33-16 on Sunday as Baker Mayfield threw for 347 yards and two TDs and ran for a score for the Buccaneers. The defense held the Eagles to zero yards of offense while building a 24-0 lead and it had six sacks in the game. Tampa Bay held a 445-227 advantage in total offense yards. The Buccaneers have covered four in a row as underdogs of 0.5-3.0 dating to last season and they are 6-1 ATS as dogs overall. Atlanta is 0-4 ATS its past four games against NFC South teams although it did pull out a 26-24 victory as a 2.5-point favorite last week against New Orleans. Younghoe Koo kicked a 58-yard field goal with two seconds left to win it for the Falcons, who were outgained 366-315. Atlanta has gone UNDER its past seven Thursday games and Tampa Bay is 6-1 ATS its past seven in the first of back-to-back road games. The Buccaneers are 8-0 UNDER after allowing fewer than 250 yards their previous game and they have covered eight of 11 overall. The Falcons are 2-8 ATS their past 10 home games. Take the Buccaneers and the UNDER.