Bucs vs. Eagles Bets for Thursday Night Football
Thursday Night Football might have its first “dud” of a game, but that’s not bad considering we are already starting Week 6. The NFL could certainly use a good game of distraction though after this crappy week of news they’ve had with Jon Gruden. No matter what’s going on in the world, the games are being played and we have bets we can make.
The Buccaneers are visiting the Philadelphia Eagles. These two teams are on very different trajectories. The Bucs are led by Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, and marching towards at least a playoff berth – if not another Super Bowl appearance. The Eagles are led by Jalen Hurts, a struggling run-first quarterback that is not of the ilk of Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray. They likely won’t even sniff the playoffs or division. (In my opinion, the Cowboys should easily win the division.) Even though they are headed in the opposite direction, you never know with football. Last year, the Bucs lost to the Bears on the road in a Thursday game. Remember Brady forgetting which down it was? Anything can happen.
It probably won’t though. I’m taking the Bucs -7 in this game. The one thing I’d mention, though, is that the line somewhat implies that if this were a home game for Tampa Bay, the line would be -10. That seems too high to me. Teams get amped up to play great teams like the Bucs. Nonetheless, they should win this game by a touchdown. The Eagles defense has allowed 24 points per game and the Bucs are scoring 33 points per game, a difference of… seven points. Of the three losses that the Eagles have suffered, only one was by less than seven points – it was by six. I’m playing the spread, but new bettors to FanDuel really should capitalize on the promotion they have. New bettors can receive a 30-1 bet to place on the moneyline winner of this game. Meaning, you can put $5 on Brady and the Bucs and receive $150 back when the Buccaneers win.
Brady has been outstanding this year. He’s averaging 360 passing yards per game. I don’t think he needs to do that in this one to win it. Consider the red zone rushing statistics – the Bucs have 22 attempts and 42 passing attempts. Brady has thrown for 11 red zone touchdowns and Leonard Fournette has rushed for just one red zone touchdown. This is showing that they trust Brady to get the job done significantly more than their leading rusher. I’m playing Brady to throw over 2.5 touchdowns at -102.
So far this season, Tampa hasn’t really played any quarterback quite like Jalen Hurts. He can impact the game with his legs the way Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Mac Jones, and Jacoby Brissett cannot. Brissett is the only one that really is even a threat to take off and he didn’t run once in the entire game last week. Tampa is allowing just 45 rushing yards this season to opponents. I’m going to take Jalen Hurts to be under 45.5 yards at -114.