Tonight’s Thursday contest pits a pair of NFC South Division foes when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Atlanta Falcons. This is a division the Buccaneers have won four straight seasons, and it seems each year they have a new closest competitor.
In 2024, the Bucs ended the season with a two-game bulge over tonight’s opponent, the prior season they won the division by a tiebreaker when both Tampa Bay and the New Orleans Saints won nine games. In 2022, tonight’s home team edged the Carolina Panthers by a game when no team in the division had a winning record. The Bucs had a great season in 2021 when Tom Brady played his second of three seasons in Florida and led Tampa Bay to 13 wins but lost to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs.
In Brady’s first season in Florida, he led the Bucs to a Super Bowl win to complete the 2020 season. That was Brady’s seventh Super Bowl triumph, more than any franchise has won.
Brady’s not running the Bucs offense now, but a player with respect throughout the league is, quarterback Baker Mayfield. The one time first overall pick in the draft, by the Cleveland Browns in 2018, the Bucs quarterback led his team to a road win over the Falcons to open this season. This season the Bucs have had a share of first place in their division the entire campaign, winning their first three games, and after a loss to the defending Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles, pinned the talented Seattle Seahawks with a defeat on the losers home field.
Despite that strong start, the Buccaneers come into play tonight having lost four of their prior five games with only a win over the Arizona Cardinals interrupting a winless November. Last Sunday, at home, they were upset by the New Orleans Saints.
So, laying points with a struggling Buccaneers squad appears high risk.