The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have proven to be heavy liabilities for online sportsbooks in just about every one of their games played to this point of the NFL betting season. That trend will continue in Week 8 when Tom Brady and his Buc teammates storm the bayou looking to take an even bigger stranglehold hold of the NFC South over the New Orleans Saints than they already have. Tampa enters this tilt red hot having taken four straight since falling to the Rams in Tinseltown, while the Saints are on a two-game win streak of their own after outlasting the Seattle Seahawks in last week’s installment of Monday Night Football in front of the 12th Man. The Saints dominated the Bucs in each of last year’s regular season meetings outscoring them by the aggregate score of 72-26 before the Buccaneers had the last laugh in the playoffs by logging the 30-20 outright win and cover as 2.5-point underdogs per the closing NFL odds. This is however a much different Saints team with Jameis Winston at the controls. It’ll be interesting to see what Sean Payton cooks up so the offense doesn’t remain so reliant upon Alvin Kamara to move the ball and put points on the board.
Watch this regular season Week 8 matchup on Sunday, October 31, 2021, at 4:25 p.m. ET from the Caesars Superdome on FOX.
NFL Odds at Bookmaker.eu
Tampa Bay Buccaneers -6
New Orleans Saints +6
Total 50
Odds Analysis
The look-ahead lines had the visiting Buccaneers installed 3.5-point road favorites and the total set at 51; one of the higher totals on the Week 8 slate. The betting markets literally laughed out loud when it saw how short the point spread was and went to work immediately pushing it all the way up to -6 with heavier -113 vig attached to the Saints side of the offering. The one-sided line movement had everything to do with the amount of bets (80%) and money (89%) sided with the defending champs per mid-week wager reports. The total has seen a dose of reverse line movement with it bouncing around 49.5 and 50 regardless of 57 percent of the action and 95 percent of the handle in favor of points hitting the board.
Player Prop Targets
I don’t foresee either offense being able to do much of anything on the ground in this matchup. Tampa Bay has shut opposing ground games down to the tune of 67.4 yards per game (No. 1) while New Orleans has allowed just over 80 yards per game (No. 3). Both units rank No. 1 and No. 3 in yards per carry allowed with the Saints conceding 3.3 and the Bucs 3.7. With that, I’ll be betting against both Leonard Fournette and Kamara being unable to surpass their rushing yard props. I’d take it a step further with the former and hit his combined rushing and receiving prop under the impost as well should you be unable to find a competitive offering; NO has only allowed 217 yards and 1 TD to backs catching balls out of the backfield. It’s a bit more risky to do the same with Kamara since Tampa Bay has allowed 52-of-59 passes to RBs to be completed for 352 yards and a trio of scores. The Bucs held the Saints RB1 to an average of 28.0 rushing yards and 30.0 receiving yards last year though he did hit paydirt three times.
Free ATS Pick
As much as I’d like to think New Orleans has it in them to come through for their wagering supporters on Sunday afternoon, I simply just feel the Bucs have too much firepower for them to contend with. Other than No. 41, the Saints offense doesn’t bring much to the table. Even with Antonio Brown likely to miss a second straight game, the GOAT still has Fournette, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and possibly Rob Gronkowski to sling the pigskin to. That’s simply just too much firepower for the Saints excelled defense to contend with; especially if Winston is unable to keep the offense on the field long enough to wear the Bucs defense down. It likely won’t be a runaway winner, but look for Tampa to win it comfortably and cover the spread in the process.
NFL Pick: Buccaneers 27, Saints 17
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