Sunday Afternoon – Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Atlanta Falcons

It’s an NFC South divisional matchup down in Atlanta with the division’s two best teams coming into the year. Sorry, Saints and Panthers. Jameis Winston will have the Buccaneers competing for the division title in 2017 and this game will go a long way in helping to decide the winner. After all, we’re just about ¾ of the way through the season already. This should be a high scoring affair with little or no defense. Hope you brought your track spikes today.

Keys to the Game

Buccaneers

Tampa Bay has to find some semblance of a running game in this one. They will lose a track meet with Atlanta and their bevy of offensive weapons. So, they must find a way to control the pace and slow it down by running the football. That’s something they’ve struggled with over the last few seasons, but they’ll need to figure it out here if they want to win. A successful running game will draw one of the safeties into the box to help out and that’s when Winston can go over the top to Mike Evans for the big play downfield. Rinse, repeat and roll on to victory

Falcons

The Falcons should force Tampa to play their style of football. Play fast, get big chunks of yardage at a time and put points on the board in a hurry. Make the Bucs try and keep up and it will soon become clear that they can’t. Tampa just doesn’t have the firepower to eat up yards like the Falcons can. Then, when Winston is forced to throw the ball 30 times in the second half, the Atlanta pass rushers can really strike and seal the victory for ATL. It’s simple, but effective.