Friday, May 25th, 2012
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will hit the highway to face the Atlanta Falcons in an NFC South division NFL football game on Saturday afternoon. Kick off time in Atlanta is scheduled for 1PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by Fox. The LVSC NFL odds makers have set the opening point spread in this game and the Atlanta Falcons were opened as 12 point favorites with the over under coming in at 46. The early money from the NFL betting public has come in on the road underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as the Atlanta Falcons are currently an 11-½ point favorite. The total has seen no movement in the betting as the total is currently lined at 46. NFL money line gamblers can make a play on the favored Atlanta Falcons at –550 with the road underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers bringing back +450 to pull off the upset victory with no need for points on their side.
Tampa Bay sits at 1-9 on the year and coming off a 38-7 home loss to the New Orleans Saints last week. The Buccaneers were very sloppy with the football committing 4 turnovers to the Saints none. The Buccaneers coaching is in shambles. First year head coach Raheem Morris fired his offensive coordinator prior to the start of the season and just demoted his defensive coordinator Jim Bates after the loss to the Saints last week. Morris has to go down as one of the worst coaches seen in recent history. It’s bad enough for a head coach to poorly manage and develop teams and its even worse to disrupt the teams’ foundation with firing key assistant coaches on your staff in season. The Buccaneers are now down to third string quarterback rookie Josh Freeman under center for Tampa Bay. The rookie is hitting on just 51% of his passes with 5 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He is coming off a 3-interception game last week in the teams’ loss to New Orleans. Veteran running back Cadillac Williams is averaging 3.8 yards a carry this season. The Buccaneers defense is atrocious this season allowing 29 points per game. They gave up an incredible 168 yards per game on the ground and 4.9 yards per rush attempt ranking last in the NFL. Atlanta is 5-5 on the season and in need of a win to get back into the wildcard race. The team has dropped two straight games and all were on the road. The defense has struggled allowing an average of 33 points per game over their past 4 games. The Falcons second year quarterback Matt Ryan is hitting on 59% of his passes with 16 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Ryan has had some rather poor games this season but has played much better at home Running back Michael Turner is a game time decision in this game. Jason Snelling is Turner’s backup who has averaged 4.2 yards a carry in 62 rush attempts on the season. Atlanta is 4-0 at home and just 1-5 on the road. The team averages nearly 25 points a game in the Georgia Dome and allow just 14 ½ points. Atlanta is very poor against the pass allowing 253 yards passing per game and ranking 29th in the league.
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NFL Trend: Atlanta Falcons are 4-0 ATS at home this season
The Wagerline consensus has 59.3% of the NFL bettors on Atlanta -11 1/2
The Wagerline consensus has 50.1% of the NFL bettors playing under 46
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