Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-1) at Dallas Cowboys (1-1)

Before the season, I identified 5 overrated and 5 underrated teams, with the idea of betting on them (or against them) until they proved me wrong or the odds makers caught up. This served me well as I’m 10-4 this year on games involving those 10 teams (and one of those losses is because I abandoned shipped on the Bills after week 1 and picked the Chiefs last week). However, two weeks into the season, I’ve had to adapt that a little.

A very interesting thing has happened with the Buccaneers, one of my underrated teams preseason. They haven’t played well, but they’ve had good results. They beat the Panthers in the opener and were up on the Giants last week in New York before blowing the lead. However, they rank dead last in yards per play differential, which is feel is the best indicator of future success. So why the disparity between their points differential and their yards per play differential?

For one, they’re running a lot more than they’re passing and their opponents are doing the opposite. Opponents have passed 84 times, to 38 runs against them and passes tend to average more per attempt, though it’s less consistent yardage than run plays. The Buccaneers have run 58 times to 52 passes. That’s one of the flaws in yards per play differential. The other flaw is has is level of competition and the Buccaneers haven’t played easy teams. However, they’re also dominating the turnover battle by a differential of +3. They can’t keep relying on winning the turnover battle. They’re also dominating the turnover return yardage battle, 124 to 6, something else they can’t keep relying on. They might actually be overrated this week.

However, I also think the Cowboys are a little overrated, but that’s nothing new. The Cowboys are overrated by the odds makers on a yearly basis because of their name value. They’re one of the most frequently bet teams so the odds makers jack up the odds. As a result of this, they’re 30-37 ATS since 2008 and 13-20 ATS since 2010. However, this week they’re actually not the public’s favorite as the public has a slight lean on Tampa Bay.

I’m really torn on this one. I don’t love either side and I don’t like going with a public dog like Tampa Bay, but they’re not a huge public dog. Besides, the only true trend in play here is the 2^nd straight road game as a dog off a loss trend. Teams in their 2nd straight road game as underdogs off a loss are 57-38 ATS since 2008. I’m going with the Buccaneers for a small play.

Public lean: Tampa Bay (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Dallas covers)

Dallas Cowboys 27 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21

Pick against spread: Tampa Bay +8 (-105) 1 unit

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