Last Sunday, the Buccaneers escaped with a win against the New York Giants. Kicker Nick Folk grazed a 34-yard field goal to knock off the Giants 25-23 and send them to 0-4. Folk had previously missed two other field goals and an extra point in the game. The Buccaneers have the New England Patriots on Thursday in Tampa.
When the scheduled came out saying we had to play the Patriots, I won’t lie, I thought we were in for a bad game. Now I look at this game as a very easily winnable game. The Patriots have the WORST defense in the NFL! How many people saw that coming? NOT ME! They are worse than the Browns and the Jets! The Patriots are giving up an average of 133 rushing yards, 324 passing yards, and 32 points per game.
The Buccaneers are sadly only averaging just under 85 yards rushing per game. On the bright side, we will have Doug aka Muscle Hamster Martin back in Thursday home game. Doug has missed the first 3 weeks of the year and hasn’t played in a month, so we should monitor his workload this week. The good news is that he has fresh legs and looks to be in TREMENDOUS shape! Winston and the Buccaneers are averaging just under 278 passing yards, which is 3rd in the NFL. It could and should be a lot more, but Winston’s and DeSean Jackson’s chemistry just isn’t quite where it needs to be. In the last few weeks, Winston has either under thrown or even sometimes over thrown Jackson (which I didn’t think was possible).
Winston will look to exploit that terrible Patriots defense and hopefully get Jackson into the mixture more. The Buccaneers defense really has to step up against the Patriots. Injuries have really plagued the Bucs, but everyone is starting to get a little healthier now. Kwon, David, Tandy, and Ward all did not practice on Monday, but that isn’t saying much right now. We will know more Tuesday and Wednesday if they will be playing or not on Thursday. If we can get them all back then our Pass defense will be more equipped to handle all of Brady’s weapons.
I have extreme confidence that the Buccaneers can pull out the W in Raymond James on Thursday vs the reigning Super Bowl champions and send them on a 2 game losing streak. I believe it’s going to be a time of possession game and see who can score last. I am projecting the Buccaneers win a high scoring game, 35-31. Everyone get pumped and get ready for a great game on Thursday night!
