The NFL season kicks off on Thursday night and as is becoming tradition, the defending champions start the new term. That means we are at the venue where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won Super Bowl LV when they host the Dallas Cowboys in the season opener.
Both these sides will be eyeing up another run at the postseason and have the ideal chance to lay a bit of a marker down in the NFC race. These are potentially two of the most exciting teams in the league so we should be treated to a decent opener.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
It will be a big night for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they play for the first time since they won Super Bowl LV. Raymond James Stadium was the venue for the big dance back in February and there will be something of a gala showpiece about this season opener too which they hope will inspire the home side to give another solid performance. When a team wins a Super Bowl there is often a queue of people looking to pick holes in them the following season.
The problem for those people is there aren’t many holes to pick in them. Critics or doubters might be hoping that at 44, Tom Brady finally begins to slow down, but there haven’t been any signs of that. The offense looks up there with the most powerful in the league and if their defence is as mean as it was last year then the Bucs are going to take some stopping. They are the hunted now rather than the hunters so it will be interesting to see how they fare with that dynamic.
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Dallas Cowboys
It goes without saying that the Dallas Cowboys will be hoping for a much better campaign this time around then they had last term. To be fair though, they were looking fairly strong until Dak Prescott went down for the season in week five. He is back and fit and raring to go for this match though which will be a huge boost to the Dallas Cowboys not just in this match but the ones to come as they seek the NFC East title once again.
If we remember back to the four matches that Prescott played in he was storming all over defences with the assistance of Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup among others. Ezekiel Elliott is enough of a threat to disguise the pass game so there is enough to like about the Cowboys here. A positive start for Dallas here would put the pressure on Washington Football Team and Philadelphia Eagles who are teams under transition.
Betting
There is a part of me that thinks that the Dallas Cowboys are getting a pretty hefty start in this match but I don’t really want to be taking on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on when it is such a big night at the Raymond James Stadium. I would be interested to see if their defence can reach the levels it got to last season though. I suspect it can’t, or at least won’t this early in the season when we remember there was one pre-season match less than there usually is so defences might take a week or two to get up to speed.
Prescott returning should bring the Dallas offense to the fore. He has a multitude of passing options in case Elliott is shut down by the Tampa defence and while Dallas are strong through the middle defensively, Brady isn’t exactly short on targets either and the deep threat could run riot in this match. If both sides find the run game stopped then aerial drives should be frequent and as a result of that over 51.5 points looks a good play to me.
Tips
Back Over 51.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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