The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been the NFC South’s dominant team for much of the past decade. They captured the Super Bowl in 2020 and then went on to claim the division in each season from 2021 through 2024.
Last season looked like it might extend that streak — Tampa Bay started 6-2 — but injuries changed the trajectory. Quarterback Baker Mayfield injured his shoulder in November, and the team never recovered. After that hot start they lost seven of eight games and finished 8-9, missing the division title on a tiebreaker.
Is now a good moment to back the Bucs to rebound? At +190 to win the NFC South, the odds offer strong value in my view. Although Tampa Bay is 0-1 to start the year, so are the other teams in the division, and they’ll be 9-point favorites this Sunday and likely 1-1 shortly.
Even in the loss to the Bengals there were encouraging signs — the box score suggested the game was winnable for Tampa Bay — but four fumbles, all recovered by Cincinnati with one returned for a touchdown, swung the outcome.
Looking at the rest of the division, Atlanta looks hamstrung by quarterback questions, Carolina — last year’s division winner — finished under .500 and was outscored by 69 points, and New Orleans, a preseason favorite, is 0-1 and an 8-point underdog in Week 2 at Baltimore. With no clear powerhouse in the NFC South, the division appears up for grabs, and based on recent history and the current landscape, backing the Buccaneers at +190 seems like a reasonable wager.
Fan take: This matters because a bounce-back from Tampa Bay would reshape the NFC South race and affect playoff seeding in a division that’s wide open. If the Bucs recover, it could reinforce the importance of depth and midseason health in deciding division titles across the league.
Source: www.foxsports.com
