NFL In-Depth Betting Analysis of Tampa Bay Buccaneers

No team in the NFL this season has a bigger reset at quarterback than the Tampa Bay Bucs as they must replace the GOAT, Tom Brady. They will do so with either Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask in 2023. Let’s analyze the Buccaneers.

2023 Tampa Bay Buccaneers In-Depth Betting Analysis | MyBookie NFL Preview

Odds to win Super Bowl: +8000

Odds to win NFC: +4500

Odds to win NFC South: +750

Regular-season wins: 6.5

The Bucs were a rare team to win a division title with a losing record as they finished 8-9 last year but won the South – it was the first losing record in the history of Tom Brady’s epic NFL career. His final game was a 31-14 home wild card loss to Dallas on Jan 16. While Brady threw for a lot of yards last year and broke his own single-season completions record, he had some really bad games and was outright terrible in the Cowboys loss.

Brady threw a career-high 66 passes against Dallas, completing 35 of them for 351 yards, including second-half touchdowns of 30 yards to Julio Jones and 8 yards to Cameron Brate when the game was out of hand. He was sacked twice and also threw a costly interception — a second-quarter, end-zone pick from the Dallas 5 that prevented the Bucs from potentially taking the lead when they were only trailing 6-0. That really changed the game.

The 45-year-old left as the greatest quarterback to ever play, with seven Super Bowls — six with the Patriots and one with the Bucs. He leaves the league with several regular-season records, including passing touchdowns, passing yards, completions, division titles, wins, and quarterback starts. He is the only player in league history to beat all 32 teams, and owns nearly every postseason quarterback record.

Who starts Week 1 for the Bucs? Either 2021 second-round pick Kyle Trask or more likely free-agent addition and former No. 1 overall pick and Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield, who signed a one-year contract. He split last season with Carolina, which eventually waived him, and the LA Rams.

“Listen, I’m never going to be Tom Brady. There’s a reason he has won so many Super Bowls. He’s the greatest of all time. There’s no doubt about that,” Mayfield said during his introductory press conference. “I’m not going to try and be Tom. I’m going to be me. That’s what’s gotten me to this point. We’re going to do it differently.”

It would be a surprise if Trask beats out Mayfield considering Trask has never started an NFL game. His only action during a regular season game came in a meaningless Week 18 contest last year after Brady took a seat in Atlanta. Trask lacks mobility and arm strength, much like Mayfield. The two have been splitting first-team reps this summer under the watchful eye of new offensive coordinator Dave Canales. Most likely, the Bucs will be taking a QB very high in the 2024 draft.

Canales has brought a new system to Tampa Bay, one with an emphasis on marrying the run and pass game. The scheme is expected to have an uptick in wide-zone runs, mid-zone, misdirection and scrambles/bootlegs. The run game will be accentuated come fall, complementing the running back room featuring second-year White as the workhorse, along with offseason acquisition Chase Edmonds and fourth-year player Ke’Shawn Vaughn with 2022 top back Leonard Fournette having moved on.

Last season, White tallied 469 snaps (38.57%). He finished his rookie campaign with 481 yards on 129 rushes and a touchdown. In the passing game, White contributed 290 yards on 50 receptions and two touchdowns. His development in pass protection on blitz pickups allowed him to stay on the field for all three downs. White is a good bet to become the ninth player in franchise history to rush for 1,000 yards if he stays healthy.

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Tampa Bay got a Top 10 talent in the draft at No. 19 overall in Pittsburgh defensive tackle Calijah Kancey, who has been compared to former Pitt star and three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald. The Bucs didn’t re-sign Akiem Hicks in free agency, so the D-Line was a need. Kancey had 14.5 sacks and 27.5 tackles for loss in two years at Pitt, and he posted a 4.67 40-yard dash — the fastest by a defensive lineman at the NFL combine since 2006 (Donald ran a 4.68 in 2014) — and 33.5 inch vertical.

The team also signed former Rams defensive lineman Greg Gaines. Over the past two seasons, he has contributed 91 tackles, 8.5 sacks, 10 tackles for loss and 24 quarterback hits. For the Super Bowl LVI-winning Rams in 2021, Gaines produced a career high 4.5 sacks and 13 quarterback hits in the regular season, then added 0.5 sacks, 12 tackles and two passes defensed in the playoffs.

Tampa Bay’s schedule is ranked as the NFL’s 22nd-toughest this season with its opponents combining for a .483 winning percentage last season when the NFC South was the league’s worst division – it may well be again and might only take eight victories again to win it. It just probably won’t be the Bucs. They are 6.5-point underdogs for Week 1 at Minnesota.

The Vikings won the NFC North for the first time since 2017 and earned the third seed in the conference playoff field with a 13-4 record. They did so despite an overall scoring differential in the regular season of -3. The teams didn’t play in 2022.

Five of Tampa Bay’s nine road games will be against teams that play in domed stadiums: Minnesota, New Orleans, Houston, Indianapolis and Atlanta. The season-ending trip to Charlotte in early January could include cold weather, but otherwise the latest the Bucs are playing outdoors and not in Florida is Nov. 19 at San Francisco.