Kansas City Chiefs vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers Week 1 Free NFL Picks: On Friday night, two teams that are coming off of successful regular seasons from a year ago collide in NFL preseason betting action, as the Kansas City Chiefs play host to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ufabet.
This is going to be an interesting season for the Bucs. Last year, we knew that this was a young team that had a heck of a lot to prove, and the squad really couldn’t go anywhere but up. Little did we know that they were going to end up going 10-6 and right on the verge of the postseason in a year in which 6-10 would have probably been considered a triumph.
Head Coach Raheem Morris had his team playing well last preseason without all that much experience, as Tampa Bay finished 2-2 and outscored its foes 64-61 in the four games. A young defense is mostly returning from a year ago, and there are definitely some promising rookies joining the fold as well. It’s the offense that has caught our attention in this one, though.
All three quarterbacks on this roster are back from last preseason. We know that QB Josh Freeman probably won’t be all that busy, though he is still more or less learning on the job. Instead, QB Josh Johnson, a man who played well at times last preseason, will be in the saddle for probably at least half the game.
QB Rudy Carpenter threw for 391 yards and three TDs against just one pick last preseason, and he will definitely be a man to watch as well in the second half of this one.
Things didn’t look good on paper for the Chiefs last preseason, especially knowing that QB Matt Cassel threw for just 293 yards with three scores and two picks, modest numbers to say the least. Now, he is going to have some relatively inexperienced signal callers behind him doing the majority of the work, and we really don’t have all that much confidence in either QB Ricky Stanzi or QB Tyler Palko.
A questionable offensive line will definitely have its hands full with the Tampa Bay front seven, but if there is time, expect to see plenty of WR Jonathan Baldwin as he gets more accustomed to his new offense.
This unit only put up 59 points in the entire preseason last year, perhaps a sign that General Manager Scott Pioli was taking a page out of the playbook of his old team, the New England Patriots, showing very, very little to the competition in games that really don’t mean all that much.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Kansas City Chiefs Pick: That being said, Tampa Bay feels like it has a desire to win this one, while Kansas City doesn’t. Even if the Chiefs do come out and win this one, we just don’t see those scoring even 20 points in doing so, making an 8+ point victory very, very unlikely. As we like to do quite often in the preseason, we’ll stick with a teaser and take Tampa Bay +7.5 w/ Under 41