The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-4) continue to struggle, especially with starting quarterback Baker Mayfield sidelined with a thumb injury. Undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels is starting now, resulting in a tough 17-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers last week. The offense struggled to move the ball, especially through the air.
Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys (2-2) are coming off an impressive comeback win on the road over the Houston Texans. The Cowboys offense is firing on all cylinders right now, making it a tough spot for the Bucs to keep pace.
On a short week, you have to favor the Cowboys with Dak Prescott under center over an undrafted rookie making his second career start in the NFL. With that in mind, let’s look into NFL prediction markets to see where we can find value.
The Cowboys are priced at 80 cents to win this game. This makes sense because of their edge at quarterback and home-field advantage. A short week on Thursday Night Football is always tough. It’s even more difficult when you’re adjusting to a new quarterback, one who plays a completely different style than your starter, as Daniels is a scrambler, while Mayfield is a pocket passer.
While we’re not going to buy into the Cowboys to win outright because the price is prohibitive at 80 cents, we can look to the point spread to find value here.
You can get the Cowboys to win by more than 7.5 points at 52 cents right now. This feels like too low a number. Yes, the Bucs lost by only three points vs. the Packers with Daniels under center last week. However, that final scoreline is skewed.
That’s because the Packers turned the ball over in the red zone on their final two drives. Instead of 17-14, it could have easily been 31-14. Daniels was only able to throw for 148 yards on 27 attempts, so the passing game was completely out of sync.
Even in an exploitable matchup against a struggling Cowboys defense on the road, it’s hard to trust that the Bucs can keep pace on offense. CeeDee Lamb has been absolutely unstoppable this year, making me concerned about the Bucs’ defense as well.
All we need is for the Cowboys to win by 8+ points here. It wouldn’t shock me to see this one turn into a blowout in Dallas’ favor.
The market has surprisingly moved in the Bucs’ direction. This spread was as high as Cowboys -9.5 earlier in the week. This is likely because we’ve seen Tampa be able to keep games close throughout the year, while the Cowboys have one of the worst defenses in the NFL. But in my eyes, this has created a buying opportunity for us. Take the Cowboys to win by 8+ points. Not sure where to start? There are tons of platforms to choose from. See our full list of prediction markets.
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