The Baltimore Ravens are scheduled to play the Tampa Bay Bucs on Thursday Night Football to open Week 8 of the 2022 NFL season.
The Bucs were listed as 3-point favorites on the look-ahead line last week. The number reopened Tampa -2 on Sunday night in Las Vegas, but it didn’t take long for the point spread to flip to Ravens -1.5. But The point spread jumped the fence again, and the Bucs are back to the favorites as of Thursday morning.
BetMGM, in fact, is dealing Tampa -2.5, although the Bucs can be had for -1.5 at FanDuel and BetRivers. Let’s call it Tampa -2 as the consensus.
Let’s take a look at the latest Ravens vs. Bucs odds on Thursday Night Football as well as our prediction.
TNF Odds: Point Spread, Moneyline, Total
Here are current Thursday Night Football odds from around the sports betting marketplace.
NFL · Thu (10/27) @ 8:14pm ET
| BAL Ravens | at | TB Buccaneers |
| Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida | ||
Ravens, Bucs Trending in Different Directions
Both teams are tied for first in their divisions but seem to be going in different directions.
Trending upward is Baltimore (4-3 straight up/2-4-1 against the spread), which has had a double-digit lead in each of its games. Counting this matchup, the Ravens’ next nine foes all currently have losing records.
The Ravens are coming off a 23-20 home victory over Cleveland and are tied with defending AFC North champion Cincinnati for division honors and hold the head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of a 19-17 win over the Bengals’ win Week 5.
They’ll meet again in the season finale at Cincinnati to perhaps settle who wins the North.
Trending downward is Tampa Bay, which entered the season with a league-high estimated win total of 11.5 (along with Kansas City and Buffalo), but stands at 3-4 (2-5 ATS) despite being a favorite in each of its games. Since opening 2-0, the Bucs have lost four of their past five to drop into a tie with Atlanta for the AFC South lead. But the Bucs hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Last week, Tampa Bay was the biggest upset victim of the season, losing 21-3 at Carolina as a 13-point choice, the only team this year to fall as a double-digit favorite. And it came with the Panthers (a 1,000-1 shot on the Super Bowl futures board) using a backup-to-the-backup at QB in PJ Walker, who had a career-best passer rating of 126.2 with two TD passes.
This was after Carolina traded star RB Christian McCaffrey earlier in the week and still gained 173 yards on the ground.
It wasn’t just against Carolina that Tampa Bay’s offense has struggled. Over its past three games, which included action versus the bottom-feeder defenses of Atlanta and Pittsburgh, the Bucs scored one TD in its past 25 possessions.
Of their 10 offensive touchdowns this season, tied for third-fewest in the league, four came in a loss to Kansas City in a game that got out of hand early. Only twice have the Bucs scored on the ground, an NFL low.
By comparison, Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson has accounted for 13 TD throws and rushed for two scores.
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Ravens vs. Bucs TNF Prediction
Bucs QB Tom Brady (8 TD passes and 1 INT) is still talking a good game — and sometimes yelling — but if the squad is going to turn things around, it will have to get more production out of the ground game that is averaging 3.0 yards a carry. No team in the league has had a norm that low for a full season since the Chargers in 2000.
It won’t help if leading receiver Mike Evans can’t play (questionable, ankle).
The rush defense has let the team down this year, too, ranking 16th in yards allowed after helping to carry the Bucs the previous three years when it had the stiffest unit in 2019 and 2020 and third-best in 2021. That defense will now go against a Ravens offense that ranks fifth on the rushing chart with 156.3 yards a game.
As for the Ravens, their pass defense last year ranked last in yards allowed and yielded 31 TD throws with only nine interceptions in large part because a pair of All-Pro cornerbacks, Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Peters, missed most of the year. These days, with those guys back, that ratio is 11/8.
Looks like the Bucs will fall to 1-3 at home this season.
Prediction: Ravens 28, Bucs 16
Also read: Ravens vs. Bucs props and TD scorers | NFL Week 8 betting tips and strategies | NFL Week 8 betting picks and predictions
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