Buccaneers vs. Eagles: Odds, picks, stats and betting trends for Week 4

The Philadelphia Eagles (2-1) answered some questions with their Week 3 win over the New Orleans Saints: Is the defensive line as terrible as it had looked before, does Dallas Goedert exist, and just how good is Saquon Barkley? The answers: not at all, absolutely, and he’s the best in the world. 

The Eagles are going down to Tampa Bay (2-1) in Week 4, and they’re going to need the defensive line, Dallas Goedert, and Saquon Barkley to pick up right where they left off. The injury reports for both of these teams are just stupid. There’s a whole bunch of really important players who can and probably will miss this game, so let’s start there.

Player news and injuries

The Buccaneers have 17 players on their injury report which is nuts. You can read all of those names here. A few of those more notable names are wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, the entirety of their defensive line, safety Antoine Winfield Jr., left tackle Tristan Whirfs, and running back Bucky Irving.

Both Evans and Godwin were listed as limited. They’re both older players, 31 and 28 years old respectively, so if they’re dinged up even a little bit, it’s probably a safe play by the team to have them limited. They’ll both probably play, but that being said… if they’re not 100%, it’s going to be pretty advantageous to the Eagles.

The Buccs' entire starting defensive line being on the injury report is crazy. There’s no chance that they’re all going to miss the game, but it’s still impressive. The two names to keep an eye on are Vita Vea and Greg Gaines.

Antoine Winfield has missed the past two weeks with a foot injury. If he misses this game it will be huge, especially given the wide receivers the Eagles are going to have on the field.

Tristan Whirfs is one of the best tackles in the NFL and he’s probably the best player on the Buccaneers. it’s tough any time a team loses one of those guys.

Bucky Irving isn’t anything special, but he’s a better running back than Rachaad White. Tampa isn’t great at running the ball anyway, but this might force them to use a less talented guy.

The Eagles have three very important players on the injury report: A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Lane Johnson. A.J. 's missed the last two games with a hamstring, and DeVonta and Lane both got concussions in Week 3. 

There’s a really small chance that A.J. and DeVonta play in this game, but the situation with Lane seems a little more up in the air. He hasn’t been practicing, but he has been seen at practice stretching and doing some stretching. That means he’s doing better with the concussion protocol.

The concussion protocol is kind of peculiar. Once a player is cleared to practice, they have to go through a certain period of time without concussion symptoms to be cleared. If Lane does participate in Friday’s practice, there is a chance, albeit a small one, that he plays in Week 4. That’s huge because history shows that he’s very, very important to the Eagles' success.

Another player who popped up on the Eagles’ injury report was defensive tackle Milton Williams with a groin. Milton’s been steady, even in games when the entire defensive line has been shaky. Also, given the way the Eagles used heavy personnel to stop the run against the Saints, Milton could be a key player in Week 4.

Buccaneers vs. Eagles preview

It would be awesome if this was just a game where we could say, ‘The Eagles just need to make it to the bye week,’ but it’s not that easy. Given everything that we know about this team and why games have been close, a miserable Nick Sirianni decision on a fourth down to cost the Eagles points or a bad turnover from Jalen Hurts would be a brutal thing to have to think about for the next two weeks.

What to expect from the offenses

The Eagles offense is a huge question mark here. We know that Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, and Dallas Goedert are going to have to be the majority of the offense. Other than them? Sheesh. It’s hard to say.

Jahan Dotson will be the de facto WR1, and then the other wide receivers will be Johnny Wilson, Parris Campbell, and someone else who gets called up from the practice squad. It’s not good, but someone has to catch the ball other than Goedert and Barkley.

Does this mean the Eagles go with 12 personnel or 21 personnel to limit the number of wide receivers and put the best players on the field? Maybe. One thing that’s for sure is that offensive coordinator Kellen Moore should have full freedom to use any play that he’s ever dreamed of. 

The play that he thought of when he hungover on the couch after his cousins’ bachelor party? Yes, do it. The one that he thought when he was at the Phish concert in The Sphere? Absolutely. The one that he thinks he saw while he was staring at one of those 3D art things? Definitely. The Eagles are severely limited in the passing game, which means they have nothing to lose. Let Kellen get weird with it.

The other huge aspect of the Eagles' offense in this game is their ability to handle the blitz. Sure, they’ve done pretty well in the first three weeks, but those blitzes were child’s play compared to what Todd Bowles is going to have his defense do.

Bowles’ defense is the genesis of the ‘Jalen Hurts and the Eagles can’t deal with the blitz’ narrative. In the 2021 Wild Card game, he made Jalen play one of his three worst games. In the 2023 Wild Card game, he also made Jalen play one of his three worst games. Todd Bowles has drawn out the worst in QB1. 

If Jalen can handle the blitz in this game it’s going to be massive because not only are these going to be six-man pressures, but Jalen is also going to be calling the protections. If he can come out on top here, it’ll be huge and it’ll give the Eagles and the fans a big boost in confidence for the rest of the season and pretty much the rest of time. Jalen’s going to need to look at his Boogeyman straight in the eyes and spit in his face.

The Buccaneers offense is a little weird. Baker Mayfield looked really good last season and also in Week 1 of this season when he threw for 289 yards and four touchdowns. After that? Not so much. 

He’s the third-most-sacked quarterback in the NFL right now. He was only sacked once in Week 1, but he was sacked 12 times between Weeks 2 and 3. That’s because his offensive line is pretty bad. He’s getting pressured a lot and he’s getting blitzed a lot which is making it hard for him to get the ball deep when he needs to.

That being said, his receivers are good. We know who Mike Evans is and what Mike Evans does. He’s really reliable but he's susceptible to getting shut down. Chances are, Chris Godwin is going to be Baker’s go-to guy this week.

He’ll probably line up in the slot most of the time, which means he’ll be seeing a lot of Avonte Maddox. Godwin will win that matchup more often than not. 

As for the Buccaneers’ running game? It’s gross. It turns out that their offensive line is actually worse in the run game than it is in the passing game. You pair that with two pretty lackluster running backs and it’s been a disaster.

Overall, the Buccaneers offense has a very low floor and a decently high ceiling. It really comes down to which Eagles' defense we see this week.

What to expect from the defenses

The Eagles’ defense was otherworldly against the Saints, but a lot of that was due to what the Saints did. They kept throwing out heavy packages, which allowed the Eagles to put bigger guys on the field. 

In Weeks 1 and 2, when the Eagles' defense was terrible against the run because the offenses were throwing out 11 personnel and the Eagles matched that with a lighter defense. The Buccaneers use 11 personnel a lot. 

We’ll find out pretty quickly if Fangio has made an adjustment based on what worked. Hopefully, he finds something that can keep five defensive linemen on the field while also being able to defend against lighter personnel.

It does help that Rachaad White and Bucky Irving are easily the worst running backs the Eagles have seen this season. They don’t hold any water compared to Josh Jacobs, Bijan Robinson, and Alvin Kamara.

When it comes to defensive matchups in the passing game, we’ve seen Darius Slay hold Mike Evans in check and Quinyon Mitchell is playing better than a rookie cornerback should. Any receiver that lines up on the outside shouldn’t have too big of a game. 

That’s why Chris Godwin is such a threat here. Avonte Maddox is easily the worst defensive back on the field. He can and probably will be exposed at some point during the game. That means the safeties are going to need to be solid. Reed Blankenship is pretty good in coverage and doesn’t miss an egregious number of tackles, but C.J. Gardner-Johnson is a little different.

C.J.G.J.’s been a liability in coverage and he’s also missed tackles which have allowed short and intermediate passes to turn into touchdowns. Luckily, he’s made just as many impact plays at the line of scrimmage as he has botched plays so it kind of evens out. This week he said that he’s going to fix his coverage problems, but what does that really mean?

This game will once again be decided in the trenches. The Eagles have more talent on their defensive line than the Buccaneers have on their offensive line. They also have a whole lot of juice coming into this game and they should know that they can get after Baker. 

If Jalen Carter and Brandon Graham can repeat what they did against the Saints, it will be immaculate. If they can do 80% of what they did, it should be enough to win.

A big swing in this game is how much playing time Bryce Huff gets. He’s hopeless and if he wasn’t getting paid $17 million he wouldn’t sniff the field. Unfortunately, he’s getting paid $17 million and he’ll sniff the field entirely too much.

The talent on the Buccaneers' defense isn’t what it has been in the past few years. Their linebackers are getting older, their defensive backs are inexperienced, and their defensive line is pretty humdrum.

The guy that can wreck the game for them is Vita Vea. No one has been able to stop Saquon Barkley yet, but if there is someone, it would be Vea. He has a dominating presence and he makes sure offenses feel him. If the Eagles go into this game with a very run-heavy game plan, he might throw it into shambles. 

As mediocre as their other defensive linemen are, they might be able to attack Lane Johnson’s replacement, Fred Johnson. Carl Granderson was able to win against Fred near the end of the Saints game, and if the Buccaneers are smart, they’ll build off of that. 

It’s really just the Buccaneers' scheme and Todd Bowles' brain behind it that makes their defense dangerous. He creates havoc and has been successful against the Eagles in the past.

How to watch Buccaneers vs. Eagles live 

• Date: September 29, 2024
• Time: 1 pm Eastern
• Site: Raymond James Stadium
• City: Tampa, Florida
• TV/Streaming: Fox. This game is being called by Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt. We had Greg Olsen last week, so we’ll really be able to tell how much better he is than Brady.

Latest game odds for Buccaneers vs. Eagles in Week 4

The latest odds as of Friday AM via DraftKings:

• Moneyline: Eagles (-130)
• Spread: Eagles -1.5
• Total: 43

Buccaneers vs. Eagles team stats and betting trends

Nick Sirianni, Jalen Hurts, and Kellen Moore have all had their run-ins with Todd Bowles’ Buccaneers, so the history gives us a decent idea as to what might happen in this game.

• Jalen Hurts is 1-3 straight up and 2-2 against the spread vs. the Buccaneers
• Only 1 of those 4 games has gone over the total
• Kellen Moore is 1-2 SU and 2-1 ATS against the Buccaneers
• Only 1 of those 3 games has gone over the total
• Under Nick Sirianni, the Eagles are 25-12 SU and 18-16-3 ATS when they are coming off a win
• They’re also 14-5 SU and 7-11-1 as road favorites

Todd Bowles is familiar with the Eagles' offense, but Baker Mayfield isn’t too familiar with Fangio’s defense. It’s his seventh year in the NFL and he’s only run into Fangio one time back in 2019 when he was the quarterback of the Browns and Fangio was the head coach of the Broncos.

• In that game, Baker was 27-of-42 for 273 yards with one touchdown
• He lost that game 24-19
• That means Baker is 0-1 SU and 0-1 ATS against Fangio
• Under Todd Bowles, the Buccaneers are 2-4 SU and 2-4 ATS as a home dog
• They’re also 9-9 SU and 5-11-1 ATS coming off a loss