Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sunday, November 1, 2026
1:00 PM ET, Raymond James Stadium
The Buccaneers are 2.5-point favorites with a total of 45.5. My play is Falcons +2.5 (-112).
Tampa Bay just ran Carolina off its own field, 43-13, and the market wants you to believe that’s the real Bucs. I’m not paying for one blowout from a team that is 0-4 at Raymond James Stadium this season and scoring 17 points a game there.
This isn’t the Falcons offense you saw in September
Atlanta’s 3-4 record hides two different teams. Cooper Rush started the first two games and the offense was a mess. Since Michael Penix Jr. took over in Week 3, the Falcons are gaining about 0.11 expected points per play. That’s a fancy way of saying they move the ball like a top-10 offense; over a full season, that rate would rank seventh in the league. Penix has 9 touchdown passes against one interception, and Atlanta has averaged 31 points over its last five games.
The win that should have everybody’s attention came last Sunday. The Falcons handed San Francisco its first loss, 29-20, with Penix going 25-of-34 for 213 yards and three touchdowns. He got the ball out fast all day and was pressured on a career-low 8.8% of his dropbacks. “We trust Mike,” Kevin Stefanski said afterward. So do I.
Tampa’s passing game still hasn’t shown up
Baker Mayfield is back from the dislocated right thumb that cost him three games, but he barely had to use it at Carolina. He threw 11 passes, completing seven for 64 yards and a touchdown, while the Bucs handed it off 49 times for 258 yards. Mayfield called the win “a statement internally for us,” and fair enough. But Tampa’s passing game ranks 31st in the league in efficiency per throw, and it was actually a little worse in the games Mayfield played than in the three he missed.
The ground game is where the Bucs live, at 146.4 rushing yards per game, third in the league. Atlanta allows just 88.9 per game, fourth-fewest, and grades fifth in run defense by EPA. Atlanta’s own ground game, with Bijan Robinson at 704 rushing yards, runs into a Tampa defense that gives up 77.3 a game. Both offenses play to their strength and both defenses are built to stop it. When the run games cancel out, I want the team with the quarterback who can win from the pocket, and right now that’s Penix.
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Kyle Pitts treats Tampa like his own backyard
Pitts has 629 career receiving yards against the Bucs, including an 11-catch, 166-yard, three-touchdown afternoon in Tampa last December in a 29-28 Atlanta win. He’s also scored four touchdowns in Atlanta’s last three games. Tampa’s secondary is no pushover, with Jacob Parrish leading the NFL with 11 passes defensed, but a big tight end working the middle on quick throws is exactly how you beat a defense that wants to tee off on your quarterback.
And this series doesn’t do blowouts. The last six meetings were all decided by six points or fewer, by an average of 3.7. In a rivalry that keeps landing on a field goal, I’ll gladly take 2.5 points with the better passing offense.
The case against the Falcons
Tampa’s defense is the best unit on this field. It ranks third in the league in EPA allowed per play, and the pass rush has 10 sacks in its last two games after just six in the first five. Atlanta ranks 23rd in sack rate allowed, so if Penix holds the ball, this gets ugly in a hurry. The Falcons also had a long injury list early in the week, with Brian Robinson Jr., Avieon Terrell and Billy Bowman Jr. all listed as questionable, and there’s a 49% chance of rain in Tampa. A sloppy, field-goal kind of game is where 2.5 points falls just short of the number you really want, which is 3.
Projected score: Falcons 23, Buccaneers 20. I’d play Atlanta down to +1.5, and if this drifts to a pick’em, I’d take the Falcons on the moneyline (around +115 right now).
The Pick: Falcons +2.5
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