{"id":8107,"date":"2010-09-25T17:39:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T22:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=8107"},"modified":"2010-09-25T17:39:51","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T22:39:51","slug":"nfl-betting-week-3-preview-buccaneers-vs-steelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-betting-week-3-preview-buccaneers-vs-steelers-8107\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Betting Week 3 Preview: Buccaneers Vs Steelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Josh Freeman and the Bucs are 2.5\/3 point home underdogs on Sunday against the Steelers<\/figcaption><\/figure>A battle of surprising unbeaten teams takes place in Tampa Bay on Sunday when the Buccaneers (2-0) host the Pittsburgh Steelers (2-0).\u00a0 Last year, it took Tampa 14 weeks to register its second victory of the season.\u00a0 However, the Bucs have excelled thanks to second-year quarterback Josh Freeman, who will face his most difficult test of the young season against a tough Steelers team that enters this matchup as a 2.5\/3-point road favorite depending where you shop.\u00a0 We should point out that you should view our NFL football betting lines page so that you can compare the odds between multiple sportsbooks so you are getting the best price no matter who you like in this game.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh and Tampa have both used outstanding defense to hold their first two opponents in check, ranking second and third in the NFL, respectively, in points allowed.\u00a0 The teams are tied for the league lead in interceptions with four apiece and rank among the Top 10 in forced fumbles.\u00a0 That is where the similarities end though, especially when you break down the starting quarterbacks for this game.<\/p>\n

The Steelers are a veteran team playing without quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for the third straight game due to a suspension.\u00a0 They are down to fourth-stringer Charlie Batch as the starter due to injuries to Dennis Dixon and Byron Leftwich, who was just re-signed due to a lack of depth at the position.\u00a0 Dixon suffered a knee injury in a 19-11 win at Tennessee last week and could miss up to a month.\u00a0 Batch relieved Dixon against the Titans and makes his first start since 2007.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh took advantage of seven turnovers by the Titans last week and will have an edge with Leftwich back in the fold since he started three games for the Bucs last season.\u00a0 Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin also spent some time in Tampa, serving as the team\u2019s defensive back coach from 2001-2005 before taking the defensive coordinator job in Minnesota.\u00a0 Buccaneers head coach Raheem Morris has since replaced Tomlin as the youngest head coach in the NFL.<\/p>\n

Morris worked as an assistant coach under Tomlin before getting the Tampa job and has built his team very similar to the former Super Bowl champions.\u00a0 Like Roethlisberger, Freeman is a former first-round pick who was the third quarterback selected behind a couple bigger names.\u00a0 Roethlisberger was picked behind New York\u2019s Eli Manning and San Diego\u2019s Philip Rivers while Detroit\u2019s Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez of the Jets were both drafted ahead of Freeman.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Freeman and the Bucs, the Steelers will only be getting stronger for this matchup with the return of nose tackle Casey Hampton (hamstring) and left tackle Max Starks (ankle).\u00a0\u00a0 Tampa has been able to win its first two games without much of a rushing attack, as running back Carnell Williams has 126 yards on 49 carries for a 2.6-yard average.\u00a0 Pittsburgh is allowing only 52 yards per game on the ground so far and will likely try to grind it out offensively with Batch under center.<\/p>\n

The Steelers are 7-1 all-time against the Bucs in regular-season meetings, and this figures to be another low-scoring affair.\u00a0 The UNDER is 4-0 in the last four games between them and 9-0 in the last nine games overall for Tampa dating back to last season.<\/p>\n

We lean towards the Steelers in this matchup at -2.5 or lower.\u00a0 At -3 we would pass.\u00a0 By now means is this a tap out type bet but we do have 5 NFL winners we like for Sunday card including our 20 unit NFL Game of the Month.\u00a0 You can get that winner as well as the other 4 picks on our NFL sports picks page of the site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A battle of surprising unbeaten teams takes place in Tampa Bay on Sunday when the Buccaneers (2-0) host the Pittsburgh Steelers (2-0).\u00a0 Last year, it took Tampa 14 weeks to register its second victory of the season.\u00a0 However, the Bucs have excelled thanks to second-year quarterback Josh Freeman, who will face his most difficult test […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":5416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[3122,2539,2508,1930,1922,346,458],"class_list":["post-8107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-buccaneers-steelers-preview","tag-football-betting","tag-free-nfl-pick","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8237,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions\/8237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}