NFL
Preseason Preview: Cincinnati Bengals at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Written
By David Hess (Follow me on Twitter @DavidHess311)
When: 8:00 PM ET, Monday,
August 23, 2015
Where: Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida
Televised: ESPN
Where: Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida
Televised: ESPN
Odds: The
Buccaneers opens up as 2 point favorites and it has been bet up slightly to 2.5
in some spots. The OU line opened at 39.5 and has also been bet up some to 40.
The Bengals are a team that could surprise this year. They
have a very good offense and their defense will also be strong this year. Last
year they were hit hard with injuries and
it did allow a lot of younger players to get in some meaningful time,
which will now pay off this year. This is a deep team and I do have them
winning the AFC Central. The Bengals has a very good opening game vs the
Giants, in which they won 23-10. Head Coach Marvin Lewis was very pleased with
the starting offense and gave them the rest of the night off after just one
series. In that series Dalton was 3-3 for 31 yards and a TD. RB Jeremy Hill had
just 2 carries on the drive, but it was for 15 yards. Overall the offense put
up 432 yards, while the defense played excellent, allowing just 224 yards and
13 first downs.
Tampa Bay had a miserable season
last year and as a result were able to draft Jameis Winston to be their QB of
the future. So far in camp Winston has thrown 8 INTs, and then he went out and
really struggled vs the Vikings, hitting just 9 of 19 passes for 131 yards and
1 INT in the 26-16 loss. Winston has a lot of work to do as he just didn’t look
good at all last week. Glennon didn’t either as he hit just 9 of 17 passes for
just 98 yards. This team has issues at the QB slot. The running game also
struggled as they mustered just 89 yards on 26 carries (3.4 ypc). The defense
was supposed to be improved this year, but they did allowed 392 yards,
including 284 yards through the air. The secondary was a sore spot heading into
camp and it still looks a mess.
The Bucs are favored here and I’m
not sure why, even though it is a preseason game. The Bucs really have shoddy
QB play, no running game and their secondary is not good, which really isn’t
good when you’re about to face this Bengals aerial attack. Actually I don’t see
the Bengals first team offense in their all that long. Just long enough to get
some work. That means plenty of action for their backups and they did play well
last week, especially on defense. The Bucs offense was really out of sorts last
week and I can’t see that they have fixed their problems in just one week. I
don’t see their first team offense getting much off of the Bengals first team
defense and once that offense is out of there their backups will struggle as
well. You know where I’m going with this huh? That’s right I will be taking the
Under here. The Bengals may score early, but I can’t see much scoring the rest
of the game by either team.
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