Welcome back to Thursday Night Football
Thursday Night Football returns this week with an NFC South rivalry matchup between the 3-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 2-2 Atlanta Falcons. These teams are two of the four contenders for the dubious honor of the NFC South crown. Yes, four, you don’t count anybody out in this division until they have been mathematically eliminated. Not even the Carolina Panthers. All Thursday night games kick off at 8:15 ET on Prime Video.
As always in our brave new world of expansive sports gambling, it is now easier to bet on games than to watch them. You can catch current odds on all NFL games for Week 5 here on FanDuel.
As for the game tonight, it’s big stakes for the South. The Bucs are in the lead in the division with the Falcons hot on their heels. Atlanta beat the New Orleans Saints last week, 26-24, to take second place in the division. Two wins over divisional opponents could give them a strong start early in this race.
These teams are well matched for fireworks if Kirk Cousins and his Falcons get their offense in gear against a Baker Mayfield-led Bucs squad. That’s a big if for a Falcons team that has yet to score more than 26 points in a game. If it comes down to a shoot out, I’m trusting Mayfield to Mike Evans over Cousins to, uh, the field.
There’s also the fact that every single writer at the Falcoholic picked Atlanta to win. That is hubris of the highest order from a fanbase that should know better. That, more than any other reason, is why I am picking the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win tonight.
As always, use this space to talk about the action as it unfolds.
You know the drill.
This is now an open thread!