The Cardinals took care of business as the Saturday free play. Today’s comp won’t get played until next Sunday, but it’s an NFL side I’ve already played and I think I’ve got a decent take on this game.
(481) TITANS @ (482) BUCCANEERS
Take: TITANS +3
This is clearly one of the lesser matchups on the opening week NFL slate as far as high profile teams are concerned. But the top two picks in the most recent NFL draft will be in action here, so it’s highly intriguing from that vantage point.
So let’s deal with the two rookie signal callers as Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston square off. No doubt about it, this is small sample stuff and it came in games that didn’t count and featured little in the way of complex defensive schemes. Nevertheless, I came away from the pre-season impressed with Mariota and highly dubious as to whether Winston is even close to ready to face a real NFL defense.
My opinions on the two QB’s are off what I watched. The stats are probably not that important, for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph. But I don’t think they hurt, either. Mariota was able to complete 70% of his attempts and achieved a solid 102.9 QB rating. Winston had problems finding his targets, with a meager 48.9% completion rate and a poor 54.7 QB rating. Winston also got flustered dealing with pressure and ended up getting sacked seven times.
Winston is going to see some stuff that’s foreign here as he will be facing a Dick LeBeau defense. With this much time for one of the all-time gurus to prepare, I’m fully expecting some schemes that baffle Winston and lead to mistakes. I imagine Tampa Bay will also deal up some confusion for Mariota, but he just simply has looked more advanced to me than Winston. I give Tennessee a definite edge at QB in this game.
Beyond that, there’s the view from here that the Titans are going to be an improved team this season, while my sentiments are that the Bucs will have a new head coach at this time in 2016. There’s also a nifty opening week road dog angle in play here (sorry, it’s not mine and I’m not giving away someone else’s work without permission) and that favors Tennessee as well.
Bottom line for me is that I see the visitors as the better team in this duel of nonentities. Getting three points seems like nice value to me and I’m on the Titans to get the job done as the curtain goes up on the new NFL campaign.
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My 2* CFB Best Bet is up for Sunday.
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