NFL Week 2 and we will see the St Louis Rams travel to south to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The game has a start time of 4:25 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on CBS. Current Vegas odds have the Texans listed as 3 point favorites, while the total is set at 40.
Analysis: The St Louis Rams had a 7-9 record last year and where looking for better things this year, but a season ending injury to QB Sam Bradford may have ended their hopes of getting to the post season. Shaun Hill will take over for Sam, but he was not all that effective in game 1 and actually left their 34-6 loss to the Vikings with an injury. This is a team that is a mess on offense right now. Still the Rams may turn more to a run game that is led by Zac Stacy, who ran for 973 yards in 12 starts last year. Overall the offense is not expected to be explosive. Thats ok cause they do have a very good defense to lean on, that may very well have the best line in the league thanks to a solid draft.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are off a miserable 4-12 season last year, which prompted the firing of Greg Schiano. In steps Lovie Smith and by the looks of things he has already changed the atmosphere to the good around the Tampa locker room. Still it didn't translate into a win in their opener as they fell to the Panthers by a 20-14 score. The offense last year was the worst in the league, as they averaged just 277 ypg and 18 ppg on the season. That will not get it done in today's NFL. This year they hope to rectify that, but that will not be easy as they are weak at QB, very weak on the OL and rather average at the WR position. They do have RB Doug Martin but he can't do it on his own. The defense looks very good for the Bucs and that can be expected with the defensive minded Lovie Smith running the show.
Pick: I have to go with the Under in this one. Just can't pass up Unders when these two teams are on the field and it's even better when they are facing each other. Last week the Rams had no offense at all and that was vs a very mediocre Minnesota defense. Now they face a much better defense and again without out Sam Bradford, who is out for the year. Shaun Hill have a decent game, but still he also threw two picks in the game and st Louis struggled in the scoring zone, having no TDs and just 2 FGs. The Tampa Bay offense really struggled vs the Panthers defense and will be taking on maybe a better front wall than that one in this one. Josh McCown is not a very good NFL QB and while he did throw 2 TDs last week, he also had 2 INTs and threw for just 183 yards. Last week the Buccaneers had 102 yards rushing in the game, but only ran the ball 17 times. I expect them to run allot more in this one, which will help the clock keep running. Two nice angels help us here and that is that the last 8 years Game two rord teams who scored 6 or less in game 1 have gone 7-0 to the Under, while game two home faves with an OU line of under 40 have gone 9-1-1 to the Under the last 5 years. Lower 30s at best here.
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