Monday Night Football comes from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay Florida as the 2-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the 0-3 Indianapolis Colts. The game has a start time of 8:35pm ET and the bookmakers opened the betting odds up with Tampa Bay favored by ten-points with a total of 42.0. The early Monday Night Football picks from the betting public have them backing both teams equally, with a slight lean on the over. Even though the action is basically split on the total, the number has dropped down to 40.0 off the opener of 42.0. The weather conditions for the game will be clear with a north wind of 5-10 and a kickoff temperature of 75 degrees.

The Indianapolis Colts were low as +1400 to win the Super Bowl with Peyton Manning which would have paid a $100.00 bettor back $1400.00. The current Super Bowl odds on the Colts are high as +25500 ($100 bettor would get paid $25,500.00). A once promising season has turned into an 0-3 start and made the Houston Texans the heavy favorite to win the division. Curtain Painter will get the call this week to lead the offense, but betting experts say there would be no power rating adjustment between Collins or Painter at quarterback for the Colts. Despite keeping their own against Pittsburgh until the scoreboard read :09 the final score against the Steelers was a little misleading as they were out-gained 408 to 241 on total yards.

Sports Bettors have not been fans of Tampa Bay at home as they have failed to cover 16 of their last 21 home games. The Bucs did take out the Atlanta Falcons 16-13 last week, but the defense allowed Matt Ryan to put up almost 300 yards through the air. The key is whether we will see Josh Freeman the quarterback who tossed two early interceptions last week or Josh Freeman the quarterback who rebounded to complete close to 70% of his pass attempts. Freeman is 67.9% on his passes this season, but is also third in interceptions and so far has had a bad case of "fumblitis".

When breaking down this game, it is difficult to gauge how Tampa Bay can be favored by double digits over anyone considering how poor they do at home against the number. While we do agree that the Pittsburgh game is misleading, the line with Manning in the line-up was expected to be Colts -1.5. The early season shock of losing Manning and scrambling to find someone to lead the team made sense on all the crazy line moves, but going into the current week it is hard to fathom Manning is worth 11.5 points to his team. Even though we would not break the bank on this one, the Colts plus double-digits is worth a small lean on the value alone.

Free Picks: Colts at Buccaneers Betting
What NFL bettors need to know about Colts at Buccaneers (Monday, October 3, 2011) from Pregame.com - Including predictions from Marco D'Angelo and analysis from host RJ Bell.