Bank on Bucs to buoy bets
The first five games of this NFL wildcard weekend have provided us with plenty of drama and intrigue, and we’ve got a good one in store Monday night between the Buccaneers and Cowboys.
For all of the woes that this Tampa Bay passing offense has faced this year, the Bucs are rolling at the right time. The same can’t be said for Dallas, which is mired in a turnover nightmare heading into the postseason.
Here are three of our favorite prop bets to target at BetMGM ahead of Monday’s wild-card round finale:
Tom Brady over 277.5 passing yards (-110)
By most accounts, this has been the most frustrating season of Brady’s career and his least statistically productive in years. Yet he’s still averaging 276.1 yards per game, and he threw for a whopping 432 yards in his last full start — his fourth game with at least 280 yards in his last five games (excluding Week 18).
This may seem like a bad matchup on paper after the Cowboys allowed the NFL’s eighth-fewest passing yards per game (200.9). But they’ve been atrocious in recent weeks against the likes of Trevor Lawrence (318 yards), Gardner Minshew (355), Joshua Dobbs (232) and Sam Howell (169), who have averaged 268.5 passing yards per game over the last four weeks against this Dallas defense.
That has coincided with a rash of injuries to the Cowboys’ secondary, with starting corners Anthony Brown (Achilles) and Jourdan Lewis (foot) out for the year. Brady is a far superior passer to the competition Dallas has faced in recent weeks, and I’d expect him to attack that mismatch relentlessly in a do-or-die spot.
Dak Prescott over
0.5 interceptions thrown (-165)
We’ve bet this exact prop on Prescott
multiple times in recent weeks, and there’s no way we’re staying away from it this week — even if the price is probably a little inflated.
It’s easy to understand why with the way that Prescott is playing. He’s thrown a jaw-dropping 11 interceptions in his last seven games with at least one in every contest, including four games with multiple INTs. He’s also coming off a brutal Week 18 in which he completed a careerworst 37.8 percent of his passes — and, yes, threw a pick-six that effectively killed the game for Dallas.
Tampa Bay’s defense hasn’t been the most opportunistic this year, but it’s picked off at least one pass in three of the last four weeks. Against the NFL’s leader in interceptions (15), the Bucs should be able to bait Prescott into at least one miscue on Monday.
Mike Evans over
65.5 receiving yards (-115)
For all of the reasons we love Brady’s passing yards prop, we’re all over Evans to surpass his receiving total, too, after he finally broke out of his slump in Week 17.
It’s not like the opportunity wasn’t there — Evans has been targeted at least eight times in 10 of his last 13 starts, and he finally turned that gaudy target share into a 10-catch, 207-yard effort against the Panthers in his final regular-season start. While that output was clearly an anomaly, it was still Evans’ seventh game with at least 70 receiving yards in 15 starts this season.
I don’t expect him to hit the 200-yard mark on Monday, but he’ll have his chances to shine against this depleted Dallas defense that allowed the ninth-most receiving yards to opposing wide receivers (156.7 per game). Evans cooked the Cowboys for 71 yards in Week 1 and should be able to reach that total — or higher — in this one.