Eagles vs Buccaneers Betting Trends Show Bettors are Backing Tampa Bay – Should You Tail or Fade the Public?

• The Buccaneers are 9.5 point home favorites over the Eagles in an NFC Wild Card game on Sunday, January 16th
• TB is drawing 56% of the handle ATS and 59% of bets in the point spread
• The wagering trends for this NFC Wild Card showdown can be found below

For Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, the quest to defend their Super Bowl crown begins in earnest with their first playoff game against the Eagles on Sunday. Their NFL betting odds see them as heavy 9.5 point favorites, despite defeating Philly by just six points in a week 6 contest earlier in the season.

The Bucs started the week as 7-point favorites but that has gone even higher to 9.5 home favorites. The NFL betting trends show that the total has dropped 3.5 points from earlier in the week to 46 points, even though these teams combined for 50 points last meeting.

Both the public and the oddsmakers are leaning solidly toward the Buccaneers as the team to advance easily on the moneyline, but also against the spread as well, which we’ll dive into in this article.

Eagles vs Buccaneers Wild Card Odds

Odds as of January 15th at DraftKings

Line Continues To Push Towards A Bucs Blowout

The line on this game opened at Tampa Bay -7. It has since gone up 2.5 more points to now favor them by a whopping 9.5 points. This season, Tampa Bay won seven of their 13 games by ten or more points, with three of their last five wins coming by 13 or more points.

The Eagles were on fire to finish the campaign, with wins in six of their last eight games, and that includes a week 18 blowout loss when they were resting starters for this game.

NEW CAREER HIGH FOR TOM BRADY‼️

Brady set a personal record for passing yards in a season (5,309+) … AT AGE 44 🐐 pic.twitter.com/kCKvpFxqiH

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 10, 2022

This game is the public’s favorite over/under bet of the week, with 67% of the money on the under, which has gone from 49.5 to the current number at 46. Ten of the Eagles’ 17 games hit the over this year, while only nine of the Bucs’ 17 contests hit the over. Tampa Bay has scored at least 28 points in seven of their last eight games, with a shutout loss to New Orleans the lone exception.

Philly, meanwhile, recorded at least 20 points in all but two games on the campaign. Going off those totals for both teams would indicate that perhaps the over will hit. When these two squads met in week 6, the final score was 28-22 Tampa Bay.

Public Backing Tampa On Moneyline

There doesn’t seem to be much faith in the Eagles from the public standpoint, as just 17% of the bets on the moneyline are coming in on them, despite their hot end to the season. Only 26% of the handle is on them to escape Tampa with a road upset. The Bucs have been much better in their friendly confines this season, going 7-and-1 at home while the Eagles were road warriors at 6-and-3 compared to 3-and-5 at home.

Against the 9.5 spread, however, the public aren’t quite as confident that Tampa will demolish them, with just 56% of bettors selecting the Bucs to cover. 59% of bets are on them to win by ten or more.

Jalen Hurts is 23. Tom Brady 44

This will be the biggest age gap between starting QBs in NFL playoff history

This is Jalen’s playoff debut.
Will be Brady’s 46th playoff game

This will be biggest disparity in playoff games between starting QBs in NFL history pic.twitter.com/vSWYRj7EWx

— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) January 11, 2022

Keep in mind, in the Bucs’ run to the Super Bowl last season, they scored 30 points once and 31 points three times, so they were super consistent in racking up a lot of points. They only won one of their four games, however, by more than ten points.

Philly only won nine games, but when they did win, it was by a bunch, with all but two of those victories coming by a margin of eleven or more.

How These Teams Fared This Season

From the over/under perspective, the Bucs this year were just 9-8 in hitting the over, while the Eagles were 10-7 in that same category.

They both were right down the middle when it comes to the betting against the spread, with Brady and co. going 9-8 and Jalen Hurts’ squad going 8-8-1.

Jalen Hurts in first starting season:

– On target throws: 8th highest (78.2 %)
– Bad throws: 3rd lowest (14 %)
– Turnover worthy plays: 16th (3.3 %)
– PFF grade: 10th (80.8)
– EPA/play: 16th
– DVOA: 17th

Not bad… Not bad at all…#Eagles pic.twitter.com/3kM7NCKNTx

— Thomas R. Petersen (@thomasrp93) January 12, 2022

As the underdog this year on the moneyline, the Eagles struggled, going 2-and-6, while Tampa was favored in every game, so they went 13-and-4 in the regard. The Eagles didn’t win a single game against a playoff team on the campaign, and went 0-for-6 against teams who did make the postseason.