The 3-1 Bucs travel to Atlanta to face the 2-2 Falcons in an inner-divisional matchup. Baker Mayfield has been dealing, already throwing for 8 touchdowns this season.
On the other side, Bijan Robinson has been dealing with a hamstring issue which should pave the way for both Tyler Allgeier and Darnell Mooney to make positive impacts in this Thursday night matchup.
With Bijan Robinson dealing with a hamstring injury after a less-than-ideal outing against their division rival Saints in Week 4, Kirk Cousins will have to put his Falcon team on his shoulders to come away with a home win on primetime.
Kirk has hit this prop mark in each of his last three games while Atlanta has either won or lost by less than 5 points in those outings.
Cousins is getting more comfortable with the timing of this offense and after both teams are coming off extremely physical games against the Eagles and Saints respectively, I’m looking for some big downfield plays for Cousins and the Falcons.
With Robinson’s early season hamstring issue, I’d be shocked if we don’t see more Tyler Allgeier and less Bijan Robinson, especially after Allgeier totaled 80 yards on 10 touches against the Saints defense last week.
Robinson hit this prop during his first two games this season against Pittsburgh and Philadelphia but against more physical teams that have corners and safeties that can tackle well, Bijan tends to struggle at bouncing runs to the outside.
In the one full game Robinson faced Tampa Bay last season, he put up 34 rushing yards on just 10 carries.
Darnell Mooney has been the 2nd option in this offense when Cousins steps back to pass. While Drake London is a big body red zone target, he will get the attention of the Bucs CB1 and safeties while Mooney will have a handful of 1v1 opportunities in this game.
Darnell has seen 24 targets through 4 games this season, including a long touchdown against the Eagles in Week 2 on primetime.
At the right odds, Mooney beating a corner on a double route is a longshot bet we are willing to take as the Tampa physical defense is beatable later in the game as we saw with Philadelphia mounting some drives towards the end of their last game.
Rachaad White has been nearly nonexistent in the running game compared to his running mate Bucky Irving. White is 41-115-0 while Irving the rookie is 35-203-1.
To loosen this Atlanta defense, Irving will be the physical runner that Tampa will use while White will stick to more of a receiving role in long-down situations. RW is 3rd among RBs in routes run this season while averaging 3 broken tackles per game.
This is a match made in heaven for his receiving stats against an Atlanta defense that is coming off a game where they allowed 42 receiving yards to Kamara.