The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fought valiantly against the Atlanta Falcons in their first game without Mike Evans (set to return eventually) and Chris Godwin (done for season). They lost 31-26 despite outgaining the Falcons 432 to 394 — losing the turnover battle by three will do that. Going forward, the Buccaneers’ defense will need to figure it out if they want to help an offense that has lost its fastball.
The Kansas City Chiefs are the ugliest undefeated team I can remember. They have a negative turnover margin, have scored the 20th-most points in the league, and have the second-worst EPA (expected points added) of the Patrick Mahomes era (behind only 2023). Luckily, their defense is unbelievable, and they have arguably one of the greatest head coach/quarterback duos of all time.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Kansas City Chiefs Betting Lines, Odds, Start Time, and More
- Spread
Chiefs -9 - Moneyline
Chiefs (-465); Bucs (+350) - Over/Under
46 total points - Game Time
8:15 p.m. ET - Location
Arrowhead Stadium
Bucs vs. Chiefs Preview and Prediction
According to TruMedia, Mahomes ranks 13th of 36 quarterbacks with over 100 attempts in EPA per dropback. We are so used to Mahomes playing otherworldly that a season where he is only above average feels like the sky is falling. On top of that, the offense as a whole ranks eighth in EPA.
The only real issue with this Chiefs offense is the lack of explosiveness. They are ranked 24th in plays of 10 or more yards and 20th in plays of 20 or more yards.
As we began to see a couple of years ago, Mahomes’ deep ball struck fear into opposing defenses. Looking at how that affects this season, the Chiefs have faced the eighth-most plays against MOFO (middle of field open) and the 23rd-most plays against MOFC (middle of field closed). Unfortunately for opposing defenses, the Chiefs are okay with this.
PFF charts Mahomes as having the lowest average depth of target in the league at just 6.4 yards. To have a successful offense that lacks explosive plays, you need to be consistent from down to down. The Chiefs are the definition of this, ranking first in the league in successful play rate and fourth in excel rate.
Defensively, the Bucs rank 12th in generating pressure and blitz at the third-highest rate in the league. The Chiefs have surprisingly struggled against the blitz, ranking 20th in EPA when being blitzed. Luckily, there is still historical precedent that has scared teams from blitzing at a high rate, as the Chiefs have been blitzed 29th-most in the NFL. Overall, the Bucs’ pass defense has struggled the most, especially in giving up explosive plays.
Tampa has given up the fourth-most passes of 10 or more yards and the fifth-most passes of 20 or more yards. If there was ever a game for the Chiefs to finally land some explosive plays, it’s this one.
It is hard to get a read on what the Tampa offense will look like with another week of no Evans or Godwin. The Bucs passed the ball 50 times last week but this was because they only spent 1.09% of their plays in a positive game-script situation (win probability of more than 70%). The Falcons only pressured Baker Mayfield on 11.8% (lowest rate in league is 22.4% for context) of his dropbacks.
The Chiefs do not have the same issues as the Falcons when it comes to pressuring the quarterback. In fact, the Chiefs rank fourth in the league in pressure generated and seventh in blitz percentage. Both have not been problematic for the Bucs in the past, but it could prove to be troubling when they don’t have a wide receiver to win quickly or throw it up to.
Pair this with the fact that Steve Spagnuolo is in his bag as a play-caller and you can start to understand why the Chiefs have the sixth-best defensive EPA and are undefeated to start their season. To properly understand just how well Spagnuolo is doing, I used Shannon entropy to evaluate how predictable each defense is based on the amount of times they are running each type of coverage.
The Chiefs are No. 1, meaning they have the most unpredictable defense. It’ll be very difficult for the Bucs to win this game with a defense that hasn’t performed well and a banged-up offense.
My pick: Chiefs -9