Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Houston Texans: Great matchup

Preparing for the future

Bucs have an opportunity to end the season with a winning record, which is quite surprising considering where they were just a month ago. Those wins won't mean much, because they are out of the playoff race already, but it is something to build on for the next season. They've got a big decision to make before that regarding their franchise quarterback. And it seems like they based their offensive gameplan around evaluating Jameis Winston in the last couple of weeks. And as always, Jameis had some highs and some lows. He is on pace for 5300 yards in the season, which would place him inside Top 5 in history of the NFL when talking about a single-season total. The main issue are still the turnovers. He was intercepted 24 times this season and also fumbled bunch of times while getting sacked.

This game was setting up nicely for this offense because the Texans secondary wasn't playing very well lately. But they are missing their best receivers for this game. Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Scotty Miller are all out with hamstring injuries. Godwin and Evans could as well be two of their best players overall and considering how pass-happy this offense has been lately, their absence will definitely hurt their production. Backup receivers will not create as much separation vs their matchups. Combining that with windy conditions and turnover-prone quarterback, this one could turn ugly very fast for Tampa bay.

Nuk good to go

Houston Texans are coming off of a huge win last week, which could decide the winner in their division. They defeated the Titans in Nashville, who are their direct rival for the AFC South title. The defense played a huge part in that win by creating some turnovers and giving a short field for their offense, which was very important in such a close game.

They also had some problems with their wide receivers during the week. DeAndre Hopkins missed some practice with an illness, while Will Fuller couldn't get a full practice because of a hamstring issue. Luckily for the Texans, they are both expected to play in this one and could potentially have some nice numbers in this very nice matchup against one of the worst secondaries in the league.

Buccaneers vs Texans best bet

It will be interesting to see how the Buccaneers are coping with the absence of their best pass-catchers. Bruce Ariens had an interesting statement a couple of days ago, when he said that they will be forced to involve their running backs more in the passing game. That probably means more snaps for Ronald Jones and Dare Ogunbowale, trying to get some easy completions to Winston and dial down his shots downfield. That being said, under looks like a logical choice, but I simply can't pull a trigger on that one. Not with that much passing going on and two pass defenses that failed to excel lately.

Jones to get over 22,5 receiving yards definitely looks tempting, but I feel like that line already got adjusted and I'm afraid that Winston won't be able to get out of his ways and go for more check-downs, but rather force it downfield into tight coverages. Hopkins looks like a better option. He has an easy matchup and should get enough targets to beat this line.