NFL 2024/25: Chiefs – Buccaneers
My personal Betano experience so far has been excellent. In fact, I’ve been a customer of the licensed bookmaker for several years, which offers great NFL betting as well as sports betting with cash out.
That’s why I’m going to put my Chiefs Buccaneers tip to the test with this bookmaker. In my opinion, there are good reasons why Kansas City remains undefeated, but once again just fails to cover the spread.
The Kansas City Chiefs already faced a similar spread situation in Week 8, which they unfortunately did not “cover”. Despite a solid 27-20 win over the Raiders as 8.5-point favorites, that result wasn’t enough to make bettors happy.
Their offense is strong – even impressive by many teams’ standards – but the Chiefs often fail to turn drives into touchdowns.
The red zone success rate of just 51.85% (24th) shows that KC often lacks efficiency when it comes to finishing. That’s an important statistic you can’t afford to ignore.
As a result, you should think twice about covering the spread against the Bucs. But either way, you’ll have to accept some form of handicap, as the Chiefs Buccaneers odds from the bookmakers are decidedly one-sided.
Most bookmakers with Apple Pay as a payment feature are offering odds of around 1.23 for a win for the defending champions without an additional condition.
I reject the option of putting my money on the Buccaneers instead, as KC is unlikely to lose its first game of the season against the replacement-weakened Bucs.
On the other hand, the Buccaneers are struggling with injuries on offense. For Tampa Bay, the absence of their stars Chris Godwin and Mike Evans will be especially hard to overcome, as their last performance against Atlanta showed.
Baker Mayfield basically gave everything he could, throwing for a strong 330 yards and three touchdowns – but unfortunately also conceded three interceptions. The Tampa offense may be weak, but you can’t deny that they have a certain fighting mentality.
Especially in the last quarter, they seem to pick up speed again, scoring an average of 8.8 points and allowing only 3.4.
When we come to the defense, the Chiefs defense is definitely one of the best in the league.
With a strong defensive coordinator like Steve Spagnuolo on the sideline, they consistently show creative blitz and pressure approaches that get opponents in trouble.
Kansas City ranks third in pressure rate and seventh in blitz frequency.
Still, Mayfield is one of those quarterbacks who can counter blitz heavy pressure well, and he shows some resilience with his mobility.
When I look at the overall picture, I think a close game is in the air, but one that should tend to produce few touchdowns – do you see it the same way?
Here are my betting recommendations for the duel between the Chiefs and Buccaneers. Those of you who like to bet on the first touchdown could consider Kareem Hunt: Hunt has scored the first touchdown in four of his last five games.
You get odds of 4.90 for this type of bet – not bad, right? Given the generous payout and the associated risk, this could be just the right option for value bet hunters.
If you’re more focused on a 1X2 bet, there’s really only one real option in my eyes.
Because the Chiefs are on a strong run at the moment, while the Bucs have lost each of their last six away games in a Week 9.
However, the odds for a Chiefs win – as already mentioned – are only 1.25 on average, which is why the payout should be rather meagre.
To summarize, I think the bet on Hunt scoring the first touchdown of the game is clearly the better of the two options.
Conclusion: My Chiefs Buccaneers prediction is clearly in the direction of a home win – but I still see a handicap of -5.5 as the best option here. I wouldn’t want to lean any further out of the window.
Even though the Chiefs are currently performing strongly, I assume that they could struggle to cover the spread completely this time.
Another point for this tip is the Bucs’ compact defense, which won’t make it easy for Kansas City to score many touchdowns.
The visitors have lost some of their offensive power due to several injuries, which further diminishes the chances of a high-scoring game.
Therefore, I see a rather low-scoring game with defensive accents coming up here, which will end in favor of the Chiefs, but will still remain poor in touchdowns.
My tip: Victory Chiefs with handicap -5.5
