Predicting The TNF Winners (Week 8 2023)

This post is being published earlier than usual because I plan to write something else tomorrow night.

I once again have no recommended plays for either the pointspread or total of tomorrow's Thursday Night Football game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Buffalo Bills.

My spread has the Bills winning by nine points and for the total to hit forty-two. As of the time of writing this post, the bookmakers' lines have the Bills as -8.5 favourites and the total is 42.5. 

I have looked at the database and nothing is strongly standing out in regards to making plays on the favourite or the under. Here's everything I was able to read from the historical information dating back through to the 1995 season.

• The Bills are 2-4 straight up in all meetings and 2-0 straight up when playing at home
• The Bills are 1-4-1 against the spread in all fixtures and are 1-0-1 when in Buffalo
• The Bills are 1-0-1 against the spread as favourites. The two times they have been favoured have been in Buffalo, so it's obviously 1-0-1 when you look at only games played with Bills as the home side
• The Over-Under is 4-2  overall
• The Over-Under is 2-0 in Buffalo

To be frank, the fact the Bills haven't lost as favourites MIGHT have been tempting on paper. However, it's worth pointing out that - one those occasions when they were favoured - the lines were -4 (2009) and -3 (2017). Today's number is over double that. And then some when you factor in the hook. 

I struggle to consider the Bills -8.5 as the play considering the spreadsheet has it very close with the team winning by nine.

Same goes for the total play. It's a half-point in it. And the history is strongly pointing to the Over.