Tampa Bay Bucs 2011 Season Odds
(The Spread) – Can the Tampa Bay Buccaneers duplicate the success they had in 2010 when they nearly made the playoffs?
Thanks to the play of young quarterback Josh Freeman, the Bucs posted a 10-6 record last season and just barely missed out on the postseason. They play in the ultra-competitive NFC South (home of both the Falcons and Saints), so making the playoffs will once again be no easy task for Tampa.
Oddsmakers have made the Bucs 30/1 long shots to win the 2012 Super Bowl and 16/1 to win the NFC. They’re also +550 on the money line to win the NFC South, while the Saints are +110 and the Falcons are +120.
View Current 2012 Super Bowl Odds
But despite their long odds, the Bucs remain one of the sleepers in the NFC. If Freeman can continue to make strides at quarterback, the Bucs certainly have enough weapons on both sides of the ball to be dangerous. They also went a long ways to beefing up their biggest weakness by drafting pass-rushers Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers this April. (If it weren’t for concerns about his knee, Bowers would have been drafted in the top-10 – if not top-5.)
It’s just a shame that the front office wasn’t more aggressive in free agency and instead of tossing big-punter money at Michael Koenen (Falcons), they didn’t sign a player like Nnamdi Asomugha who could have had more of an impact. Because of the front office’s rather cheap philosophy towards free agents, the Bucs will have to rely on basically the same roster as they had last season. Considering they went 10-6, that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. Then again, they won’t be able to sneak up on opponents like they did last year.
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