Pinnacle +103 BET365 +100 SportsInteraction +100 5DIMES +100 Bookmaker +107

Posted at 10:45 AM EST.

Tampa Bay +103 over Green Bay

4:25 PM EST. The Packers headed into their scheduled bye as one of the hottest teams in the league with Aaron Rodgers leading the way. In April’s draft, the Packers traded up to draft Rodgers’ potential replacement rather than selecting a player that would help the future Hall of Famer in his waning years. That no doubt pissed off Rodgers and now he’s on an absolute tear. He leads the league in QBR and sports a 13-0 touchdown to interception ratio with 1,214 passing yards through four games. That’s pretty good. He’s done it without a healthy Devante Adams to boot, as the market found out the hard way on Monday Night Football in Week 4. You may recall that Adams tweeted that he would not play that night and the market pounced, driving that line down from Packers -7 to -5. Do you think any of those people are going to be so eager to fade Green Bay again? This sets up for a classic “zig-zag” where the market backs a team one week, gets burned and then fades them the next.

Speaking of which, enter the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’s been an up and down year for Tom Brady, as he was called “washed up” after a Week 1 loss to the Saints. Then Brady led the Bucs to three straight wins and all seemed to be well and good. That was until last Thursday night when Brady had his biggest gaff. On a normal Sunday, Brady would have taken his licks for not remembering what down it was and costing his team their comeback chance, but that it happened in front of a national audience so that blunder has been magnified tenfold.

Guess who’s washed up again? The Bucs have now struggled for two straight weeks, as they also had to overcome a 24-7 deficit against the Chargers in Week 3. If not for one of the great coaching mistakes of the season, the Bucs would have had a tough swim back, but L.A. gifted them a touchdown with an ill advised run to end the first half. Had the Chargers just kneeled, they would still have had all the momentum, not to mention a 24-7 halftime lead. Tampa was an overwhelming choice on that Thursday night against the Bears, which also sets up a “zig-zag” situation. This double “zig zag” means that the Packers are an overwhelming choice here in the market. While not the be all and end all, SportsInteraction suggests that the Packers are receiving 88% of the “betting action”. Even if that number isn’t totally accurate, it gives you a pretty good representation of the market’s take on this game. The line movement backs up that information somewhat, as the Bucs opened as a -2½ point choice, but they are now a pooch at home. Perhaps the oddsmakers put up a bad number and the market “corrected” it, but we’re willing to bet that the books got it right when they made Tampa the chalk.

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