Arizona Cardinals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preview & Prediction | PFF

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He needs to go out and play better, which again I’ll get to in a second. But Dalton, overall, what do you think about this game? You want to talk about the Cardinals or Tampa side of things? I think the first thing you have to focus on if you’re the Bucks defense is how in the world do we stop Troy McBride at tight end and he’ll line up all over the place. He can beat you over the middle of the field, which is often a problem for the Bucks. And how do you match up with him? Do you go manto man? Is it a lot of Antoine Winfield? Do you bracket him? Is it a lot of zone coverage? I’m curious to see how Todd BS goes about this because if you don’t stop Trey McBride, you’re going to have a big problem. This is a guy who leads all tight ends in receiving grade. He leads them all in yards. He leads them all in catches. He leads them in contested catches. And he’s second behind only the rookie Harold Fannon Jr. in missed tackles forced. You look, this is the center of their offense, right? And the Cardinals, they don’t run the football very well. I’m not going to expect him really to run the football very well in any given week, especially against a Bucks run defense that’s still pretty good. This has got to be number one the number one priority for Todd BS. And how do you prepare to at least slow down Trey McBride? I think the Bucks can match up for as much as they struggled last week. I do think they can match up reasonably well with the Cardinals on the outside. It’s not, you know, Adams and Nua, you know, that’s Wilson and maybe or maybe not Marvin Harrison isn’t quite Dvonte Adams and Puka Nakua, but Trey McBride is a serious problem on the inside or wherever he lines up on the field. To me, all eyes have to be on him. If he has a big game, the Bucks could have a real problem on their hands. You know, when you look at the Cardinals, they’re they’re sitting here at three and eight. And I think there’s a lot of people who would say, well, of course, Tampa’s going to win this game. And I’m I’m just not so convinced. Obvious obviously, you have the non-throwing shoulder injury to Baker Mayfield, and that sort of has its own complications and elements into this game. But after Baker started this year on what felt like an MVP type of trajectory through the first five or so weeks of the season, Dalton, he has been quietly one of the least effective and reliable quarterbacks in the NFL over the last six weeks. When you look at Mayfield, this is a stat that we brought up a little bit earlier this week. that uncatchable, inaccurate pass percentage, 28.5% over the last six weeks. That’s dead last in the NFL out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks. Guys who have had at least 100 drop backs over the last six weeks. He’s dead last in and and in obviously like a bad way. Like he has the highest uh uncatchable inaccurate pass percentage over the last 6 weeks. 53.1 accuracy percentage, which just means that obviously you you threw an accurate ball that was catchable for your wide receivers. That 53.1% is just 31st out of 33 quarterbacks. And when you look at those plus accuracy throws, so it’s the throws that are not only accurate and catchable, but ones that are away from coverage, really pinpoint, allow your wide receivers to catch it in stride, and give them an opportunity for yards after the catch. 13.3%. That’s just 26th out of 33. So Mayfield has been very poor over these last six weeks. And I’ve watched the games live. I’ve I knew that there would be a handful of throws where I remember watching and it’s like, man, he he’s not hitting that and he should, but these numbers are even worse than I thought. Um he’s not playing anywhere close to the level that he was at the beginning of the season. And for as much as he is trying to overcome, not having Chris Godwin out there for the most part, not having Mike Evans out there, uh some drops amongst his wide receivers, some rookie mistakes, some young mistakes from his wide receivers, not having Bucky Irving to be able to hand the ball off to, like all of that is context and is important to remember. Mayfield also independently has not played well over the last month and a half. And if he doesn’t play better, I think this team continues to struggle. So given the fact that he has struggled as much as he had has, given the fact that he is even more hurt now with that non-throwing shoulder. So you wonder if he’s really going to be wanting to take off and run the ball because he’s probably not going to want to take hits. There’s a chance Bucky Irving’s back in this game. We will see. But I am actually going to take the Cardinals given how much Tampa struggled last week on defense and given the struggles of Baker Mayfield. I’m going to take the Arizona Cardinals to win 23 to 21 in a close one. Wow. You losing faith in them, Trevor. Man, it’s hard for me to have now Hassan Reic if Reic practice. So, if he comes back, obviously, I think that’s a big deal. I think Bucky, if Bucky comes back, that’s a big deal. But this Cardinals team is showing more fight than their record indicates. And I I I just again, I think this game is going to be a lot closer than a lot of people think. The Bucks are at home. The Cardinals are are are getting three points in this one. So, it’s somewhat close to a coin flip or a one one and a half point favorite if this would if this was on a neutral field. So, I I think that Vegas believes this one’s pretty close as well. And I Yeah, I’m going to take the Cardinals in this game. I I just do not like what I saw from Tampa last week. I I do I do think it will be close because the Cardinals, you’re right, they’ve been playing close games all year and Jacobe Brassette has played good football for the most part, right? But I think getting getting to go back to Tampa, you’re starting a three-game home stand against a little bit easier schedule. And the Cardinals also have an issue closing out games. And I think their inability to run the football is going to be a problem. I’m actually going to take the Bucks here 24 to 20. And that’s even if Teddy Bridgewwater has to play, I think he can go in and be efficient enough to get things done. And this offense maybe even needs to be scaled back a little bit, maybe even for a week with a guy like Bridgewwater because the one thing you’re seeing with Mayfield, you mentioned the lack of accuracy, but it’s also deep ball variance, right? He was having so much success the first five weeks of the season with the deep ball. Well, that can swing back the other way. The regression to the mean can kind of bring you right back. And once he lost the deep ball, then it’s all kind of it kind of cratered on him, right? So, I think the Bucks do need to find a way to manufacture offense a little bit better. And the fact that the Cardinals to me are too oneed one-dimensional on offense is a problem. I’m going to take the Bucks to win this one at home. Cardinals, also forgot to mention this, could be getting Trey Mc or not Trey McBride, uh, Trey Benson back for this game as well, which would give them some extra juice in the run game. Hopefully not make them as one-dimensional as you mentioned. So, uh, look, I hope you’re right. You, you know, ball, as I’ve often said, you’re taking the Buccaneers, you know, ball. I hope you’re right on this one. But I’m worried about this one for Tampa. They just have to play a lot

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Arizona Cardinals and The Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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