Buccaneers 2016 season preview: Routing the Falcons

Previewing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2016 season, game by game. Today we talk about week nine, hosting the Atlanta Falcons.

Bucs’ all-time record vs. Falcons: 23-22

This is the second time this season the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face the Atlanta Falcons, and this time it’ll be on Thursday Night Football. A short week, but the Bucs are playing at home and coming off a home game, so that shouldn’t be a massive problem. It’ll be Dirk Koetter’s first prime time game, though Thursday night isn’t quite as prime as the other options.

The Bucs managed to sweep the Atlanta Falcons last year, and they’ll want to do the same thing this year. We talked about this matchup a few days ago, so I won’t go too in-depth here, but one thing will be interesting to see: whether this will be another condiment bowl, and which Color Rush uniform each team will be wearing. Okay, maybe that won’t be all that interesting, but it’s still a bit of a mystery: both teams have red as their primary color.

This will also be the first division game of the season in front of the Tampa Bay home crowd. These are usually some of the best and most exciting games, and it’s always fun when your team beats a division opponent — less so when they lose to one, of course.

As I wrote earlier, these games against the Falcons could go either way, as the two teams are very similar. The home crowd should give the Bucs a slight advantage, though, and a win here could go a long way toward securing a division win, or at least a playoff spot.