Tampa Bay Buccaneers have major advantage against Raiders’ offensive line
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are scheduled to hit the road this weekend to take on the Las Vegas Raiders in a pivotal matchup.
The Buccaneers improved to 4-2 on the 2020 season with an emphatic win over the Green Bay Packers this past weekend and are now looking to carry that momentum over to this next matchup.
On the other sideline, the Las Vegas Raiders are coming off a bye week and hold a 3-2 overall record. The last time we saw the Raiders play, they came away with an impressive 40-32 win over the Super Bowl favorite Kansas City Chiefs.
The Buccaneers are considered a 2.5-point favorite heading into this one, but the truth of the matter is that they are going to have a major advantage coming into this one: Their defensive front against the Raiders’ offensive line.
The Buccaneers already have one of the league’s best front-seven, and now they’ve been given yet another advantage
Coming into this week, everyone was already talking about the matchup between the Bucs’ defensive line and the Raiders’ offensive line. Las Vegas has had some struggles at times on the offensive line and those are now going to be compounded with the latest development.
For the last two practices, the Raiders have been without their starting offensive line following a positive test from OL Trent Brown. The group hasn’t practiced since Monday and there isn’t a set return date for them as the NFL continues to investigate contact tracing.
The #Raiders entire starting OL and safety Johnathan Abram remain out of practice today as a part of contact tracing protocol following Trent Brown's positive test for COVID-19 earlier this week. They haven't practiced since Monday.
— Tashan Reed (@tashanreed) October 22, 2020
If you were already talking about a unit potentially struggling, think about how much more those struggles might be amplified if they aren’t able to practice for the majority of the week.
The Buccaneers already had an advantage coming into this one along the lines of scrimmage on that side of the ball, but that was just amplified with the news coming out of the Raiders’ camp this week.