Buccaneers favored vs. Panthers by less than a touchdown after Saints shellacking

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will look to ‘lift the nose up’ after blowout loss to the Saints

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are coming off one of the worst losses in franchise history from just a few days ago.

The Buccaneers, though they were favored coming into the matchup, were completely blasted by the New Orleans Saints falling by a score of 38-3.

Now, the team will look to get back on the right side of things in a pivotal matchup against the Carolina Panthers this weekend.

The Buccaneers are favored by less than a touchdown vs. Panthers

Following that embarrassing loss to the Saints, the Bucs are now favored by less than a touchdown coming into Sunday. Tampa Bay is listed as a 6.5-point favorite on the road against a Panthers team that has had its fair share of troubles.

The Panthers’ top playmaker- Christian McCaffrey– is listed as ‘day-to-day’ with a shoulder injury and his status for Sunday’s game is in doubt. He had just returned last week from a high ankle sprain that he suffered in Week 2 against the Buccaneers.

With McCaffrey potentially sidelined, the Bucs should be considered a heavy favorite but there’s always a little bit of concern about picking a team that just lost by 35 points at home in front of a national audience.

The biggest storyline heading into this one? How does Tom Brady and Co. respond? Are there any lagging hangovers from the blowout or do the Bucs put the loss behind them and get better from it?

We should be able to tell relatively early on in this one just what kind of mindset the team is going to have moving forward.

The Pewter Plank is a Tampa Bay Buccaneers centered website providing complete coverage & analysis as part of the FanSided network.