Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-1) @ Seattle Seahawks (3-1)
Sunday, October 5th, 4:05 PM ET
This has a chance to be one of the games of the year, frankly. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were trending toward being blown out by the Philadelphia Eagles, but inconsistent Philly allowed them to claw back. Naturally, Philly was able to close it out and moved to 4-0 on the season, which could be huge for tiebreakers when playoff seeding comes around.
The Bucs are now 3-1 but still in a very good spot overall. QB Baker Mayfield is still at the top of his game, and the defense can be capable. The Bucs have another tough task ahead of them - they travel to Seattle to face the Seahawks, a 3-1 team off extended rest, as they played on Thursday Night Football in Week 4.
Furthermore, QB Sam Darnold has continued his high-level play from the 2024 NFL Season with the Minnesota Vikings, so the Seahawks might be better than we thought. To be fair, though, this team did win 10 games in 2024 with Geno Smith at QB, so this club was solid before upgrading at QB.
I believe this is going to be a higher-scoring, back and forth game. At the end of the day, I would take Baker Mayfield over Sam Darnold, and given this game is going to be very close, I would tend to pick the better QB when it’s all said and done. I could see a late touchdown drive putting the Buccaneers over the top of the Seahawks in an absolutely great Week 5 showdown. Give me Tampa Bay by just one point in this game.
The Buccaneers are one of the best teams in the NFL and are going to get a statement win on the road after a disappointing Week 4 loss.