The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers face off in Week 16 with a lot on the line in the NFC South. Both teams sit at 7-7 with three games to go, including two head-to-head matchups.<\/p>\n
The Bucs have lost two straight and five of their last six games after a hot start. Meanwhile, the Panthers have alternated wins and losses in the last eight games, including a late loss in New Orleans on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Which team will come out on top in Carolina?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a breakdown of the odds, a player to watch, betting trends and my prediction for this matchup in Week 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a><\/p>\n Spread<\/p>\n Moneyline<\/p>\n Total<\/p>\n Buccaneers Injury ReportPanthers Injury ReportRico Dowdle, Running Back, Carolina Panthers<\/p>\n Rico Dowdle ranks in the top 10 in rushing yards this season as he closes in on the 1,000-yard mark. The Panthers running back has 978 yards on the season, which is impressive considering he started the season as the backup with just nine carries in the first two games, and 19 in the next two.<\/p>\n Chuba Hubbard going down with an injury opened the door for Dowdle, and he\u2019s ran with the opportunity. Dowdle has 895 yards on 180 carries in his last 10 games, which is a 17-game pace of over 1,500 yards. He\u2019s ran for five touchdowns and caught another in that span as well.<\/p>\n The Bucs are in the top half of the league with 101.4 rushing yards against per game, and Dowdle hasn\u2019t cracked 60 yards in five weeks. We\u2019ll see if he can do some damage at home against Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay has lost five of its last six games with the lone victory coming by three points as -4 favorites against the Cardinals. The Bucs have been fading as the season moves along while the Panthers have been fighting and clawing the whole way.<\/p>\n This game should be a dog fight and the Panthers haven\u2019t lost two straight games since the first two weeks of the season. I\u2019m taking the Panthers and the points for now, and I wouldn\u2019t hate taking them outright as well.<\/p>\n Pick: Panthers +3 (-110)<\/a><\/p>\n Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.<\/p>\n Unlock $200 in bonus bets \u2014 all without a promo code for DraftKings<\/a>. Sign up and place a $5 bet. If you win, you will receive $200 in bonus bets instantly.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers face off in Week 16 with a lot on the line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-351852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}