On paper, Sunday night is a mismatch. The Chicago Bears are 6-2 ranked third in the NFL, and playing at home on primetime. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 3-5, and they just won a game without completing a single pass. It's easy to see how Chicago dominates this team, and that is precisely the problem. That's exactly what a trap looks like.
The record is lying about Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay has won two straight games, and they've done it by physically overwhelming their opponents. The Buccaneers have rushed for 584 yards in those two games alone, including a franchise record of 324 yards against Atlanta. Bucky Irving, their top running back, sits fourth in the NFL with 728 rushing yards on the season.
Quarterback Baker Mayfield has been playing with a thumb injury, because in a division as tightly contested as the NFC South is right now, another loss on the board might be too much ground for Tampa Bay to make up.
As such, you could consider Sunday at Soldier Field a must-win game for the Buccaneers, and a win against the third-ranked Bears on a national stage would certainly send a message to the greater NFL media.
The rushing game of the season is coming
That threat walks into the wrong building, though. Tampa Bay currently owns the best rushing attack in the NFL at 168.6 yards per game, and Chicago is in second with 150.8. The Bears lead the league in rushing touchdowns, with D'Andre Swift holding a career high 10 of them.
If the ground games cancel each other out, the night tilts to the better designer, and head coach Ben Johnson has spend eight weeks proving he has always had a few tricks up his sleeve for when the defense thinks they've got him figured out. Expect something good from Johnson, because primetime against a desperate team is exactly when he empties the notebook.
The Bears should win this game, but that's exactly what makes it dangerous. Start fast, and bury the trap early, and allow the bye week to arrive potentially in first place in the NFC North at 7-2. But if the Bears have listened to a little too much of their own hype and get complacent, a desperate Tampa Bay team is more than capable of running away with a win.
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