Tampa Bay heads into Monday Night Football with a week of rest under their belts. The Colts come in after totally pounding The Saints last week. Week Five seems to be the week of old coaches returning to their old homes and tonight is no different as Tony Dungy returns to Tampa, home of the defending Super Bowl Champs. The Colts defense is much improved and has combated the run well so far this year. I believe the Bucs tough inside running game will be all Indy can handle. The Colts run the cover-2 defense which is set up to stop the big play, which will be fine with the Tampa Bay offense who very rarely go for the big play. The Bucs love to chip away at you with inside running plays (Mike Allstot) and short to mid range passing routes. Wide receivers Keyshawn Johnson and Keenan McCardell excel in this type of offense, they are very physical and could cause big problems for Indy’s undersized corners. The Bucs linebackers can go toe to toe with this Colt offense and that should worry Manning because even with starting RB Edgrin James they wont be able to run up the middle. As of writing this at 6:30 PM EST the Colts were still a stubborn 4.5 pt. Under dog, look for this line to drop a little by game time. This is Indy’s first appearance this year as a dog, home or away. We will not see the same Colts we saw last Sunday in New Orleans; this team could be hitting its first bump in the road. Coach Gruden has had plenty of time to prep his Bucs for the upstart Colts, look for his squad to disrupt this Indy offense like no other team has this year. Gruden has posted a strong 7-1 ATS after a bye week while The Bucs are 1-6 ATS after a bye…. Their only win after a week of rest came last year, under Head Coach John Gruden. PLAY ON TAMPA –4.5 OR LESS 2 TO 2.5 UNITS
