Buccaneers vs. Jets Point Spread: NFL Pre-Season Week 1 Odds, Prediction
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Kevin Tompkins
Thursday marks the first preseason NFL game in 2026 for both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New York Jets, and both will battle it out at MetLife Stadium. For Tampa Bay, they missed the playoffs last year on a tiebreaker with the Carolina Panthers after finishing 8-9 in the NFC South. It was an injury-ravaged campaign for Tampa, especially on offence, where injuries to players like Mike Evans, Baker Mayfield, and across the offensive line led to some point-scoring deficiency.
The Jets come into 2026 with the hope that they’ve fixed a lot of what went wrong last season. Under new head coach Aaron Glenn, the Jets started out 0-7 and finished with a 3-14 record. Glenn shuffled his staff and brought in some veterans to try and right the ship. However, he’s on thin ice, so this season will have to show that the changes Glenn made were some of the right ones.
The Jets are 6-point favourites to win on the NFL odds, with the total set at 33.5.
NFL Point Spread and Betting Analysis
It’s a preseason game with a lot of turnover between personnel groups, so the impetus isn’t exactly on scoring here—depending on who you ask. The under 35.5 is always in play for the preseason, but Jets head coach Aaron Glenn has said the starters will be playing. That explains why the Jets are heavily favoured here. That’s definitely a worthwhile avenue to go for betting on this game as well.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
This season’s Buccaneers team feels very different because of one glaring omission: no Mike Evans. Evans, a Buccaneer since he was drafted in 2014, went to the San Francisco 49ers in free agency, so his presence as an automatic 1,000 receiving yards when healthy will be missed. Luckily, the Bucs have plenty of in-house options to replace him. Last season’s first-round pick Emeka Egbuka and veteran Chris Godwin will be the featured receivers in this offence with Jalen McMillan and 2026 third-round pick Ted Hurst vying for time in Evans’ vacated “X” receiver role.
The Bucs’ defence is still stocked with household names like Antoine Winfield Jr. and Vita Vea, but reinforcements are here and ready to take over. Namely, first-round pick Reuben Bain Jr. off the edge to provide some pressure on opposing quarterbacks, as is second-round pick Josiah Trotter and former Detroit Lion linebacker Alex Anzalone to man the middle of the defence where longtime Buc Lavonte David roamed before retiring this year.
New York Jets
The Jets have some talent, but the talent is mostly young and unproven. On offence, they brought back quarterback Geno Smith, who they drafted all the way back in 2013. Smith should bring a veteran, stabilizing presence to the offence that sorely needs it. With two of their three first-round picks in last April’s NFL draft, the Jets added tight end Kenyon Sadiq and wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. to an offence already sporting the recently extended running back Breece Hall, wide receivers Garrett Wilson and Adonai Mitchell, and two first-round tackles in Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou.
The defence should have their new anchor with new edge rusher David Bailey drafted with the second overall pick in April’s NFL draft. Bailey should be productive immediately and he has some veterans added that he (and the rest of the young players) can learn from, like 37-year-old Demario Davis, another former Jets draft pick who returned to Gang Green for his third stint as a Jet. The Jets also brought in safeties Minkah Fitzpatrick and Andre Cisco to help solidify their secondary.
NFL Prediction: Who Will Win Buccaneers vs. Jets?
As far as who wins this game, well, winning isn’t the aim in these preseason games. Sometimes, they end up tied because they don’t want anybody to get hurt by extending the game. However, the Jets are playing an undetermined amount of starters for an undetermined length, and the Buccaneers, who at the time of this writing, still have not announced if they are playing their starters. So with that uncertainty, we’ll take the under.
Best bet: Under 35.5