With their trip to Soldier Field for this season firmly in the rear view mirror, the Minnesota Vikings will start preparing for their second road trip of the 2026 season as they will head to central Florida to face off with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 3. They’ll be heading to much warmer climates, and they’ll be traveling as a road favorite as the week begins.
Our friends from the FanDuel Sportsbook have opened up the lines for this week, and they currently show the purple as a 2.5-point favorite
over the Buccaneers, with the over/under currently resting at 43.5 points.
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The Vikings are one of just four teams in the NFC who currently sit with a 2-0 record after Week 2 (though the New York Giants can join them if they win on Monday Night Football this evening). They held the Chicago Bears out of the end zone on Sunday afternoon, as three Will Reichard field goals and a last-second defensive stop were enough to help them escape from Soldier Field with a 9-3 victory. That also gives them a 2-0 mark in the NFC North after their first two games, as they defeated the Green Bay Packers in Week 1 at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Minnesota will likely have Kyler Murray back at quarterback by the time the face off with the Buccaneers. Murray played just 11 snaps in the opener against Green Bay before departing with a concussion and did not clear the league’s concussion protocol before the Chicago game. Carson Wentz has stepped in and engineered victories in each of the past two weeks.
The Buccaneers have gotten off to an 0-2 start, losing in consecutive weeks to AFC North opponents. They lost to the Bengals in Cincinnati in Week 1 by a final score of 33-27, and followed that up on Sunday by losing their home opener to the Cleveland Browns, 23-19.
The Bucs/Browns game had some odd circumstances, as Tampa had an opportunity to drive for a game-winning score, and had gotten inside the Cleveland 30 with all three. Then, at the two-minute warning, the game went into a weather delay that stretched for over two hours due to thunderstorms in the Tampa area. After the game resumed, the Tampa Bay drive stalled out, and when Baker Mayfield’s pass on fourth down fell incomplete, the Bucs took their second straight loss to start the season.
The weather certainly doesn’t appear that it will be a factor this Sunday. Initial forecasts are pointing to temperatures in the upper 80s in central Florida for this one under partly cloudy skies.
The Vikings are favored to move their record to 3-0 this coming Sunday against what could be a desperate Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, folks. Do you agree with that assessment?
