For a Dallas Cowboys team coming off two straight heart-breaking losses, there might be no better panacea than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whose once promising season has gone completely off the rails now that they have lost seven straight games.
The odds-makers may not have much faith in the Cowboys, but they have even less in the Buccaneers, which is probably why Dallas is a -8 road favorite over Tampa Bay.
The Bucs seemed like a team on the rise coming off a 10-6 season with Josh Freeman, one of the NFL's most promising young QB's, at the helm.
But after beating New Orleans 26-20 in Week 6 to move their record to 4-2, they imploded, bottoming out last week with an embarrassing 41-14 loss to cross-state rival Jacksonville.
The Jaguars, with the NFL's worst-rated passing game, somehow put up 41 points against Tampa Bay, which is a good sign for a Dallas passing attack that is healthy for the first time all season now that Miles Austin has returned from a hamstring injury that has bothered him since training camp.
Freeman, a 6'6 250 QB out of Kansas State, has regressed in his third season, throwing for 12 TD's and 18 INT's after a sterling 25/6 TD/INT ratio in 2010.
But he's still thrown for 2,896 yards this season, and with the way the Cowboys secondary has played in recent weeks, the Saturday night game could be the perfect chance for Freeman to rehabilitate his image on national TV.
With two explosive offenses and two questionable defenses, the odds makers have set the over/under for 47.5.