If you're a football fan, this is the greatest time of the year. College bowl games on television everyday, and the next stop for the pro game brings the playoffs. Of course, if your favorite team didn't make the playoffs you might not share my enthusiasm. Trust me, last year the Bucs went 4-12 and this year have qualified for the playoffs. With the NFL draft loaded with quality players coming straight out of college, free agency and the ever increasing salary cap, your team might just go from worst to first next year too.
Alright, time to get down to the nuts and bolts of this weekends game. This past Sunday, the Giants played a great game in the national spotlight against the Evil Empire. The Bucco's fielded basically a pre-season team and almost pulled out a win again our arch enemy Kitty Kats from Carolina. There has been an ongoing debate about whether you play starters or rest them. Momentum or no momentum going into the post season tournament. Bucs fans have been very critical of coach Gruden in resting his starters during the past two meaningless games, but yesterday, Seattle, Dallas and Indy all had their starting quarterbacks in during at least the first half, and all those teams lost games. The Evil Empire, Colts, Cowboys and Packers all have bye weeks next week, does this mean all these teams are going to come out rusty? I think not.
Yes, the Bucs have lost 3 of the last 4 games. But at one point this season, they won 5 of 6 games. Going into 1997 post season, the Bucs lost 2 of 3 and advanced to the divisional playoff game vs the Packers. In 2002, Tampa lost 48-21 on a trip to Oakland in the final week of the season, but we all know how that season ended up. (see the world championship ring)
The Bucco fans are quick to argue that the team really hasn't won but one game against a team with a winning record. Actually it's two teams, but what is the Giant's record? 1 win versus a winning record team. Then the high paid sports pundits will easily dismiss the Bucs and follow up their comment by stating they play in the NFL's weakest division. Weakest division huh?
Lets look around the league. The 4 teams of the NFC South combined for a 27-37 win loss record. The NFC and AFC west divisions were both a 26-38 combined record. And surprise, the AFC East which contains the Evil Empire and ESPN's favorite team was 28-36, 1 overall win better than the Bucs division in a division where one team went 16-0.
The Giants are 7-1 on the road, but the Bucs are 6-2 at home (if you consider Sunday's scout team as a loss)
It's not how you start, but how you finish-
In the second half of the season, the G-Men wound up 4-4 and the Bucco's, 5-3. New York scored 176 points and gave up 192. Bucs scored 187 and yielded 136 in the same period. The Giants seem to always start out the season strong, and always coast into the playoffs. In the past, coach Coughlin has been accused by his players of practicing the team too hard and there is nothing left in the players tanks at the end of the season. This year, there seemed to be a new found love affair between coach and players, but the same result. This is a first half/second half team. The Giants were 6-2 at the halfway mark of the season and ended up 10-6. The Giants were leading the Pats Saturday night and ended up losing. In fact in games this year against the Packers, Patriots and twice against the Cowboys, they lead at halftime and then lost the second half by a combined score of 92-39. Never mind the fact Eli Manning has never won a playoff game in his career.
M*A*S*H Unit-
The Bucs have had to re-adjust their roster from week to week this season and wound up week 17 with 14 players on IR. Some key offensive players got a much needed rest Sunday. BJ Askew, which has been a key lead blocker at fullback this season. Joey "the Jet" Galloway, Ike Hilliard with a neck/shoulder injury. Aaron Sears did suffer an ankle injury Sunday and he has started all 16 games this year as a second round draft choice coming out of Tennessee.
The Giants did have a few injuries Saturday night, C Shaun O'Hara and LB Kawika Mitchell both suffered sprained MCLs. And, former Miami Mullet CB Sam Madison suffered an abdominal muscle strain. His injury led to the 65 yard bomb from Brady to Moss to set personal season records.
Game Prediction-
I could go into all the stats here such as, Manning (13 times) and Jacobs (5 times) fumble the ball like crazy, the Bucs are +15 and the Giants are -9 in the turnover ratio, Garcia has only 4 ints this season while Manning has 20, but I'm not going to.
This is how I see this match up playing out. Tiki Barber calls his brother Ronde, and shares a few things about the Giants since he seems to have such a dislike to Tom Coughlin. The Bucs will come to play. Brandon Jacobs creates a problem for the Bucs in the first half of the game, running up the middle for about 70 yards in the first half. The Giants running game opens up some passing by Eli who hits Plaxico Burress for a score right before halftime. 13-10 Bucs. Adjustments are made at halftime and then the Bucs shut down the running game at the start of the 4th quarter when the Bucs are up 19-10, Eli throws a pick on a route Ronde Barber jumps and returns it for a touchdown. Giants score late in the 4th, but the Bucs win 27-17.
Greg White gets 2 sacks and causes 1 fumble. Eli throws two ints and fumbles once. Brandon Jacobs ends the game with 106 yards on 22 carries and one touchdown. Burress-5/66yds, Toomer4-34, Boss 4-56.
The Bucs have game planned the Giants defensive line, which has a league high 53 sacks this year, perfectly. They establish some running game mixed in with three step drops in the passing game and quick slants from the wideouts. I expect to see Bennett in the offensive spread using his speed on draws and trap plays.
Prediction on final stats-
Manning 17-30-240yds 1td 1int
Burress 5-66-1
Toomer4-36
Jacobs 22-106-1
Bradshaw 8-46
Garcia 19-30-217 1 td
Galloway 5-78
Stevens 3-38-1td
Graham-27-98
Bennett-6-34/ 4-42
The final score might be 27-17, but this is going to be much closer than the final score reveals.
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