The Giant's defense isn't all that great this year to be honest. In one half of play, they gave up 227 yards passing to Romo last night, a QB who'd thrown what, two passes in live NFL play in his career up to that point? They've kept two teams under two hundred yards passing this season, Washington and Atlanta. That's Mark Brunell, spokesman for Geritol and Mike Vick, spokesman for RIF. Vick had 154 yards through the air against the Giants, which as we Buc fans know is a stellar game for him over the course of his career. Let's not forget the Giants defense gave up a rushing touchdown to the statue known as Drew Bledsoe last night. That's bad.
The Giants defense is one of the worst in the NFL when it comes to third downs, letting opposing teams convert at over a 50% clip, just shy of 20 percentage points higher than our 'old and slow' defense. That's a stat that should have Giants fans worried.
Our offensive line isn't the best, this is true. However, after seeing a couple of Cowboy games, I'd rate us higher than them. Â Over the last few games, our linemen have done a decent job at protecting the quarterback and opening some holes (albeit small ones) in the running game. I seriously doubt we will see the Bucs give up sacks like the Cowboys did last night with one or two Giant rushers completely unaccounted for on passing plays. Our linemen might get run over or tossed aside, but they at least act as speedbumps.
Tiki is the type of back the Bucs usually shut down, though the sloppy tackling we've seen this year could be trouble on that front if our coaches and players don't do something to improve that this week. I think/hope some of what we saw at the end of the game on Sunday was due to exhaustion and the heat. Heat definitely won't be a factor in New York this weekend. Tackling will be. And if Gruden utilizes Caddilac more in the late third quarter and fourth quarter I think it will be the Giants defense who will be dealing with exhaustion. Jacobs will only be a factor in short yardage most likely, which is good for the Bucs. The big backs are generally the ones that give us fits due to our defense being smallish and built around speed rather than having huge blobs playing DT to stop the run.
On the Giants offensive side of the ball, the only player that really gives me pause is Shockey. That's only because of the way tight ends have burned our defense this year. If we don't have an answer for him, he could have a big day. One of the big keys to this is getting penetration and getting to Eli. If our defensive lineman don't get tackled like they have been lately (in fairness, I've been seeing a lot of really bad and really obvious holding not getting called by both teams in the Bucs games this year), Eli could be in for a long day.
The biggest thing I see with the Giants offense is it is easy to get in their heads and get them off their game. Shockey and Burress especially, they're very emotional and very tempermental. If our defense is able to repeat the last two weeks at disrupting the opposing team's offensive rhythm in the first half, I don't see the Giants recovering from that the way we saw the Eagles do, rather I see it causing them to make more mistakes and implode as they try to force plays rather than being patient.
~Mike
