The Saints aren't awful when Jameis Winston is at QB, but when he went down and forced backup Trevor Siemian into action, the Bucs should have easily handled business.
Tampa Bay had a bye week to rest, gather themselves and take on a 2-6 Washington Football Team.
So, now here we are. The Bucs are sitting at the top of the NFC South at 6-3. They’re still the obvious favorites to win the division (I love seeing Cam Newton back in Carolina too, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). But simply winning the division was never the goal of this season.
Sure, the Bucs’ secondary has been torn apart by injuries, but every team has injuries right now. The Cardinals have been without star QB and potential MVP Kyler Murray for the last 2 games. Their star wideout Deandre Hopkins has been on and off the field with a hamstring issue all year. Arizona is still 8-2.
The Cowboys have their own QB injuries with Dak Prescott coming off a major ankle injury and separate calf issue that has sidelined him for one game and has no doubt affected him in others. Dallas is still 7-2.
All of this to say, the Bucs are not alone in this injury experience. It’s the NFL. Every team is banged up.
So if the Bucs want to turn this around before the playoffs begin, they need to start by winning these easy games. It’s still not time to panic, Tampa Bay is still the favorite in my mind to win the Super Bowl, but my goodness its got some work to do.
And that starts by beating the struggling New York Giants at Raymond James on Monday Night Football.
The Giants come in with the same record as the Washington Football Team at 3-6 (perhaps a bad omen), but they’ve kept a lot of games close.
They nearly beat the Chiefs on the first of November, they lost to Washington by 1 point and to Atlanta on a game-winning kick. They could easily be 6-3 right now if a few things went their way.
Plus, one of New York's victories came against those pesky Saints, a team the Bucs (as mentioned previously) failed to beat a week before their bye.
So I’m cautiously picking the Bucs to beat the Giants, 28-17, with Brady having one of those average, game-manager nights where he throws for a little over 250 yards and a couple TDs but no interceptions.
Brady’s thrown four interceptions in the past two games, so I think at this point we’d all take one of those games, especially against a team that’s in the bottom half of the league in pretty much every defensive category since the Bucs tend to play down to their level of competition (Washington was the worst team in the league against the pass going into the game last Sunday).
Monday night's matchup is not a must-win by any means, but it’d be real tough to face the music if they lose three in a row.
Hopefully the Bucs pull something out of their ass.
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This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2021.