Off-Topic » A winning streak? Could the New York Giants really d

efeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday and have an honest-to-goodness winning streak? Here are the predictions from your Big Blue View contributors.Chris Pflum The New York Giants have their second opportunity of 2018 to go on a winning streak. But will they? Can their offense keep up with Ryan Fitzpatrick and the most dangerous passing attack in the NFL? Thanks to a furious quarter and a half of work from Eli Manning Aldrick Rosas Color Rush Jersey , Odell Beckham Jr., Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram, and Sterling Shepard, the Giants were only just able to keep up with Nick Mullens, George Kittle, and Matt Brieda. If the Giants can square themselves with the futility of their running game and come out of the gates attacking Tampa Bay’s vulnerable secondary, they have a chance to put pressure on Fitzpatrick and make this a shootout. Of course, after being lauded for its work against the 49ers, the Giants’ offensive line faces a significant jump in competition in Jason Pierre-Paul, Gerald McCoy, and perhaps Carl Nassib, who is questionable.The Giants should be able to find extreme mismatches in the passing game, and they’ll need them. But the game might hinge on whether or not the Giants retreat into their schematic shell at the first hint of pressure, as has been tendency this season. Final score: Buccaneers 28, Giants 24Season record: 4-5Dan PizzutaThis should be a shootout. Both teams have bad defenses that have prone to giving up big plays. The Bucs have an offense that has proven it has the ability to score and the Giants have the personnel that should be able to score, though we’re going on the 11th week of saying that.Tampa Bay will be without Lavonte David, which should open up the middle of the field for Saquon Barkley and Evan Engram in the passing game. The Bucs were already 28th against tight ends and 26th against running backs with him on the field, so losing him could be more catastrophic.The problem is, the Giants have been almost as bad on defense going against an offense that has proven to be better. No team throws deeper down the field than Tampa Bay — Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick and first and second in Intended Air Yards this season per Next Gen Stats — and while the Giants are surprisingly sixth in DVOA against deep passes, they’re susceptible to the deep pass in the middle of the field, where Fitzpatrick has been at his best. The Giants are also 31st in DVOA defending short passes up the middle, so beware of tight end O.J. Howard and slot receiver Adam Humphries (potentially Chris Godwin too, but he’s questionable).There’s also the problem of the Giants pass rush, where the problem is it doesn’t really exist. When kept clean, Ryan Fitzpatrick has averaged 10.5 yards per attempt. That drops to 7.1 when he gets hit. The Giants haven’t shown enough in the pass rush to suggest disrupting Tampa Bay’s passing game is something to count on. That could make it too difficult to stop the Buccaneers from scoring.Final score: Buccaneers 34, Giants 28Season record: 7-2Patricia TrainaFanpulse PicksGiants fans at Big Blue View think the Giants will lose by 1.Buccaneers fans at Bucs Nation think the Bucs will lose by 1.OK, so last week I couldn’t bring myself to pick the Giants, and they made me look foolish. But you know what? I still can’t take that leap of faith just yet off one game. While I recognize that there is a lot more energy coming from the team and they have their confidence up, they’re going against a better offense this week and they are also facing a very motivated Jason Pierre-Paul who has shown that when he gets the inkling to turn it up Janoris Jenkins Color Rush Jersey , he can be unstoppable.I don’t like the matchups between the Bucs offense and the Giants defense. If you thought George Kittle destroyed the Giants defensive secondary, wait until O.J. Howard takes the field. And if you thought the Giants had trouble getting to Nick Mullens, well, crafty veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick isn’t going to be fooled as easily with the Giants tactic used last week of having the defense hang around the line of scrimmage the way it did at times against the 49ers.Bottom line? I suspect the Bucs’ are going to feed off of JPP’s energy and top the Giants who continue to struggle to find ways to win at home.Final score: Buccaneers 24, Giants 17Season record: 3-6Joe DeLeoneLike anyone picking this game, I am perplexed. The Giants have successfully begun their journey to 9-7, just like Odell Beckham Jr. predicted. They finally played a complete game against a beatable opponent. Now they are faced with another opportunity to pick off a vulnerable squad. However, this Buccaneers squad is supported by a lethal offense. The outcome of this game is up in the air, depending on how well they carry their momentum into this game.Tampa Bay has been a wildly inconsistent team, headed by two below average quarterbacks. Despite having Ryan Fitzpatrick of all people produce most of their offense, they have been the most productive offensive team in the league. The Giants need to pressure Fitzpatrick and force turnovers to keep the ball out of the hands of the Bucs play makers. On defense, the Bucs have been absolute garbage. Having one of the most vulnerable pass defenses in the NFL, they have surrendered copious amounts of yards to multiple teams. You can expect the Giants to throw the ball early and often to attack this weakness.Ultimately, this game will be a sure fired shootout. The Giants will win a close, yet high-scoring game. Final score: Giants 45, Buccaneers 38Season record: 4-5Mark SchofieldThis matchup is an odd one for me.Looking at how both teams have fared over the past few weeks, one might think that the Giants would be the team people would be picking to win. But looking around at the rest of the writers here at BBV, as well as the FanPulse numbers, it seems that others are not confident in the Giants.It is true that the Buccaneers have a ton of offensive weaponry. But those weapons are only as good as the trigger-man allows them to be. The early FitzMagic has waned, and it begins with Ryan Fitzpatrick’s eyes. His ability to manipulate defenders that was on display in the early weeks has not shown up over his past two starts, and he’s thrown four interceptions. The Giants defense is going to get him to throw one or two more.Final score:Giants 24, Buccaneers 10Season record: 4-5Kevin HaswellThe Giants, Eli Manning included, looked much improved last week against a hobbled San Fransisco 49ers bunch. The most important thing that I took away from the win was not just the win but the effort and will to win by a team that struggled to find it all season. The effort alone last week should have me believing in the Giants but it doesn’t. This game will come down to the final five or so minutes of the game but I think Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Buccaneers’ talented offense will be too much for Big Blue. Final score: Buccaneers 24, Giants 21Season record: 5-3Ed ValentineThere are plenty of reasons to be concerned Sunday when looking at this matchup from a Giants’ perspective. Jason Pierre-Paul is out to bring the house down and make Eli Manning pay for the Giants no longer wanting to pay him. The Bucs’ plethora of receiving options will be a headache for the Giants, especially if they continue to be unable to rush the passer. The Giants are 0-4 at home.Still ... things have to get better at some point. Don’t they?Yes, Monday was only a narrow victory over a bad team. Still, it was a victory accomplished on the road with an impressive last-minute drive. A lot of good things happened for the Giants in all phases of the game. If felt like progress, the kind of game a team can begin to build on.Maybe I’m just being hopeful, but I think the Giants find a way to do just that.Final score: Giants 34 Riley Dixon Color Rush Jersey , Bucs 31Season record: 4-5Fifteen percent of Giants’ fans voting in our weekly ‘FanPulse’ survey are confident in the direction of the team. This is up just a little. The New York Giants played badly in their 17-0 loss to the Tennessee Titans. That much was clear to anyone who actually watched the game — let alone those brave and hardy souls who sat out in the elements to watch the disaster unfold in person. This was arguably their worst performance under Pat Shurmur, and the Giants were bullied in all three phases of the game.This won’t be pretty, but let’s take a look at the numbers from the Giants’ sorry display Sunday.OffenseQuarterbackEli Manning played poorly, no two ways about it. Manning attempted completed just 21 passes on 44 attempts (with 47 drop backs). He was sacked three times, hit eight more, threw one interception, and probably could have thrown a couple more. Some might criticize the number of passes thrown, but Pat Shurmur had little choice but to lean on the passing game — more on that in a bit.But as bad as he played, Manning was put in a tough position. His offensive line reverted back to its form from the first half of 2018, leaking pressure and preventing Manning from finding any kind of consistent comfort. The weather conditions were terrible, and its possible that the slick conditions interfered with his grip on the ball. That might have lead to him sailing a screen pass to Evan Engram early in the game, then missing an open Engram in the endzone and instead hitting the back of a defensive back on the final play. But regardless of the weather, this was just a no good, rotten, very bad game from Manning. The Titans took away the Giants’ running game and dared New York to beat them through the air, and the Giants were utterly unable to do so.Skill positions So, about the number of passes to runs, 14 to 44. Head coach Pat Shurmur said after the game that it made absolutely no sense to run the ball when running plays were simply wasted downs. Saquon Barkley only picked up 31 yards on those 14 rushes (2.2 yards per attempt). Even though Manning was only averaging 5.2 yards per attempt, that was still three yards better than the running game. The Giants’ offensive line never opened up a running lane for Barkley, and his best run of the game (a 17-yard scamper) only happened because the right side of the line was beaten so quickly and soundly that the Titans were unable to keep their gap discipline. The fact that Shurmur abandoned the run game in the face of its utter ineptitude is actually a positive sign that they can adjust to reality when faced with it.Unfortunately, the passing game just wasn’t there for them. Without Odell Beckham Jr. the Giants just didn’t have a consistent threat down the field to force Tennessee’s hand in coverage. Sterling Shepard (65 snaps) should have been that player, but he had his worst game as a pro, dropping nearly every one of his nine targets. For the second week in a row, Evan Engram emerged as the Giants top receiving threat. He played 45 of the Giants’ 65 offensive snaps (69 percent), catching eight of twelve targets for 75 yards. But while that was a good day for him, a look at his targets chart shows that the Giants still want to use him on shallow routes and count on his yards after the catch ability to turn short passes into long gains. DefenseDefensive frontAs with their counterparts on the offensive line, the Giants’ defensive front was largely shoved around by the Titans’ offensive line. As we have come to expect by now, Alec Ogletree played each of the Giants’ 70 defensive snaps. Unlike the Giants’ match-ups against back-up quarterbacks, Ogletree was unable to capitalize on a mistake from Marcus Mariota and finished with seven tackles and a tackle for loss, but no turnovers (or defensive touchdowns).EDGE Olivier Vernon and DT B.J. Hill played the next most snaps on defense Mario Edwards Jr Color Rush Jersey , with 59 and 53 respectively. The Giants spent most of the game in nickel sets, but rotated a number of defensive linemen and linebackers trying to find a combination which would slow down Derrick Henry. B.J. Goodson had the second most snaps among the linebackers with 46 (66 percent), and was probably the Giants’ most reliable tackler with 9 solo tackles on the day. DT Dalvin Tomlinson played 45 snaps (64 percent), while Josh Mauro played 37 snaps (53 percent) and Kerry Wynn played 25 snaps (36 percent). At the second level, Kareem Martin played 38 snaps (54 percent) while Lorenzo Carter and Tae Davis played 19 and 16 snaps respectively (27 and 23 percent). None of the combinations proved effective at stopping Tennessee’s rushing attack, with Henry piling up 170 yards and 2 touchdowns on 33 runs. He was particularly deadly running off the left tackle, where he racked up 69 yards and a touchdown on just 9 touches. Simply put, the Giants’ front was shoved around by the Tennessee offensive line, then couldn’t bring down Henry at first contact.SecondaryThe Giants starting secondary of Janoris Jenkins, B.W. Webb, Michael Thomas, and Curtis Riley each played all of the Giants’ 70 defensive snaps. Nickel corner Grant Haley played 48 snaps (69 percent). It was somewhat confusing that the Giants spent nearly three quarters of the game in their nickel packages, considering that the Titans are built on the running game and the weather conditions made throwing the ball problematic at best. All told, the secondary didn’t play poorly in pass coverage, though they gave up several long third down conversions. They held Mariota to just 88 yards on 12 completions (out of 20 attempts).It didn’t matter, however, because the Titans simply did not have to throw the ball. The Giants’ inability to stop the run made any coverage or pass rush irrelevant. In that regard, however, the secondary was particularly bad. Curtis Riley was probably the biggest offender, but every one of the Giants’ defensive backs suffered from atrocious tackling and gave up far, far to many yards after first contact. All told, it was a bad, sloppy, ugly showing from every Giant not named Evan Engram (Saquon Barkley is largely innocent as well, he was taken out of the game by his own offensive line).If the Giants want any hope of ending the season on a positive note, they have a lot to tighten up before they face an even better team in the Indianapolis Colts.