WR Breakdown – Bucs vs. Giants

Bucs

Joey Galloway –

Joey Galloway continues to defy most of the talking heads.  He still possesses legitimate big play speed.  Galloway set a Buccaneers franchise record with his 3rd straight 1,000 yard receiving season.  The most remarkable thing about his 1,000 yards is that they came on 57 catches (17.9 yds p/reception).   Against a weak, injured Giants secondary, Galloway has the potential for a big game.  He has 13, 20+ yard gains on the season and 8 gains of 40+ yards.

Ike Hilliard –

Coming into camp, Ike looked like he would be our 4th receiver, and a continued excellent 3rd down target.  That changed though during the midpoint of the season, as he became Jeff Garcia’s favorite intermediate target.  He finished the season with 62 receptions for 722 yards.  He was a little banged up during the last quarter of the season, but has had sufficient rest (along with the rest of the Bucs regular starters) the last two weeks.

Alex Smith –

Smith had his best season yet for the Bucs catching 32 balls for 386 yards and 3 TD’s.  He seems to have been targeted a little more by Garcia as the season progressed, but looking at his stats, you could not really tell.  He had a nice game against San Fran in week 16, but the majority of those catches came from backup QB Luke McCown.  He is very surehanded, and a solid blocking TE.

Giants

Plaxico Burress –

Plax put up his 2nd 1,000 yard receiving game in 3 years with the NY Giants.  His numbers tailed off in the 2nd half of the season, but you can put most of that on the poor play of QB Eli Manning.  Burress had 7 games of 80+ yards, and 3 games over 120+ yards.  Plaxico is an enormous threat in the endzone, putting up 12 touchdowns, good for 4th in the league, and 2nd in the NFC behind TO.  He is a going to be a big concern for the Bucs on Sunday as our primary man cover corner, Phillip Buchanon does not match up well with him.

Amani Toomer –

While most people thought Toomer was finished, he put up a very solid year for the G-Men and is kind of an Ike Hilliard like sure handed outlet for Eli Manning.  He had 59 catches for 760 yards.  He has been very productive as of late, with his best game of the season coming in week 16 against Buffalo with 5 catches for 99 yards.  He has been his most productive on the road, but for a veteran of his stature, that is not surprising.

Kevin Boss –

While not wanting to overstate the painfully obvious, the loss of Jeremy Shockey hurts this Giants team.  Boss had a solid game the other day against the Pats, contributing 4 catches for yards and a TD.  He will have to be a reliable outlet for Manning to be succesful, as the Buccaneers secondary has been handling WR’s so well throughout the season.