Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to avoid letdown vs. New York Giants

Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to avoid letdown vs. New York Giants

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will step on the national stage for the second time this season looking to avoid a letdown as they had in their previous outing on national television.

The last time we saw the Buccaneers play a night game televised nationally, they were playing an ugly game against the Chicago Bears. The ultimate result saw Tampa Bay fall to 20-19 Chicago, pick up its second loss of the year.

And now here we are three weeks later and that game seems all but a distant past.

Even so the Buccaneers have to avoid a major letdown against the New York Giants tonight. At least the Bears are a team that seem to have legitimate wild-card playoff chances, but the Giants are far from that. At 1-6, New York is one of the handful of teams vying for the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft.

That’s exactly why the Buccaneers have to win this game at all costs

The Saints have reemerged after a couple of disappointing losses earlier in the season and they’re now looking to make a run back at the top spot in NFC South Division.

New Orleans just beat Chicago Sunday night, as a matter of fact.

As the race on the NFC South heats up, the last thing Tampa needs to do is enter that game coming off an embarrassing loss to the Giants. If the Bucs were to lose this game, they’d enter as a full-game back of the Saints and even a win wouldn’t necessarily give them a tiebreaker over New Orleans.

There are injuries that will ail this team Monday night, no doubt. But there’s no reason that we shouldn’t see the Bucs come out of this game victorious.

Anything less would be an utter disaster for a team that will enter the matchup as a double-digit favorite.