New York at Tampa Bay

These teams took different approaches to finishing out the regular season. Tampa Bay took the last two weeks off and rested their starters, while the Giants played hard, and were impressive vs the Pats. While we can make valid arguements for each side here, we do have a lot of reasons to like the UNDER. The Giants bring in the 8th ranked defense. But if you look closer, they are certainly significantly better than that. New York played four games against the three top-rated offenses in the NFL (New England, Green Bay and Dallas twice). They were torched for 149 points in those four games. The other 12 games on their schedule were played against an offensive team average of #20 and Tampa Bay is ranked #18. So let's look at those 12 games. The Giants allowed just 272 yards and 14.5 points per game! Those numbers would rank at or near the top of the entire NFL. We don't expect to see Tampa Bay in the end-zone very much here. The Bucs are here primarily because of their defense. It ranks 2nd in the NFL and is #1 vs. the pass. The Giants have a QB in Eli Manning that is very inconsistent and with a pass defense such as Tampa's, the Giants are likely to run the ball a lot, which will eat up minutes. If they decide to test that pass defense, we don't see a bad Giant's passing game withManning having a lot of success. If you throw out game 17 when Tampa rested the starters vs Carolina, they allowed a grand total of 77 points in seven home games (just 11 ppg). They gave up just seven TDs all season and three of those were in the later stages of the 4th quarter with the game decided. Under Jon Gruden, the Bucs are 23-13 UNDER in close games (those with a line of -3 to +3) and 25-13 UNDER as a home favorite. The last five years NFC Wildcard games have gone UNDER in 9 of 10 games played and we see this one not bucking that trend.