NY Giants: Ranking their 2021 Opponents

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

2020 Record: 11-5 (Won Super Bowl LIV)

2021 Venue: Raymond James Stadium

The NY Giants will face the Buccaneers for the fifth consecutive season. The Giants have split the last four years at two apiece with the Buccaneers with one win each home and away.

It’s officially year two of TOMpa Bay with Tom Brady. The undisputed GOAT will look to defend a  Super Bowl championship for an unimaginable seventh time. He will be joined by every single starter from last year’s championship team.

That is simply incredible turnover in today’s NFL. No reigning Super Bowl champion has returned all 22 starters since 1979, about 15 years before the NFL implemented the salary cap.

Daniel Jones will look to lead the upset again in Tampa Bay. He electrified Raymond James in his first career game back in 2019, where he led an 18-point second-half comeback and ran in the game-winning touchdown on 4th down. Jones had four touchdowns on the day and will look to reciprocate those numbers again this year.

The Giants lost a 25-23 heartbreaker to the Bucs last year at MetLife on Monday Night Football.

Jones hit Golden Tate for the potential game-tying score with under a minute left before failing to convert a widely-controversial 2-point conversion to go to overtime. The referee in the end zone rightfully threw a flag for what seemed like an obvious pass interference call on the Bucs. The flag was picked up and the call was overturned giving the Giants a lowly 1-7 record.

Don’t think for a second Jones and Joe Judge will forget that game. The game slipped out of the Giants’ fingers and Judge was particularly furious after the flag was picked up to subsequently end the game.

If the Giants want to be a playoff team in 2021, these are the measure stick type of games NY must compete in to prove they deserve to be in the upper echelon of NFL teams.