Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs New York Giants: Eli Manning era is over

Daniel Jones

In the previous couple of years, we've witnessed a couple of controversies regarding whether Eli Manning should be the starter of NY Giants. Going back in 2017, Ben McAdoo replaced Eli before the week 13 game with Geno Smith in a season where Giants fell apart completely. It was mostly because of the turmoil inside the team, which was probably why McAdoo lost his job after that year.

Pat Shurmur was hired in 2018. I guess that he had some changes in mind, like moving on from aging and underperforming quarterback, but Manning had the support of the owners so he got another year. When the Giants traded up in this year's draft to select Daniel Jones from Duke, it was confirmed that Eli Manning's era in New York is coming to an end.

Jones outplayed Manning in the preseason and pretty much surprised everybody because most of the media experts thought that Giants "reached" for him in the draft. He didn't win the starting job right away, but after starting the season 0-2, Shurmur announced that he has made the change at that position and the rookie is starting at Tampa Bay on Sunday.

1-1

That is the record that Buccaneers are holding at the moment. After opening the season so poorly at home vs 49ers, they bounced back really well at Carolina. Beating their divisional rival in a prime-time game was a big boost for their confidence. It seemed like they took off some of the burden from Jameis Winston this time around. They didn't ask him to do too much and it paid off. There were not as many downfield throws. Playcalling was balanced and the running-backs did their part of the job.

The biggest credit goes to their defense in my opinion. It is incredible what Todd Bowles managed to do with a unit that was near the bottom of the league last year. They are disciplined, they communicate well and don't allow big plays. They are stingy against the run and they are playing fast. They will be missing their first-round pick Devin White, but with Lavonte David in the middle of the defense, they should be just fine.

Buccaneers vs Giants best bet

I am looking at the total here and can't resist the feeling that it's too high. There can be many reasons for that. As I wrote in previous weeks, Bucs are considered a pass-first, high scoring team. But from what we've seen so far that is not entirely true. The offense hasn't really clicked in that deep-passing game, so they decided to scale it back a little bit vs Carolina and it gave a positive result. Byron Leftwich is calling a pretty balanced game and with the way their defense is playing at the moment, I don't see them being a high scoring team.

On the other side, I do think that Daniel Jones is an improvement over Eli Manning. But are they really going to give the ball to the rookie in his debut and air the ball out? Of course not. They are going to protect him as much as possible, meaning we'll see a lot of Saquan Barkley in this one. Such a change can affect the morale of the entire team in a positive way. They will take this change as an opportunity for a fresh start. The defense can also get excited about it and get motivated to help out their young quarterback.