They might be Giants, and there's no place to hide

As if 0-2 wasn't enough, as if the second-worst defense in football wasn't enough, there's no time to hide, no place to hide.

Here come the Giants.

The New York football Giants visit the Tampa Bay football (?) Buccaneers. In their last visit, en route to a Super Bowl title, the G-men raided Jon Gruden's last playoff team.

"They're smash-mouth," said Bucs running back Derrick Ward, who came over from the Giants in the offseason. "They're smash-mouth football, no tricks."

"If you don't like physical football, you're about to get exposed," Bucs defensive lineman Chris Hovan said.

The Bucs seem awfully vulnerable to such play after getting pushed around by the Bills. Few teams push as hard as the Giants.

This is a dream team, at least to Bucs head coach Raheem Morris, who said the Giants "are a team we want to look like, want to play like one day ... be as physical as they are, run the ball as well as they do, play defense as well as they do. That's the goal. That's who you want to be."

No, he will not ask for Osi's autograph.

Once you get past New York's 2-0 record, the statistics through two games don't point to brute strength. The Giants are rushing for fewer yards per game than the Bucs. The Giants are tied with the Bucs for the 27th-worst rush defense in the NFL. The Bucs gave up 34 points to the Cowboys. The Giants gave up 30.

They might be Giants.

They might not be.

"A year ago, we led the league in rushing," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "We need to get back to our running game and do a better job stopping the run. I think it starts there."

Sooner or later, New York football Giants football will return to New York football Giants football - running the ball, line play, no tricks, the defensive front rotating fresh bodies in and out, each one as relentless as the next.

"They're a team that's going to line up and say, 'Try and beat us,'" Bucs offensive lineman Donald Penn said.

The Bucs' defensive line was squashed by the running game in Buffalo. Here comes Giants moose running back Brandon Jacobs, 264 pounds of him.

"I know Brandon Jacobs, he's probably licking his chops," Bucs defensive lineman Jimmy Wilkerson said. "He probably thinks he's going to go up against our backs and safeties. It's up to our front seven to keep him from getting there."

And to get something resembling pressure on Eli Manning. The Giants, when they are Giants, punish quarterbacks.

It's just the kind of thing Morris has preached since taking over at One Buc. Having the players to do it is another matter, but he hasn't budged on the idea.

"This one, for me personally, is the stuff we've been talking about all year," Morris said. "You think about the things I've been saying to you guys, the mental toughness, the toughness of the team, the physical play, the violence of this football team. That's the New York Giants, that's the Pittsburgh Steelers, that's the Tennessee Titans."

That's the dream.

Sunday, it could be the nightmare.

This is no time to blink.

"If they're power-ranked No. 1, then come on down," Hovan said. "We want the best. We're going to be up for this game. These are the big dogs, and we want some big dogs."

Ready or not ...