Mark it down, the Giants will lose this weekend. Yeah, I know it's a big leap of faith to say that the Giants will get beat by the Bucs this weekend. When you take into account that this is a road game, the Giants are a lower seed, and that Eli Manning hasn't faired too well in the playoffs, I'm not exactly stepping out on a limb. But I'm not basing my prediction on any of those factors. I'm basing it on the fact that they played the Patriots last week, and thus, the Tampa game is a "Hangover" game.

We see it happen all the time in sports. A team plays an "elite" team close, or they might even win. Then the next week, they look like a totally different team. They usually look flat and are never in the game. The game against the "elite" team gets special coverage in the media, meanwhile the next opponent is just waiting to pounce on their next victim.

Did you know that the last 8 teams to play New England have lost the following week? Many of those teams played the Patriots close, but were not able to put them away. Now understandably, some of those teams were not very good (Miami, Buffalo and New York Jets). However, the list of teams also includes two playoff teams, the Colts and the Steelers.

With the relentless coverage of the Patriots undefeated season, most teams had to hear about how good the Patriots were for the entire week leading up to the game. Every team wanted to be "that team", the team that was able to take down the Patriots. Instead they ended up with a loss and were left with a hangover for the next week. It's hard to take your next opponent serious after you've just played the mighty Patriots. I mean, really, how do you get excited about playing Tampa Bay after you just faced the Patriots on national TV on Saturday night?

Hangover games can also happen to teams that were supposed to win. The Bartman game for the Cubs comes to mind. They were emotionally spent and you just knew there was no way they would win the next week.

As a side note, guess who Pittsburgh played the week after they lost to the Patriots? That's right, the same opponent this week in the playoffs, the Jacksonville Jaguars. So if you're looking back to the week 15 game, just keep in mind that they were coming off a Patriot Hangover game.