Methods and systems are disclosed where an FPGA offloads a plurality of processing tasks from a processor. The FPGA can process streaming data received via a network interface, and the FPGA can be controllable in response to control instructions received from the processor. The FPGA comprises resident hardware logic for a plurality of data processing engines that are combinable as a processing pipeline within the FPGA. In response to the control instructions, the FPGA can control which of the data processing engines are activated and which of the data processing engines are deactivated to selectively tap into the streaming data to perform pipelined processing operations on the streaming data via the activated data processing engines. The deactivated data processing engines remain on the FPGA and provide a pass through path for the streaming data whereby the deactivated data processing engines do not perform processing operations on streaming data received thereby.