First let’s evaluate the good news. A home win versus Carolina next Sunday night clinches the whole enchilada as far as home field advantage through the playoffs. That’s where the good news ends.
For a second straight week, the Giants’ offense has looked terrible. Last week I blamed it partially on wind and a desperate Eagles team. Sunday night against an equally desperate team in the Cowboys, there were two eye popping weaknesses. The first, and unexpected, was the play of the offensive line which surrendered eight sacks (their most since Game 2 of 2006). Manning had very little time to setup and throw, and when he did, weakness number two appeared. Giant receivers are getting little to no separation in their pass patterns. This indeed is a recipe for disaster. Throw in the fact the running game for a third straight week was ineffective and the warning lights are starting to flash. To Dallas’ credit, they have played very well defensively since coming off their bye week and are still one of the fastest teams off the snap. They were in the last game against the Giants and were again on Sunday night.
Defensively for the Giants, there was improvement as the Cowboys were held to 14 points for most of the game. However, it was quite disappointing that they let Dallas convert a first-and-twenty situation on their final possession, not allowing the offense to get the ball back for a potential game-winning drive. And the last TD run they gave up was plain and simple a lack of pride, per Carl Banks.
The worrisome thing now is with two tough opponents still on the horizon, the Giants have not locked up any sort of bye week. Could these final 10 games against opponents with winning records (the longest such stretch in NFL history) finally be wearing the Giants down? This team needs a win in these last two games to grab one of the byes (or a Minnesota loss to Atlanta). One thing is for certain: don’t expect the Giants to go anywhere if they enter the post season on a losing streak. They sucked it up last year in Buffalo, and face similar circumstances in this year’s version of Week 16.
