This is becoming clearer every week. However they are a second half team. The Giants, who won an important game yesterday against the winless but feisty Miami Dolphins, are now 5-2 on the season; if the team that scored first always won in the NFL they'd be 0-7.
Yesterday, again they fell behind the Dolphins 14-3. In the early going it seemed too reminiscent of the Seattle loss for comfort-here we were again with the Jints facing a team that couldn't beat anyone all year suddenly looking like world beaters against the G-Men. Still it was all according to the script. They had Miami right where they wanted them just like it went in the Buffalo win, the Arizona win, even the Rams had a 6-0 lead in the first half in Week 2 before the Giants stormed back for a 28-16 win.
Watching the game even during the first half where they seemed not to be able to contain Moore who suddenly looked like Michael Vick, they seemed find as Justin Tuck, whose welcome return to the NFL's best pass rush yesterday said, "I felt that we were going to straighten it out."
It did feel that way. I did expect them to rally from the late first half 14-3 deficit and they did winning at the end 20-17 And yet again, Eli had a great day completing 31 of 45 passes for 349 yards, 2 TDs and no picks. You Eli bashers should keep in mind that through 7 games he has 13 TDs and only 5 Ints. At this rate he is on schedule for another 30 TDs as he had last year, but unlike last year's career high 25 picks he is more than doubling up on his TDs to INT ratio. He is also at present on the way to shattering his career high in yards-while he had just over 4000 the last few years for the first time in his career, at this point he is pushing 4800.
Even without Burress, he has three great targets to throw it to with Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks, and Mario Manningham.
With the return of Tuck things are going to get even worse for opposing quarterbacks and their offensive lines. As Tuck observes though, they will have to continually make adjustments, "As we go through the year and get more and more sacks, teams are going to do something to ease that pressure off, whether it's screens, draws or quarterback draws. We have to adjust." With 5 sacks of Moore yesterday, the G-Men now lead the league with 26.
About the only thing they can't seem to do is run the ball-or stop the run. In this they are an unusual Giants team, though not surprising as Eli and company keep getting better. You do feel that you want more balance, yet who knows? While on any given week most of the teams in the winner's circle have the most rushing yards these are just stats and there are always exceptions. When you think of it two of the top teams in the NFL-maybe the best even with New England's loss to Pittsburgh yesterday-are the Pats and Packers neither of which are know for a strong running game, though the Packers in particular do have a very strong game defending the run. The Giants have been uncharacteristically weak on both sides of the run game, yesterday being another case in point as they were outgained by Miami 145-58. Yet edges like this are supposed to be the stuff of winning football games but the Giants yet again buck the trend.
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