The Road Warriors

It feels like it has been a month since the Giants beat the Cowboys last Sunday.

Everyone out there has reasons why the Giants will beat the Packers and vice versa, but in my mind there is no need for endless analyzation of the two teams and drawn out evaluations of their players.

The game tomorrow could come down to one fumble, one interception, one missed kick because of the arctic temperatures in Wisconsin. No one can predict a botched kickoff return or a blocked punt and in my mind the game will be decided by one of football’s rare plays.

But just incase that doesn’t happen, the Giants can win this game and they can because they have played with and beaten teams better than the Green Bay Packers. Here are some experts’ reasons for the supposed inevitable loss for the Giants tomorrow.

If you like at the running game of Green Bay, it basically did not exist until the recent emergence of Brian Grant (who the Giants cut this past preseason). A lot of critics play this card as the way the Giants will lose because Grant will have a field day on the G-Men D.

Grant is good. He’s not that good. And he is in no way, shape, or form better than Marion Barber who I believe the Giants shut down for the entire second half last week. Grant has a knack for dropping the ball the way Tiki Barber used to do in big spots and everyone will say he made up for his two early fumbles against Seattle with two touchdowns, but who wasn’t scoring against the Seahawks last week? Green Bay put up 42 points in the blizzard.

The Giants secondary is injured and Brett Favre will take advantage of it. False. This claim is overplayed and just comical because the Giants secondary was injured last week against Dallas, the second best offense only to New England, for the entire regular season. Sure, Tony Romo was putting together lengthy drives down Texas Stadium as the clock did not stop for what seemed like hours, but it took 11 minutes to score six points, while Eli Manning accomplished the same result in seconds. Tony Romo also had the ball from the two-minute warning on in the 4th quarter and could not find the endzone. I am pretty sure Terrell Owens, Patrick Crayton, and Jason Witten are a litte more dangerous than anyone that Green Bay is going to have catching passes this Sunday.

The Packers already beat the Giants once and therefore will beat them again. Well, this happened back in Week 2. It also happened when the Giants looked like they might win four games all season, and picking Big Blue to play in the NFC Championship at the time would have paid out an astronomical figure. Anyone who remembers that game back in the second week of the season, would remember that Giants leading before the start of the 4th quarter and the start of a collapse. Turnovers did the Giants in then as the Packers would go on to win the quarter 21-0, and after that horrible display at home, the G-Men turned their season around. They can thank the Packers for motivating them to go 12-4 since that ugly loss.

Who is better Brett Favre or Tom Brady? If the answer to this question is Tom Brady, then you can disregard all the opinion’s of writers who believe that Brett Favre is going to throw all over the Giants. The Giants lost to the Patriots by three. They matched them up and down the field in a game that mattered for only the undefeated Patriots, and they put pressure on Tom Brady that he had not seen since the Colts beat him in the AFC Championship last season. There will be pressure on Brett Favre this week as well. The same pass rush that created chaos against Jeff Garcia in the first round two weeks ago, that got Tony Romo screaming at his offensive line last Sunday, and the same pressure that confused Bill Bellichick for the better part of the game in Week 17.

Green Bay is used to the cold weather, New York is not. Green Bay is used to weather that only Green Bay can be used to, until Roger Goodell approves an expansion team in Alaska. Yes, the Packers have the edge playing at Lambeau Field in this game, but does anyone really have an edge playing in the cold. Atari Bigby was on WFAN yesterday talking about how he never gets use to the cold (probably because he is from Jamaica), but there is a prime example of a huge player in this week’s game who blatently implied the weather is not an edge for the home team. The Colts played in a dome. The Patriots play in New England’s mysterious weather. Last season the two teams met at New England outside in the middle of January. Who represented the AFC in the Super Bowl?

The underdog factor. There have been a handful of games the Giants have been dogs in Vegas’ eyes this season, and the last two they were as well, and tomorrow they are once again. And, you can bet on it if they win tomorrow they will be again in two weeks. Are the Giants as good as they are playing? I believe they are, and they have had the talent to play like this all season, but injuries and other factors (coaching cough cough) have held them back from reaching their full potential. They have won nine straight road games, dating back to Week 3 at Washington, and their only road loss of the season came at Dallas in Week 1, which I am pretty sure they made up for with last week’s win. The Giants can win this game tomorrow and play in the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona in 15 days. It’s not going to be the easiest game of the season for the Giants, but it is the organization’s biggest game since they were embarrassed in the Super Bowl by Baltimore. The Giants can walk into Lambeau and walk out as the NFC Champions, and I believe they will. I could be wrong but tomorrow, at the end of the 4th quarter, the scoreboard in frigid Wisconsin will read:

NYG 24, GB 20