2012 started off on the right foot for the New York Giants and their fans as they defeated the Dallas Cowboys for the second time this season by a 31-14 margin to clinch the NFC East title, guaranteeing at least one more week of New York Giants football in perhaps the sweetest fashion possible. The Giants will face the Atlanta Falcons in New York next Sunday in the first round of the playoffs.

Thoughts from the game-

-Surprise, surprise- Victor Cruz came up big once again. What else is there left to say about him that hasn’t already been said?

-Hakeem Nicks get a lot of attention for his receiving talents (and rightly so). But he also deserves to get some props for the job that he does when it comes to blocking downfield for his teammates. If he doesn’t make the blocks that he did on Cruz’s touchdown catch and Ahmad Bradshaw’s first tally, those guys might not have scored.

-Travis Beckham really needs to work on his blocking. He struggled last week against the Jets and again tonight against Dallas. The Giants are definitely missing Jake Ballard in that regard.

-My fondness for Henry Hynoski continues to grow. It’s nice to have a fullback with hands, isn’t it?

-Eli Manning’s touchdown to Nicks was his fifteenth of the season in the fourth quarter- a new NFL record.

-Speaking of Eli Manning, it was mentioned tonight that his pocket awareness and movement has been so much better this year than in previous seasons, and that has a lot to do with his success this year. I could not agree more.

-It’s amazing how much better the entire Giants defense plays when the defensive line dominates. And it wasn’t just Jason Pierre-Paul getting pressure tonight. Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Mathias Kiwanuka, and Chris Canty all contributed. New York managed six sacks tonight and Tony Romo never really got much of a chance to get comfortable.

-The Giants did manage to get a few breaks tonight, managing to recover one fumble and then DeMarcus Ware being flagged for jumping offsides when the Cowboys recovered another Giants fumble.

-The offensive line has consistently played well as a whole in the past week or two. Jay Ratliff and Ware hardly got a sniff at Manning all night. The Giants running game still isn’t a strong as I’d like but they’re definitely better off running the ball to Kevin Boothe’s side when he’s in at guard.

-It was, once again, an overall team effort, with both the offense and defense playing well. The defense managed to contain the Cowboys well and the offense was able to score when needed. The Giants are on a bit of a hot streak right now and if they play like they did tonight, they can beat just about any team they’re up against.

How good is he?

In 2010 just before the draft I was asked what I thought the Giants would do with the 15th overall pick.  With many needs, I knew the Giants and Jerry Reese usually stick to one philosophy. Best Available Athlete.  The Giants are not an organization that normally drafts for position alone.  They place all the picks in order and take the top guy that remains when their turn comes around.  So in a draft with names like Suh, Berry, McCoy, Haden, Spiller, Pouncey, and Ryan Matthews……The Giants selected with the 15th pick…Jason Pierre Paul, a defensive end out of South Florida.  Now this pick did seem odd to many at the time. Here was a team that had many talented players playing defensive lineman at the time, and clearly needed help at other positions.  JPP, as he has become known, was not the clear choice for the Giants, but surely one that fit their philosophy.

JPP was born in Deerfield Beach Florida.  At 6’5″ Paul lettered in basketball for four years and joined the football team during his junior year. In college he amassed 49 tackles, 14 sacks, 19 tackles for a loss, two forced fumbles, one interception and one fumble recovery as a freshman at College of the Canyons (California) and earned First-team All-WSC and All-American honors. In 2008 Pierre-Paul played at Fort Scott Community College (Kansas), where his 70 tackles, 10.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries earned him First-Team little All-American honors. (more…)

There’s no question that the Giants’ running game wasn’t the same last season. The Giants linemen took a lot of pride in setting the record for most consecutive games played as a cohesive offensive line. For more than four seasons’ worth of games, the same five lineman lined up next to each other through bruised bones, barking backs, and corroding knees. Did the injury sacrifices to chase that streak hurt them in the long run? It definitely seemed to catch up to them exponentially last season, where they more than made up for the previous years’ with a rash of long overdue injuries.

David Diehl is 29 and a lynch pin of that consecutive streak offensive line. But have all those injuries caught up with him? The Giants hope that William Beatty is the future left tackle. Drafted last season with the 60th overall pick in the second round out of UConn, Beatty had to be hurried into duty in 15 games, starting 3, because of the aforementioned rash of injuries. With a full year under his belt, will he be ready to take over from the accoladed vet? Beatty is both shorter and less stocky than Diehl and comes with a higher pedigree. But pedigree has never mattered to Diehl.

He’s a fighter. A 5th round draft pick who started every game in his rookie year… at right guard. The next season, Diehl started every game again… at right tackle. His third season, Diehl started 1 game at right tackle and the other 15 at left tackle. Perhaps the Giants are eying this versatility as a chance to move Diehl to another position on the line, allowing the future left tackle to take his role this season? Beatty definetly outperformed expectations last season when called upon, and few would question he is much more athletic than Diehl, which would come in handy against teams with ferocious pass rushers on that side like the Cowboys and DeMarcus Ware.

It seems the Giants want Beatty to take over for Diehl, which opens up more interesting position battles along the line.