• Eli Manning had a great game overall.  But… it can’t be denied that he came out and threw some VERY shaky passes to start the Giants off.  Even though they were catchable, the passes were high, off the mark, and that’s on him and not the receivers.  The other 5 or so that went for INTs this season I put more on the receivers because the passes were essentially on the mark.  These first two against the Cowboys, not so much.
• The defense had to deal with the Cowboys’ first two possessions inside the red zone – 10 points is acceptable but the first pass to Witten for a touchdown was too easy.  You know Romo loves to go to Witten against the Giants, why oh why did Boley turn him loose?
• The third drive for the Giants was a thing of beauty — 90 yards and some bad calls overturned by Tom Coughlin’s eagle eyes.  Not only is he the best challenger in NFL history, but unlike Wade Phillips who challenged and lost a pretty standard first down, Coughlin had 2 or 3 brilliant challenges that were all overturned to aid the Giants in meaningful ways. When it was 10-7, I felt the momentum shift.
• Brandon Jacobs wasn’t the only RB that fumbled last night, but when the ball was turned over again for the Cowboys and they essentially gift wrapped another score, I was pretty disappointed.   That in no way is on Coughlin — the Giants have GOT to figure out a way to minimize their mistakes from soup to nuts.  It drives me crazy that the Giants keep teams in the ballgame with penalties and stupid mistakes like this. It should have been a blowout for NY, and they kept it close by repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot.  It must be overcome.
• Special Teams coverage, still an issue.  Dez Bryan is good, a dynamic player, a game changer obviously —  but that great punt from Matt Dodge inside the 10 should not have been brought back.
• I talked a bit about this in the roundtable, but which receiver is the #1 for the Giants?  Hakeem Nicks certainly had a big night, but Steve Smith and Mario Manningham all made some pretty spectacular things happen for the Giants.  When was the last time Eli had 4 touchdowns like that?  3 of them were basically at will, Manningham cut in off that screen pass that I love and it was great blocking downfield from Kevin Boss and Chris Snee — a great play call and excellent execution.
• Ahmad Bradshaw went over 100 yards again and he’s now the leading rusher in the league.   The offensive line has certainly come around for the Gmen, but Bradshaw’s individual effort has backed that stat up turning busted plays into large gains.  There were a couple last night, and he looked awesome.  Had he not fumbled late in the game, he may have ended up with 50 more yards and maybe a score for his stat line. He’s beating AP, CJ2K, Arian Foster, Steven Jackson — Bradshaw is now officially among the elite RBs in the league. Great to see, I’m really happy for him and the Giants have truly benefited from #44 being the featured back this year.
• They touched on it during the post-game last night, but the Giants from the second quarter to basically toward the end of the fourth quarter completely and utterly dominated the game.  Offensively, everything was working.  The run game, the pass game – short routes, long routes, gashing the middle, on the sidelines, TEs over the middle…. it was an extremely dynamic offensive game plan from Kevin Gilbride and if you’re someone who has been waiting for the Giants to emerge as one of the better offenses in the league, stop looking.   I’ve mentioned it countless times in the last year — Gilbride and Manning have engineered a very dynamic offense that is heads and tails above where they were a few years ago when they were defending champs and went 12-4.   You cannot keep this team down, you cannot make them one dimensional, you cannot deny that Eli has matured and helped the offense click with the best of them.  You cannot deny that Bradshaw and Jacobs are one of the deadlier rushing tandems in the league, once again.  You cannot deny the Giants absolutely clobberd the Cowboys for the majority of the game even after spotting them 13 or 20 points, depending on how generous you feel today.   It was all Giants until garbage time, and it was a complete and one of the more beautiful game plans I’ve seen the Giants execute in the past few years.
• Defensively, Perry Fewell continues to mix it up. And you have just got to love that!  Who is blitzing?   Who is in coverage?  There they are again stopping the run… overall I felt Perry Fewell and his defense did an amazing job considering they held the Cowboys to one score in the first half with the kind of field position they were given due to the turnovers committed by the Giants offense.   Once again, a QB was taken out from the fierce pass rush and I hope Romo does recover quickly.  You never like seeing a player go down injured, but for the Giants to consistently get the kind of pressure they are getting on their oppositions passer you’ve got to love that the defense is working so well to drop 5 QBs this season from their games.  It’s incredible… and it’s been completely clean without penalty, just tremendous strategy and ferocious effort on the Giants part.  What a difference a year makes….
• The Giants are now 1-0 in the division, placing them at 5-2 atop the NFC East in first place ahead of the Eagles and Redskins at 4-3, the ‘Boys are now 1-5 and are looking at a disappointing finish to their front half of the season with Tony Romo out 6 weeks with a broken collar bone.
• Some quick stats that paint a nice picture:
  • the Cowboys were held without a third down conversion once again… that was 0/10 for 0% on third downs.
  • The Giants were 3/4 in the red zone and had 100% conversion from goal to go, they are doing a great job there… 4 of 5 touchdowns came from passing by the way.
  • Nearly 500 yards were amassed by the Giants — 200 on the ground and 300 through the air.  The “Boys were held to just 40 yards rushing and 213 yards passing… most of which came at garbage time.
  • Time of possession was over 37 minutes for NY, 23 minutes for the Cowboys…. just dominant football from the Giants for the bulk of the game.

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