NFL PREVIEW: NEW YORK GIANTS

by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool

Hey, Giant Fan! All of the other Carnies are too sick of your act to write this preview. So it's left to your old pal Shooter, fresh from making your sad-sack cross-town Jets cousins cry by daring to impugn the reputation of Jets Quarterback, to slog through the sorriest title defense this side of Buster Douglas. Let's get to it, shall we?

Has anything gone right for the Giants since Eli to Helmet? You could make an argument that, well, no, nothing has. Michael Straham went off into the sunset when the G-Men didn't bank the truck up to bring him back. Osi Umenyiora was lost for the year in the continuing travesty that is pre-season football. Gibril Wilson took mad money to go west, leaving the suspect secondary a little more suspect. That's three plus players gone from a defense that wasn't all that great (see last year's regular season games against the Cowboys, where the wideouts were passing out batons, for reference) until the stretch run magic.

Oddly, I think this works out for the G-Men, in that very few people outside of the Apple are really expecting a title defense. The consensus pick is that the Cowboys have added talent to a star-heavy lineup, and that the Eagles are more dangerous with a last-place schedule. (No one is taking the Skins seriously, given how awful they've looked in the pre-season and the unprecedented experiment that is Jim Zorn.) There's a very real chance that the G-Men will fly under the radar to a double-digit win year, especially if Manning can pick up where he left off after last year's playoffs.

The schedule helps... a little. They start off easy, with Washington, St. Louis, Cincy and the bye. It's hard to imagine them not being 2-1 or 3-0 after that, but they'll have to be. After the early bye (never a plus), they get Seattle at home, then Cleveland on the road and San Fran at home. With any kind of luck, they'll be 5-1 or 4-2, if not even undefeated.

But then it gets nasty, with a road date in Pittsburgh, the Cowboys at home, the Eagles on the road, Baltimore at home and at Arizona and Washington. If they need to do more than split the final four games (Philly, at Dallas, Carolina, at Minnesota), it's easy to see them on the outside looking in.

Fantasy Sleeper: Manning. In a deep year for quarterbacks, Manning gets short shrift, but if his defense is worse this year -- and it will be -- he's going to be in more shootouts. Combine this with Brandon Jacobs probably gripping too hard in a contract year, and you can really see him airing it out early and often... especially if Burress is finally over the ankle issues.

Bonus Sleeper: Kevin Boss, TE. Another victim of a deep pool, which means you should be able to get him in a back-up position without any kind of trouble at all. Manning has shown his fondness for the tight end in the pass, and Boss will never get prime attention from the opponent.

Fantasy Death: Jacobs. He's in a contract year, which means you'll have to pay too much to get him from people who are anticipating more effort for the moolah. He's also in a situation where the backups (Ahmad Bradshaw and Derrick Ward) were nearly as good as him on a per-carry basis, and he's also been injury prone in the past. Add it up, and you're looking at paying starter prices for a committee back.

Real-world prediction: Even though the Giants are very good on personnel (look at all of the rookies that contributed to last year's team), there's just too many things that went right for them last year to imagine that it's all going to repeat. I don't think they'll fall apart, but I do think they'll just miss this year... and that Giants Fan won't really mind that much, given that the memories of Eighteen And One Very Big One will keep them warm at night. For the rest of their lives, really. 8-8.