Now, That's Giants Football

Giants fans have waited for their team to play up to their potential in recent weeks, and today, they saw Big blue outplay the Cowboys in every facet of the game, except time of possession, helping New York keep its season afloat.

It was a show that the Giants expect out of themselves on a weekly basis. They found their swagger and identity by playing swarming defense and running the ball effectively, along with timely passing from Eli Manning.

The critics will talk about how tight the Cowboys were in this game, but with the way the Giants played, no one was beating them.

This game was all about the Giants. When they play at a high level, they are tough to beat, and the Cowboys found that out the hard way.

Everyone expected Big Blue to play well, since they knew a loss would likely end their season. Plus, they embrace being in the type of situation where they need to win out in going to the playoffs.

The G-Men set the tone early with the defense stopping the run and keeping the passing game contained. Then, the defensive line forced Tony Romo to throw the ball away on a consistent basis, and it resulted in a frustrating day for him in spite of his impressive numbers.

The Giants defensive unit knew that they needed to play well for the team to win this game. Everyone has been on Giants defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan throughout this funk, but the players realized they had to step up and rally around their coordinator, stop feeling sorry for themselves, and accept the loss of Steve Spagnuolo.

It was about time the players showed accountability—by just playing—instead of worrying about what offensive coordinator Bill Sheridan was doing. To his credit, Sheridan called a great game today by sending a lot of pressure and attacking Romo.

Brandon Jacobs has underachieved all season, but the Cowboys proved to be the tonic that unleashed him to run laterally, and that helped to open up the passing game in the second half.  Jacobs' numbers were unimpressive on the ground, but he was very effective for the Giants when it came to setting the tone.

It was refereshing to see he is not washed up, for one game at least. Jacobs makes this offense go, as we saw last season, so he has to figure out how to duplicate this type of performance in the next few weeks.

Maybe he needs to pretend every opponent is the Dallas Cowboys to get his motor running.

Manning played well, as he always does against the Cowboys. It's hard to nitpick what he did wrong today. He demonstrated why he is an elite quarterback when everything goes right for him.

His throws were on target, overall. It's a shame, though, that some of his catchable passes were not caught by Steve Smith and Mario Manningham in the first half.

The Giants offensive line manhandled the Cowboys line overall—giving Jacobs and Manning the time they needed to be effective.

After watching this game, it's remarkable how bad the Giants have played since their loss in New Orleans. There's no shame in losing to an undefeated Saints team, that will likely win the Super Bowl this year. But to go out and lose to teams that are not on the their level is unacceptable.

These guys feed off of pressure, so they likely wanted to lose some games to get people on them. It worked today.

It remains to be seen if the Giants can cure their woes. They have fooled us too often over the years, just when we think they've straightened up their act.

The only way we will truly know is if they win some more games this month, but then some will still question their credentials come January.

That said, the Giants learned something about themselves today. They have the potential to be playoff material.

Now, they just need to apply today's success to next weeks game against an Eagles team that has owned them as of late.