NFC Championship Game 2012: Why the 49ers Should Fear the Giants This Week

When the New York Giants defeated the Green Bay Packers, the San Francisco 49ers dodged a bullet. Now they get to play the NFC Championship Game on their home field and don't have to face one of the league's very best offenses for the second consecutive week.

However, the Niners shouldn't spend their week underestimating the Giants or they are likely to find themselves watching the Super Bowl from home.

The Giants, inconsistent in the regular season, have proved to be quite the postseason powerhouse, dispatching the Atlanta Falcons 24-2 in the wild-card round of the playoffs and then defeating the Super Bowl-favorite Green Bay Packers in Lambeau on Sunday evening.

While the Packers appeared flat on offense, almost rusty, helping the Giants along to their 37-20 win, it also had much to do with all the things New York did right throughout the course of the game.

The Giants have proven themselves to be one of the strongest offenses in the league, despite what their 9-7 regular season record may indicate. Quarterback Eli Manning was just a handful of yards shy of throwing for 5,000 yards this season and has 29 touchdowns to 16 interceptions on the year.

He's got a trio of impressive receivers to throw to, a reliable tandem of tight ends and has managed to make big plays even under pressure. He's improved every year he's played in the NFL and knows what it takes to go from a good regular-season quarterback to a remarkable one in the playoffs.

In two playoff games, Manning has thrown for 607 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. Though he's at great risk to be picked off this week against the 49ers, who lead the league in forced turnovers and intercepted Saints quarterback Drew Brees twice on Saturday, Manning is less mistake-prone than ever.

Though San Francisco's defense is notoriously stingy when it comes to the run game, and the Giants ranked dead-last in average rushing yards per game during the regular season, they shouldn't assume that New York won't have success on the ground this week.

In the wild-card matchup against the Falcons, the Giants ran for 172 yards, despite the Falcons fielding a top-10 regular-season run defense.

While New York didn't run as successfully against the Packers the following week, netting just 95 yards on the ground, it's hard to tell from these two outings just how much New York is going to attempt to run and how effective at it they may be.

That inconsistency works in the Giants' benefit, as it keeps the 49ers defense guessing as to what New York is going to do on offense and thus could potentially catch them unprepared.

On defense, the Giants have overcome a rash of early-season injuries to field one of the more impressive units in the league. They kept the Falcons offense from scoring a single point in the wild-card round and confounded the Packers' usually-strong offense from start to finish in the divisional round.

The Packers had just 388 total yards in that contest. While that's not far off from the 405.2 yards per game they were averaging in the regular season, 307.8 of those generally came from the passing game.

Instead, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw for just 264 yards, and though he had a pair of touchdowns, the Giants defense picked him off once and forced another fumble, which they recovered.

Though much of the Packers' problems came from dropped passes—six of them, in all—the Giants defense was able to keep the offense off balance throughout the game. If they can do that against one of the best defenses in the league, then the Niners and their far more conservative passing game might find itself in serious trouble this week.

The 49ers got their wish when the Giants defeated the Packers. But now they have to host one of the hottest teams of the playoffs in order to reach the Super Bowl, against a team that already knows what it takes to make it there and win it.

San Francisco can win this game, no question, but they'll have to shrug off the feeling of relief that they don't have to travel to Green Bay this week and face the very sobering reality that the Giants are no joke and are going to be playing to win on Sunday.