4 Reasons the New York Giants Should Be Confident Heading into Super Bowl

The New England Patriots are three point favorites over the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, however, the Giants have more than just an outside shot of pulling off the upset win and defeating the Patriots in the big game for the second time in four seasons.

No one thought at the beginning of the season that the Giants would make it this far. Now that they have, there's every reason to believe they have what it takes to defeat the Patriots and be NFL champions once again.

In the following slides, I detail four advantages the Giants have over the Patriots in this year's Super Bowl.

The New York Giants' Receiving Corps Is Facing the Patriots' Secondary

The New England Patriots fielded the 31st ranked pass defense in the 2011 regular season, giving up an average of 293.9 yards per game.

While they held down Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow in the divisional round of the playoffs, they gave up 306 yards to the Baltimore Ravens' Joe Flacco, a quarterback who had just four games with over 300 passing yards in the regular season.

In contrast, New York Giants' quarterback Eli Manning had eight games with over 300 passing yards in the regular season, averaged 308.3 yards per game and fell just shy of the 5,000 passing yard mark. In the postseason, he has 923 total passing yards.

But the credit isn't Manning's alone. It also belongs to his receiving corps, made up of wide receivers Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham.

Both Cruz and Nicks have had games with well over 100 receiving yards in the postseason against teams with better secondaries than that of the Patriots', which bodes well for their chances to rack up serious yardage when they face them in the Super Bowl.

Few teams have found success against the Patriots this year by beating them at their own, high-yield passing game. However, the Giants are well-equipped to do so. It's their biggest advantage over New England and, if employed correctly, could be the reason for New York pulling off the upset win.

New York Giants QB Eli Manning Is a Leader

When the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in their first Super Bowl meeting in the 2007-2008 season, Giants quarterback Eli Manning was considered a game manager at best, and the team generally relied on its running game and defense to take center stage.

Since that time, Manning has improved drastically and is finally worthy of being considered among the game's elite passers.

In 2011, Manning completed 359 of his 589 passing attempts—his highest numbers yet—for 4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. In his 2007-08 Super Bowl season, Manning went 297-of-529, for 3,336 yards, 23 touchdowns and 20 interceptions.

He was directly responsible for five fourth-quarter comebacks and six game-winning drives this season, and if it weren't for the way he played, there's little chance the Giants would have managed to win the NFC East and make it into the playoffs this year.

What a difference a Super Bowl victory, a little time and a great deal of confidence makes. Manning doesn't just have the quarterback skills to exploit the Patriots' porous secondary in this year's Super Bowl, he also has the mental and physical toughness.

He was sacked six times and hit 12 more times by the San Francisco 49ers' defensive front in the NFC Championship game, and though he dropped back to pass a whopping 58 times, he fumbled just once (and didn't lose it) and didn't throw a pick.

A lesser quarterback would have crumbled in that situation, but Manning kept standing in the pocket, taking the hits when he had to, in an attempt to make plays for his team. He never quit and he never complained.

When a quarterback has the attitude and skills that Manning has displayed this year, his team is generally in good shape. Manning isn't just talented—he's a talented leader, and that will make the Giants team that takes the field against the Patriots in this year's Super Bowl look far different than the one that did in 2008.

The New York Giants' Postseason Defense Is Fierce

The New York Giants defense has been the team's biggest Achilles heel this season, with injuries decimating the secondary and the once-vaunted pass rush also suffering with a number of their defensive front's key members also struggling to stay healthy.

However, as the season progressed, more and more members of the Giants' defense came back from their respective injuries and the team appeared to pick up where they left off.

They held their final two regular season opponents, the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys, to 14 points apiece and kept the Atlanta Falcons' offense scoreless in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.

On the season, the Giants defense notched 48 sacks, have intercepted 20 passes and forced 15 fumbles, but they still ended the year ranked 25th in points allowed and 27th in yards allowed.

However, once the playoffs started they looked like a whole other unit. For example, they gave up just 388 total yards to the Green Bay Packers, one of the most explosive offenses in the league and one that put up 449 yards of total offense in the two teams' Week 13 regular season meeting.

That defense already dominated the New England Patriots in the regular season; though they allowed quarterback Tom Brady to throw for 332 yards, they sacked him twice, picked him off twice and forced him to fumble the ball once, which the Giants recovered.

In the postseason, the Giants have sacked quarterbacks nine times, hit them 18, picked them off once and have forced seven fumbles both on defense and on special teams.

Brady has already proved susceptible to pressure, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, and there's a good chance the Giants will be successful in bringing it to him play after play in the Super Bowl.

Without a strong defense, all the offensive yards in the world won't help you win a championship, as evidenced by the auspicious early playoff exits of the New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers and the struggles the Patriots have had at stopping teams from moving the ball on them all season long.

The Giants' defense will play a major role in this year's Super Bowl; if they can continue the success they've had in the late and postseasons, they'll have more than a good chance of defeating the Patriots.

The New England Patriots' Defense Is Vulnerable to the Run Too

While the main criticism of the New England Patriots' defense is how many passing yards they've given up this year, they're also vulnerable to an effective run game.

The New York Giants have had anything but an effective run game in 2011 it seems, with the team putting up the fewest average regular season rushing yards per game of any team this year at 89.2.

It doesn't sound right—the Giants have two effective running backs in Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, and despite both backs suffering injuries at different points this year, they should have managed to combine for more average yards per game.

But with the Giants' passing game so productive this year, the team didn't have to focus on running the ball so much. The passing game is likely to take center stage when the Giants take on the Patriots in the Super Bow, but that doesn't mean Bradshaw and Jacobs will struggle to make an impact.

The Patriots' defense gave up an average of 117.1 rushing yards per game in the regular season, allowed the Denver Broncos to run for 144 yards and a score in the teams' Wild Card round playoff matchup and gave up 116 yards the following week to the Baltimore Ravens, albeit without any rushing scores.

At the same time, the Giants rushing game picked up speed. Against the Atlanta Falcons in the Wild Card round, four players combined for a total of 172 yards.

They had just 95 yards on the ground against the Green Bay Packers, relying instead on the passing game to carve up their struggling secondary, but Jacobs did manage to score a rushing touchdown.

It was a rougher go of things in the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, who fielded the best rushing defense in the league in 2011. The fact that they put up a total of 85 yards on the ground is a relative success considering the strength of the opponent.

But the most telling evidence in favor of the Giants being able to run the ball well on the Patriots in the Super Bowl is how well they ran on them in their Week 9 win over the team.

In a game that saw Bradshaw sidelined with an injury, the team still managed to rush for 111 yards and one score. That score belonged to Jacobs, who carried 18 times for 72 yards in that game.

If the Giants choose to employ a similar strategy to the one they did in their regular season meeting with New England then the running game is going to play a major role yet again.

And considering how the Patriots have responded to the run in the postseason, how they responded to it in Week 9 and how the Giants rushing offense appears to be improving—if slowly—it is quite possible for New York to have a big day with the ground game on Super Bowl Sunday.