New York Giants: Stats That Matter Headed into Week 11

Stats don't often tell the whole story, but most are relevant when put into context. Here are three stats related to the New York Giants that help explain why they stand where they do heading into Week 11 of the 2012 NFL regular season. 

3.4: That's the Giants' sack percentage on offense this season, which ranks second in the NFL. Eli Manning has been taken down only 13 times in 10 games, which is unbelievable considering how much trouble that offensive line has had historically. 

But why I really like this stat is because the Manning brothers are true masters of never getting hit. The only team with a lower sack percentage this season is, of course, Denver. 

75.0: That was Eli Manning's accuracy percentage in Week 10, which is about average and is actually higher than his overall average for 2012. Accuracy percentage is determined by Pro Football Focus as "what a quarterback's completion percentage would look like if you factor in dropped passes and take away spikes and throwaways."

I point this out to show that Manning might have actually made some nice progress in Week 10. His accuracy percentage the previous week against Pittsburgh was 52.4, which ranked dead last in football that week. He was also near the bottom of the pack at 64.3 in Week 8.

6.8: That's how many adjusted yards per pass attempt the Giants have surrendered this season, which is a number determined by Pro Football Reference after taking interceptions and touchdowns into consideration for a pass defense (see the glossary here).

Here's why this is important: The pass defense is giving up a lot more yards per attempt this year, but they're also making a lot more big plays on the back end. Their straight-up YPA allowed has increased from 7.5 in 2011 to 8.1 in 2012, but their adjusted YPA allowed has actually shrunk from 6.9 to 6.8. They had 20 picks all last year, but they already have 17 this season. So don't blame everything on that secondary.