Big Blue Redemption: New York Giants Face Familiar Foes in 2009

As the clock ticked down on Jan. 11, 2009, at Giants Stadium and the season was coming to a close, I thought about how a division title with home-field advantage throughout the playoffs was wasted away into the waiting wings of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

A team that had overcome so much to get hold of the No. 1 seed—losing a Hall of Fame defensive end to retirement, a Pro Bowl pass rusher to the IR in training camp, a Pro Bowl tight end in a trade, and top offensive player to a bullet—had finally met its match at the hands of a disturbingly familiar foe.

The No. 6 seed in the NFC, the Eagles got hot and lucky all at the right time and had an almost unthinkable chain reaction of upsets and collapses (Tampa Bay's abysmal fourth quarter performance at home against Oakland was the clincher) to give them the final playoff spot after destroying the Cowboys.

It is essential to revisit all this before the start of 2009 because no team brought it to the Giants like Philadelphia did last season.

The Giants lost two of three to Philly. Even in the Giants' lone win in Week 9, the Eagles had a chance to win with under two minutes to play but could not convert a fourth-and-1 on their own 45.

If this team does not learn from its mistakes, it's doomed to repeat them. 

As the season approaches, the Giants need to look no further than the game films against their division rivals to get a jump-start on what they need to do to succeed and begin a march back to the Super Bowl.

The Giants have the luxury of getting a shot at all but one of the teams that beat them last season, the exception being the Cleveland Browns, but they have to wait until Week 8 to get another crack at Philly. 

Opening week, the Giants get the Washington Redskins at home for the second-straight season before their first shot at redemption when they travel to Dallas to take on the Cowboys.

The Week 2 Sunday night match-up will put the Giants into the national spotlight as the Cowboys host their first game in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. 

The Cowboys knocked off the G-Men last season in the second of the teams' two meetings at home in mid December. It was at this moment, the first time the Giants had lost back-to-back games since the start of the 2007 season, that the Giants' lack of Plaxico Burress was extremely troubling and widely noticeable.

It was no coincidence the Eagles and Cowboys were the teams to expose the Giants for what they were, either. 

Both teams lost their first meeting but rallied and held the Giants' league-leading rushing attack to under 100 yards in back-to-back to games and limited Eli Manning to no more than 314 yards passing and only one touchdown combined the second time around. 

In the previous two games, Manning had five touchdown passes and the Giants ran for a combined 419 yards.

Trends like this need to be avoided for the Giants to succeed in 2009, and it starts with the coaching staff and play calling. 

Offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride now has to find ways to minimize Manning's reliance on Burress and utilize the talent he has on the field. Too many times last season  Domenik Hixon was being used that way, but as well all know, Hixon is not Plaxico.

This approach will be key for the Giants this season. Play-calling and maximizing certain players' abilities must improve if the Giants expect to meet expectations. 

Play-calling on first and second down more often than not sets up your third-down play. Last season, the Giants were 88 of 204 (43 percent) on third-down conversions, eighth in the league.

When the Giants caught fire from Weeks 7 to 13, they were 51.7 percent on third-down conversions, which was 1.7 percent higher than the best in the league at season's end.  When they lost four of their last five, they were 33.8 percent on third downs, slightly higher than the league's 29th best at season's end.

The inability to convert on the most important down in football will be crucial to the Giants. Running for an average of four yards per carry on first and second down can be great, but not being able to convert it on third-and-2 is killer.

The question marks at wide receiver will be answered by the time season starts, for good or bad. Either way, Gilbride has to put this offense together knowing that certain players do certain things, and he must find ways to get them the ball for the Giants to succeed.

Not all of the expectations rely on the Giants' offense this season, though. Even with the departure of innovative defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, the Giants could have a top-three defense after making a few key acquisitions in the off-season.

Similar to the offenses' inconsistency on third down late last season, the defense was just as bad. The last five games, the defense gave up 51 percent of third-down conversions and could not get off the field. Numerous times, especially against the Eagles, the Giant defense would hold them to third-and-long and then give up a ridiculous conversion.

Tiring and draining physically, plays like that take a serious toll mentally to what a defense can do as well and when they get beat, they get beat. New defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan inherits an extremely strong unit and gets the team's best pass rusher, Osi Umenyiora, back at full strength after missing all of last season.

The Giants' defense knows it will be counted to keep opposing offenses at bay and will look to provide serious pressure to the quarterback like it did in 2007 when it led the league in sacks.

The defense returns a slew of starters that might even get moved to situational roles after the acquisitions made this off-season, demonstrating just how much depth this defense has. 

The defensive line rotation alone should sport Mathias Kiwanuka, Justin Tuck, Chris Canty, Rocky Bernard, Barry Cofield, Fred Robbins, Jay Alford, Dave Tollefson, and a hungry Umenyiora, who has not sacked the quarterback since Week 16 of 2007 in Buffalo.

To win this season, the Giants will have to do what they do best—run the ball—and start modifying the passing game to the new talent around Manning. 

Rookie wide receivers Hakeem Nicks and Ramses Barden, tight end/h-back Travis Beckum, and running back Andre Brown all posses different talents and gifts that can help this offense right now, but they need to be put in the right positions.

Play-calling and converting third downs will be huge, but if Gilbride can get the offense clicking on all cylinders, it will be less of an issue. 

Last season, they averaged five yards per carry and 157.4 yards per game on the ground. If they can get back to anywhere close to those numbers and improve on completion percentage, the Giant offense will be a force coming out of the NFC.

Defensively, it will come down to how Sheridan handles all the talent he has to work with. If he can get the players in the right spots and put together the correct rotations, the Giant defense will wreak havoc in the backfield and allow their playmakers in the secondary to dominate receivers who cannot see what is happening behind them.

With the opportunity to avenge last season's losses to Dallas, Philadelphia, and Minnesota, the Giants should have no trouble getting for up for a game in 2009. 

Of the the six playoff teams on the schedule, the Giants will only have to travel to Philly and Minnesota. The other four—Atlanta, Arizona, Carolina, and San Diego—all have to make trips to Meadowlands, as does division rival Philly.

The schedule is not as difficult as last season and is stacked more toward the seasons' beginning rather than end.  If the Giants can get through the four tough weeks prior to the bye (Week 10), when they face New Orleans and Philly on the road and Arizona and San Diego at home, they should be in good shape to make a strong run back into the playoffs.

The Giants, along with the Eagles, San Diego Chargers, and defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers have all their pieces in place and should be considered the top teams in the league, along with question-marked contenders such as the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. 

A team on a mission, players and coaches alike having something to prove this season in New York. 

If the players execute and the coaches put everything together, the Giants could end up in Miami when all is said and done. Redemption.