Getting Soft?

The only thing the Eagles have gotten really good at is beating the Giants. Since 2008, the Eagles are 8-2 against the G-Men. The Giants haven’t faced a strong opponent in nearly a month. Since then, they’ve beaten up on some lackluster opponents, the dregs from the NFC South. The good news is that the Giants have won the games they were supposed to win and whether you win by 2 or by 34, it still counts as one in the win column.

Speaking of winning by 34, the Giants/Bucs game should’ve looked more like the 49ers/Jets game than

some post season slugfest. The Giants are the defending World Champions and the Buccaneers are a scrubby team in a rebuilding phase. If anything, the Bucs and the Panthers may have given the Giants a false hope or a false sense of their capabilities. The Bucs led the G-Men to believe that they could crawl out of any hole and put points on the board whenever they really needed to. The Panthers led the Giants to believe that they could win a game with field goals. I could almost hear Coughlin preaching his mantra from last year – “Finish!” – as drive after drive stalled out around the 30 yard line and Big Blue made a fantasy points king out of Lawrence Tynes.

I’m wondering if the Browns will have the same effect. Next week, the Giants host Cleveland in what shapes up to be a rebound game. The Giants will most likely win that game and could walk out of there thinking that they’ve made the necessary repairs to their game plan. The following week at Candlestick will be the real test of that. The Giants won’t catch another break until week 10 when they travel to Cincinnati. Until then, the Giants will face the 49ers, the Skins, the Cowboys and the Steelers. I don’t feel confident picking the Giants in any of those games.

The fact that the Giants are 0-2 in their division is really bad news. That kind of record usually means missing the playoffs completely or sneaking in as a wildcard. It means that your fate is in someone else’s hands and you’ve got to rely on other teams losing to make the playoffs – you know, like the Jets usually do. Granted, the Giants have won on the road in the post season before, it’s not the way the defending champs should be going about it. The Vince Lombardi Trophy is in “Giants” Stadium and prospective challengers should have to come here to get it if they think they can take it.