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A 'Giant' misconception
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Overnight, the New York Giants have gone from the most underrated, disrespected, defending champion in all of sports since the 1995 Houston Rockets to an NFL powerhouse.
Huh?
Before everybody starts preparing another ticker tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes for the defending Super Bowl champions, one cannot overlook that the Giants have played arguably the softest schedule in the NFL thus far.
The Giants do in fact own a win over the league’s latest “it” team, the Washington Redskins (4-1), but that came in Week 1 when Redskins head coach Jim Zorn was making his head coaching debut. The ‘Skins looked out of whack in that game and they have since righted the ship considerably.
Since their last game against a respectable opponent, the G-Men have played just one road game and it came against one of the worst teams in recent memory, the St. Louis Rams (0-4).
Following their Week 2 drubbing of the lowly Rams, the Giants narrowly escaped against a hapless Cincinnati Bengals (0-5) team in overtime, had a bye week, and beat up on the Seattle Seahawks (1-3) like they were the Ohio State Buckeyes in a BCS National Championship Game.
The schedule doesn’t get much tougher over the next couple of weeks as the Giants travel to Cleveland next Monday night to take on the Browns (1-3) and return home on Sunday, October 19, to take on the San Francisco 49ers (2-3).
Not exactly the most daunting of tasks.
Barring an upset, the Giants should head into their October 26 meeting in Pittsburgh against the Steelers (4-1), their first real challenge, with a misleading 6-0 record.
Make no mistake -- Eli Manning and company have looked good thus far and have taken care of business against bad football teams, which is what elite teams should do. Throw into the mix that they are doing it without retired defensive end Michael Strahan and injured defensive end Osi Umenyiora and it makes what they are doing look even more impressive.
But to anoint them the best team in the league by virtue of what they have done thus far?
That would be a “Giant” misconception.
