Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Week 1: Cowboys @ Giants

It's finally here. Week 1. The drought is over. I can almost sense the feeling in the air that football is returning. Granted, that might just be because it's 5am here and I just went outside wearing slippers and it's damn cold, but whatever.

Cowboys @ Giants
And we kick off the season with the Giants playing host to the Cowboys in a mid week game. It's a nice rivalry game to start off with and for the Giants I see this as being a perfect start to the defense of their crown.

See when I look at the Giants roster, I see all the great things they had from last season, minus the secondary. I have to admit, that looks suspect. But I still see a great running game, reasonably good protection, a monstrous defensive line and a wide receiver corps that is over flowing with talented players.

When I look at the Cowboys... eh not so much. I think defensively they have a solid amount of talent that will flex its muscles over the course of the season, but once again I see a group of receivers that has maybe one stand out in Miles Austin, one so-so in Dez Bryant, and then the solid Jason Witten. I see Tony Romo, who is prone to mistakes. I see an offensive line that I don't think will stand up well to the Giants pass rush.

The major bright spot for the Cowboys is the rushing attack, but let's not kid ourselves. The Cowboys don't really do rushing anymore. Whether that's influenced by Jerry Jones or not I couldn't tell you, but they seem fixated on proving that Romo is a worthy quarterback instead of playing their hot hand which is with DeMarco Murray and Felix Jones. And even if they did, I'm not sure the Cowboys line can create enough holes for those guys to run through.

We all know how difficult it is to defend a Super Bowl title. Every season is effectively a complete restart as even the best teams inevitably lose players to free agency as the Giants did, especially in the secondary. But I think enough of the core Giants defenders have remained in order to see them past the Cowboys, and I think Eli Manning retains enough weapons on offense to compliment that defense.

Giants win.

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