First on the injury front: It looks like Cowboys CB Anthony Henry will play as he's listed as probable and he practiced all week. Witten did not practice but is not listed as out, he is listed as questionable. My guess is he will dress and give it a try.
My guess is that Cowboys will be very conservative on offense and give a heavy dose of Barber running the ball and catching screen passes, swings, etc. When the Cowboys pass I would guess they would use the same formula that the Bengals used effectively against Giants defense: quick slants off of short 3 step drops; and when they have to go deep or sense a Giants blitz, they will max protect with two RBs in the backfield and hope the extremely talented Cowboys WRs can beat the Giants DBs. I would guess they would go after rookie CB Terrel Thomas as much as possible who will be playing because of Dockery's injury.
I don't know if it's in their playbook, but if I were the Cowboys, it would make sense to compliment the conservative run based game plan with a trick play here or there. Since the Giants defense likes to be aggressive and come up the field so much, something like a double reverse to Roy Williams would seem like a good play. A simple end-around is not sophisticated enough, because that's a little too easy to read and Giants defense is pretty well coached. However, the double reverse gives an extra layer of deception and might work. Also, if the Giants defense is very focused on stopping the run and commits extra guys at the line of scrimmage to stop Barber, a flea-flicker, where Barber takes a hand off into the line, starts to run and pitches it back to Johnson might really work. Giants defense will probably be playing their WRs very tight and daring Brad Johnson to beat them deep. When they see a run by Barber, no doubt the DB-field will commit hard to stop the run. A play like that could work.
On defense, the Cowboys will probably be very aggressive and attack hard on passing downs. They are missing 1 starting CB (Newman) and prime backup/nickel back Pacman Jones, but it looks like CB Henry will play. They need to force some turnovers because they don't expect the offense to put up lots of points. Last year during the regular season, in the opener in Dallas, Giants played well offensively and put up 35 points. In the 2nd game in NY, Giants OL had a lot of trouble handling the Cowboys DL and that really cramped the offense's productivity. Giants did not have a lot of points in that game. Cowboys still have a very good front 7 and the Giants OL blocking them well is a key to the game. Of course that statement sounds really simplistic and is almost a cliche for judging offense production. Having an OL protect the qb is always a key to the passing game. But in this game it seems even more important because of the relative weakness of the Cowboys secondary and the strength of their front 7. DeMarcus Ware can give Diehl trouble and had a particularly strong game against Diehl in the Meadowlands last year. Blocking him is a real key to the game as he is second in the league in sacks. While we should be concerned about Ware dominating Diehl in the Meadowlands last year in the second regular season game between Giants and Cowboys, we should also remember the divisional playoff gme last year in which the Giants OL handled the Cowboys DL fairly well. As a result, the Giants offense was fairly effective and efficient in that game. Giants should be attacking the Cowboys in the passing game but should not take needless chances.
Giants should be more conservative with the blitzing on defense. Cowboys OL has not had a good year and Giants should try to get to Brad Johnson with minimum blitzing. That way they can keep DB-field back to stop the extremely talented Cowboys WRs. On 3rd and long Giants like to blitz and there is nothing wrong with that. I would just be a little more conservative with it. Giants don't want to give up a big play and gamble when the opposing qb is probably not going to be able to put up a lot of points. In the last two games, Giants had a very good 4th qtr pass rush and the interesting thing is that it was almost completely manufactured by the Giants DL and not by a lot of exotic blitzes. Giants would blitz one LB, often it was Pierce, to get 1 on 1 matchups everywhere across the front. Giants DL is good enough that somebody won their 1-on-1 matchup against the OL-man assigned to block him.
Flozell Adams has been getting beaten a lot this year. He is huge and a little slow and looks like he may be slightly injured because he is not setting ip quickly enough to block the DE. It sure seems like this is a perfect matchup for Kiwanuka who is mostly a speed rusher. When Romo is back there, Giants are afraid to go outside of their rush lanes because of Romo's ability to avoid the rush, get out of the pocket and make a play down field. With Brad Johnson at qb, this is not a threat so it only increases the flexibility that Kiwanuka can use in attacking Adams and the pocket.
On the other side, Spagnuolo likes to move Tuck inside in passing situations and match him up against a G. This gets Tollefson on the field at Tuck's DE spot and he has been doing pretty well. I don't love this formation especially against the huge Cowboys interior OL because there will be less space for Tuck to get through. However, this week, Cowboys G Losier is nicked up and may not play, so Giants may be tempted to get a mismatch with Tuck at that position. I still like Tuck in space where he can use all his skills, but look for Tuck to go inside occasionally.
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