It seems clear that the Giants are a better team this regular season than they were last year. Almost exactly one year ago, the Giants played the Cowboys at home, like they did this past Sunday and it might be interesting to take a look back and compare the two games to see signs of progress and change for these Giants.
The setting was similar: it was an early November game - the 11th to be exact, compared to the 2nd of November this year. It was week 10 last year and week 9 this year, close enough for valid comparison.
In that game last year, the Cowboys won 31-20 and the game wasn't really as close as the 11 point margin indicated. Cowboys had 323 yards of offense, 240 of them through the air. Giants were fairly effective against the Cowboys running game and held them to only 80 yards rushing. Romo hit TO for two long TDs, one 25 yards and the other a 50 yard play. Romo had plenty of time to throw and was sacked only once allowing him to make these long plays down the field. The score was tied at half time 17-17, but Giants got a little help in the first half on some dumb penalties by the Cowboys that helped some of their drives. In one particular example, Cowboys scored a TD with 37 seconds left in the first half to go up 17-14 but committed a mindless taunting penalty on the ensuing KO return that gave the Giants great field position. This allowed Eli to complete one intermediate pass to Shockey and Tynes kicked a 40 yard FG to tie it at the half.
Giants offense was shut down in the second half scoring only 3 points, being hurt on one drive by a holding penalty that negated a TD run by Brandon Jacobs and forced them to settle for a FG. After that failed drive, they never really got close to scoring again. Manning was harried all day being sacked 5 times and was hurried and knocked down many other times, thrwoing 2 INTs under this pressure. One of the INTs was a desperation pass at the end of the game and did not really hurt the team. Cowboys strongly controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and this was the real difference in the game.
By contrast, this year Giants won 35-14 and the game was not really as close as the score indicated. Giants ran for 200 yards and held the Cowboys to less than 200 yards of total offense. It is remarkable that you win a game by 3 TDs when you give away 3 turnovers and a defensive TD. It shows how dominant the Giants really were in this game. I know Romo was not playing, but this game was won at the line of scrimmage as much as it helped that Brad Johnson was in the game. Just as last year Cowboys won the battle at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, thie year the Giants dominated that battle.
Cowboys front 7 is really good and got to Eli for 4 sacks, but somehow that stat is misleading. While they did get the sacks, it sure seemed like Eli had tample ime to throw most of the time.
The contrast between Cowboys controlling the game last year and Giants dominating it this year could not be more stark. Missing your starting qb makes a huge difference, but it doesn't affect the way the defense tackles runners and rushes the passer. Missing your qb affects your passing game of course and affects your running game because the defense does not have to respect the pass. But it doesn't affect it as much. The Cowboys OL looked completely over matched where last year they looked dominant.
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