Not that it wasn’t deserved, but have you ever heard announcers praise a football team like the Monday Night Football crew praised the Giants in the first half last night? We understand that the Giants were on their way to absolutely destroying the Redskins — at one point, they had 226 total yards to the Redskins’ negative-2, and they’d go on to win 45–12 — but you’d have thought that the Giants offense had found the time to put up 24 points, and also collectively capture Osama bin Laden between quarters. We’ll just assume the MNF crew missed last week’s debacle at the Meadowlands, and the many debacles before that. That said — what a win! The Giants are still very much in the playoff hunt; if they could play like this more often, they’d be in the Super Bowl hunt, too.
That, of course, is the problem. They don’t play like this often enough — and when they do, it’s usually against a truly terrible team. (And as close as they’ve come to playing spoiler over the last few weeks, if you have any doubt that the Redskins are a truly terrible team, we suggest you watch that bizarre fake field goal at the end of the first half a couple more times. Yikes.)
This isn’t meant to take away from what the Giants accomplished. Facing a virtual must-win, the offense was explosive: They scored on six of the seven possessions that Eli Manning was on the field for, and many of those scores looked awfully easy. And a week removed from looking powerless against Philadelphia, the defense showed signs of life: five sacks and the easiest pick-six touchdown you’ll ever see.
It’s hard to gauge what this performance really means for their prospects going forward, because, again, the Redskins are really bad at football. But remember how last year, they slumped at the absolute worst time? Perhaps this year, they’ll get hot at the exactly the right time. They’ve proven they’re capable of doing it — given the right opponent, at least.