2009 New York Giants schedule

The NFL released its 2009 schedule yesterday. The Giants, as you might expect, have a difficult schedule. Well, the second half anyway. The first half is loaded with potential easy W's (TB, KC, Oakland, maybe even Washington). The second half looks a lot like 2008: Dallas (home), Philly (home), Wash (away), Carolina (home), Minnesota (away). By comparison, here are the final five games in 2008: Washington (away), Philly (home), Dallas (away), Carolina (home), Minnesota (away). Different order of NFC East games in Weeks 13-15, but the battle will be equally hard. Why can't we get the Rams in Week 17?

There are two nice upsides to the 2009 schedule, however. First, three of the last five games will be played at home. Last year, by comparison, three of the last five games were on the road. This advantage cannot be overstated. Second, the G-men will visit Dallas for the Cowboys' first game in their new billion-dollar stadium. Ruining the Cowboys' home debut on national television will be great fun.

Speaking of which, the Giants will play on national television five times: September 20 (Sunday night) at Dallas, October 25 vs. Arizona (Sunday night), December 13 (Sunday night) vs. Philly, and December 21 (Monday night) at Washington. Of course, Dallas has to have six nationally televised games, despite their awful collapse at the end of last season. (FYI - the Hartford Courant today put an over/under of 4 on the number of games Wade Phillips will coach this year in Dallas.)

The coolest nationally televised G-men game, of course, is the rare Giants appearance on Thanksgiving day. Too bad it's at Denver...I would have liked to have 100 million overstuffed Americans see Giants Stadium (while it still exists) on arguably the best non-playoffs football day of the year.