A Look at the Giants: New York at Seattle

For the rest of the NFL season one of us who are fans of Big Blue will be providing you a mini-preview of the Giants game coming up on the Friday before. Now as we say Bye-Bye Bye (week), the 5-2 Giants head up to the great Northwest to face the Seattle Seahawks, a team coming off a drubbing. Here's what I see:

Pierre-Paul and the Giants D are looking to stop the 'Hawks (WSJ)

The Tom Coughlin/Eli Manning Giants don't play well in Seattle. In 2005 the Giants went into Seattle and lost in OT. A year later the Giants got the tar beaten out of them (the score made it look a lot better than it was as the Giants reeled off 27 4th Quarter point in garbage time). The Giants head into Seattle again with Eli Manning at the helm and this time, they're hoping for better results. But with a Seattle crowd to disrupt Manning (who is always dangerously close to an expiring play-clock), a careless manner to their recent play, and the Giants special teams in disarray, can they win a very winnable game and take down the 'Hawks?

The 2010 Seattle Seahawks have been easy to bet: beasts at home (thanks to a league-high 99 false starts since 2005) and brutal on the road.  But this is a different level of home game. A quick look at ESPN's Power Rankings from the time that Coughlin took over in 2004 shows that most of the Giants teams he's coached have peaked around this time of the season (except for the disaster that was last year). This Giants team is no exception with Eli Manning, Ahmad Bradshaw and Hakeem Nicks providing a QB/RB/WR combination as good as any Giants team and a defense that has stepped it up, especially Defensive Player of the Month, Osi Umenyiora and improved rookie Jason Pierre-Paul. It's usually bad news, however, when people start picking the Giants for the Super Bowl.

So what happens on Sunday? The Giants need to control first downs on both sides of the ball as well as they have so far this season--which can be a natural noise reducer--but they need to find a way to stop Leon Washington from killing them on special teams. With a much healthier Giants team (only missing their center, Shaun O'Hara with the dreaded Lis Franc sprain) than the Seahawks (who are without their starting quarterback), this should be a blowout. But, alas, the Giants seem to be unable to blow any bad teams out this season, winning closer-than-needed-to-be games over Detroit and Dallas--and I see another one of those this week. My prediction: Giants 20 - Seattle 16.