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Giants - Seahawks
Game 14 preview
Sun Dec 15, 1:00 PM - Seahawks at Giants

Giants (5-8) vs Seahawks (11-2)
For only the second time this season the Seahawks were on the losing side of a score. They lost by only two points, 19-17 to San Francisco, the most recent two time division leaders, who denied Seattle from claiming that title on their turf.
Last Sunday the Giants played in San Diego, were down 24-0 at the half, and lost to the Chargers 37-14. That pretty much took them out of any chance to climb anywhere in the division or pull off some miracle comeback from their poor 0-6 start.

Seattle Seahawks.
Pete Carroll is the head coach and he has quite a background. After working for the Bills and Vikings he was the defensive coordinator for the Jets before becoming their head coach for the 1994 season. Carroll went to San Francisco as their defensive coordinator before once again becoming a head coach with the New England Patriots for three seasons before Bill Belichick took over the job. Carroll moved back to the college ranks to successfully coach the USC Trojans for a number of years before coming back to the NFL in 2010 to coach the Seahawks.
Only four NFL coaches have the title or the powers of a general manager and Carroll is one of them. (Bill Belichick, Mike Shanahan, Andy Reid). Last year his Seahawks had a rough schedule playing five of their first eight games on the road while facing four playoff teams from the previous season. They started at 4-4, but lost only one more game to finish at 11-5 and to earn a wild card shot where they beat the Redskins, but fell to the Falcons. The Seahawks haven't lost a game at home in the past two years and now they travel to play the Giants.

Seahawks Offense.
Russell Wilson came off a great rookie year and he continues to bring quarterback consistency to this offense which likes to run the ball more than any other team in the NFL. Wilson is careful and has thrown 23 touchdowns against only 7 interceptions. Aside from completing over 64 percent of his passes both this year and last, Wilson contributes to this powerful ground game as well. He's the second leading rusher with 458 yards.
Running back Marshawn Lynch is the lead rusher and is third in the NFL with his 244 carries and 1,042 yards. Their focus is all on the ground averaging over 30 run plays per game, but Golden Tate leads the team with 52 catches and he likes to pick up extra yardage after making them. Doug Baldwin has 13 catches of 20 or more yards. Touchdown leadering receivers with four catches each are Tate, Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse and tight end Zach Miller.

Seahawks Defense.
Under Pete Carroll's guidance, where he drafted seven defensive players in 2012, it's become increasingly hard to put up points on this defense. Over his past four years their ranking has gone from 25th to 7th to 1st and they are currently in the number two spot in allowing opponents to score points on them. They are a physically strong team up front and in the secondary. Their passing defense has them as the top team in passing yards allowed per game and at yards per attempt.
They are above average in run defense although Frank Gore hit them with a long 51 yard run to set up the winning field goal for his team last week. That was a big exception as teams have had only five runs that went more than 20 yards this whole season. They are near the top in forcing fumbles, recovering them and in interceptions, with cornerback Richard Sherman having 4 of their 17 interceptions and one touchdown.

Giants Offense.
It's just not happening for them this year and especially last week where they fell way behind and were allowed just 14 mercy points by the Chargers as the game wore on. It's hard to believe that Hakeem Nicks had five catches for 135 yards and that's all they came up with. Eli Manning completed 20 of his 32 passes for 259 yards, had one touchdown, but threw two interceptions. A Hail Mary completion to Nicks helped both their stats, but put no points on the board. Manning has tried to make a go of it working behind his unreliable offensive line while throwing to unreliable receives, with the exception of Victor Cruz, who catches nearly everything, but draws blanket coverage.
Andre Brown is somehow averaging 4.3 yards a carry through all this and has run for 424 yards in the last five games. Peyton Hillis can't seem to pull off what Brown does, but he did score one touchdown. It would be best to feed Brown the ball as much as possible in this matchup with the Seahawks. If they go all out and play eight men in the box to stop Brown, Manning could make a few big plays, but that requires smart receivers and we haven't seen a lot of that this year.

Giants Defense.
The Giants run defense is their strong point and they have done well against a number of the league's top leaders. In last weeks game against the Chargers, Ryan Mathews ran for 103 yards and he's the only runner to get past 100 yards on them. Pass defense is another matter and it's getting worse as quarterbacks have completed 75 percent of their passes in the last two games. First it was Robert Griffin III and then Philip Rivers completed 21 of his 28 passes for 249 yards with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. Justin Tuck has been getting sacks, but his run stopping abilities will be called for much more in this game. Jason Pierre-Paul will not play and there's actually a chance he may be done for the season.

Overall
The Seahawks are an 11-2 team and with only three games remaining they still have not clinched their division title. The Denver Broncos are the only other team in the NFL at 11-2 and they haven't either. That's how tough some divisions are. Both teams have secured at least a wild card spot and there are only three games left. The only team with an NFL division title at this point is the Indianapolis Colts with an 8-5 record and that holds up even if they lose the next three games and finish at 8-8. That's how easy some divisions are.
Speaking of easy divisions, how about the NFC East? The Giants started the season losing the first six games and were still in real contention until that loss to the Cowboys two weeks ago. If you're down on the Giants, and why shouldn't you be after last week, remember that some of their worst games were played against some of the top teams this season, Denver, Carolina, Kansas City, and Seattle is up next.

NFC East
On Sunday at 1pm , the same time the Giants will be playing the Seahawks, the Redskins (3-10) will be playing the Falcons (3-10) in Atlanta, and the Eagles (8-5) will be playing the Vikings (3-9) in Minnesota. Later at 4:25pm, the Cowboys (7-6) will be hosting the Packers (6-6). The Eagles and Cowboys are favored to win in their games. The Giants and Redskins are not.

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tgtwitter TeamGiants on Twitter.Notes.
Giants Justin Tuck has 6.0 sacks in the Giants last two games.

Giants Hakeem Nicks has 49 receptions without a touchdown and that's the most in the NFL this season.

Giants have turned the ball over 34 times, the most in the NFL.

Seahawks defense is tied for 2nd in the league with 28 takeaways.

Seahawks have allowed a total of just 15 punt return yards this season.
NFL record is 22, by the Green Bay Packers in 1967 during a 14-game season.

Seahawks offense ranks second in the NFL in both penalties (104) and penalty yardage (966).
Next Games
Dec 22 - Giants at Lions.
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Dec 29 - Redskins at Giants.
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