Giants - Good or bad?
Last week in our game preview we pointed out that 10 of the 32 NFL teams were 0-2. Now only half of them sit without a win, and the Giants will face two of them, 0-3 Atlanta and Miami in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, teams that beat the Giants, Dallas and Green Bay, are still undefeated with 3-0 records. Washington is at 2-1 and only because of their 7 point loss to the Giants. Could it be that these teams are hot and the Giants may actually be a better team then they have looked?

Donovan McNabb.
What can you say about this guy that all the Philly fans haven't already said, both good and bad? An additional vote of non-confidence seemed to be the team trading out of the first round of the draft and then selecting a quarterback as their first choice in the second. Well, McNabb, coming off last year's knee injury, had great success last week after two bad outings. The Giants will really try to pressure McNabb this week, so it was good to see Michael Strahan playing stronger last week.
Over his career, Strahan has more sacks against the Eagles ( 20.5) than any other team, and he has sacked Donovan McNabb more times than any other quarterback (11.5). "Right now, you've got to hit him," Strahan said. "No quarterback likes to be hit and I think in Donovan's case, coming off the knee (injury, ACL reconstruction surgery last season), you have to put pressure on him, get him to run out of the pocket, move him around a little bit and try to make him uncomfortable."

Brian Westbrook.
Westbrook is coming off a career high season with 240 rushes and 77 catches. Despite the Eagles first two losses, Westbrook has played strong in all three of the Philly games. Currently Westbrook with 291 yards, leads the NFC in rushing. He leads the NFL in yards from scrimmage with 514 on 70 touches. In last weeks win over Detroit, he had 110 yards rushing, 111 yards receiving, and he scored 3 touchdowns before leaving the game in the 3rd quarter with injured ribs.
Like D M, durability is always a side issue. Westbrook hasn't played a full 16 game season yet in his career. He shook off a knee sprain in last week's game, and will probably play in this game against the Giants, nursing an abdominal strain,

Eagles Defense.
You see a team win with a score of 56-21, and you figure that the defense played fairly well, and the Eagles defense was very good in holding Detroit to just 39 yards on the ground. However, they gave up a lot of passing yards for a total of 432 yards in that game. Some of that was because of the way the game played out. Detroit was playing catch up and their quarterback Jon Kitna with taken down with 9 sacks. Assuming this game doesn't get out of hand either way, the Giants offense has been pretty consistent. They rank 4th in the league in yards per game, and 6th in rushing. This should be an interesting matchup.

Eli Manning gets some defensive help.
Manning's looked good every game so far against opposing defenses. He seems to be developing at reading them and changing plays at the line. It also has to be a help that the Giants current defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, spent his previous eight years with the opposing team. Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson said. "He knows a lot of the things we do. We have to change a little bit," Johnson likes to keep quarterbacks guessing and he'll send anybody from anywhere at anytime. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Plaxico Burress and Derrick Ward.
The offensive line needs to give Eli Manning time to find Plaxico Burress downfield. Burress can beat this Eagles secondary. To help make that work against the Eagles front line pressure, Eli needs to complete shorter passes to Jeremy Shockey, Amani Toomer, and Derrick Ward. Ward has looked like a Tiki Barber in the making, and the Eagles will have to respect the Giants ground game.
Eagles fans will counter that the respect should go the other way since their defense ranks 4th in the NFL against the run, allowing 71.7 yards per game. Forget the fans, Eagles defensive end Juqua Thomas says, "We just know once we stop the run we can put our ears back and put pressure on (Giants quarterback) Eli Manning."

Notes.
Giants have not allowed an opening-possession touchdown in 17 consecutive regular season games, the second-longest streak in the NFL.
The Denver Broncos’ streak is at 21 straight games.

Jeremy Shockey is in first place among Giants tight ends with 329 receptions.

Eli Manning has thrown 1,382 passes, 9 fewer than Dave Brown, who is fifth on the Giants’ all-time list.
Eli Manning's 755 completions leave him 11 behind Dave Brown, who is also fifth in that category.
Eli Manning’s 8,804 yards are just 2 less than Dave Brown, ranked sixth in passing yardage in Giants history.

Eagles Donovan McNabb became the 10th quarterback in NFL history to post a perfect 158.3 QB rating in a regular season game.
He had a 21-for-26 performance, good for 381 yards and 4 touchdowns with no interceptions.
He hasn't thrown an interception in his past four games against the Giants.

Eagles lead the NFL in sacks with 14.
Eagles defensive end Trent Cole, leads the league with five sacks.

Former Giant Will Peterson now known as William James has been starting for the Eagles in place of injured Lito Sheppard.

Sept 30- Eagles at Giants 8:15PM on NBC.
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