Surging Giants still have room to improve
The Giants did a lot of good things in their victory over Atlanta. But they also made enough mistakes to leave some doubt about just how good they are, writes Len Pasquarelli.
Toomer, Eli and the Giants Roll Over Falcons
ATLANTA -- With the New York Giants now having won four straight games after a sluggish 0-2 start, people around the league are beginning to wonder just how good this team can be.
And some of the most curious people, following Monday night's 31-10 victory here over the Atlanta Falcons, were located right in the middle of the Giants' locker room.
"We talk all the time about not being a roller-coaster team, about [establishing] a good level of consistency and not having so many ups and downs," free safety Gibril Wilson said. "The goal is to be on a steady rise, not to slip back, [to] keep on moving forward. And you do kind of think to yourself, 'Yeah, if we can do that, how good can we be?' I mean, as good as we played tonight, we can still play even better. This team hasn't played its best game yet, not by a long shot."
With a home game in Week 7 against the inconsistent San Francisco 49ers, followed by the historic matchup in London versus the currently winless Miami Dolphins on Oct. 28, the Giants might not need their A-game for a little while at least. Neither of those contests figures to define the real pedigree of the Giants and how they stack up against the rest of the NFC competition.
But after a bye on Nov. 4, New York gets a rematch with Dallas, arguably the best entry in the NFC and a team that whipped the Giants, 45-35, in Week 1. And that game, at Giants Stadium on Nov. 11, should provide New York with a pretty good measuring stick.
In dispatching the floundering Falcons, who dropped to 1-5 and showed only sporadic signs of life after snatching an early 10-7 lead, the Giants broke out the whipping stick at times. But the game also offered, on both sides of the ball, a microcosm of what still makes the Giants a question-mark team.
After allowing Atlanta to score on its first two series, on a 47-yard Morten Andersen field goal and a 67-yard burst by tailback Jerious Norwood, the New York defense righted itself. Atlanta's next 10 possessions resulted in seven punts, a missed field goal, an interception and a series in which the Falcons turned the ball over on downs.
Offensively, the Giants opened the game by scoring touchdowns on their first two possessions, and on three of the first four series. At one point during that stretch, quarterback Eli Manning hit 12 straight passes for 170 yards, including a beautiful 43-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress on a post pattern.
But then the offense went six series before it scored its next touchdown -- a 9-yard run by backup tailback Derrick Ward with 3:08 remaining in the game.
"You would like to see [the momentum] sustain itself throughout," coach Tom Coughlin acknowledged. "The coach in me tells me that you want more."
There are only four franchises in the league right now, two in each conference, with more wins than the Giants' four victories. And while no one is prepared yet to suggest that New York is poised to move into elite status, the Giants certainly are at or near the top of the second-tier group, and with a chance to be very good if they keep improving.
Part of the progress the Giants have made is seen in their defense, which struggled in the first two weeks to come to grips with the scheme that first-year coordinator Steve Spagnuolo installed. But the unit has grown considerably, flies around the field, and has been able to camouflage its shortcomings in the secondary with aggressive blitzes up front. The Giants, who came into Monday's game tied for the NFL lead in sacks, notched four more, three of them on blitzes, including a corner fire off the edge by Aaron Ross.
"Maybe we didn't get pressure the way everyone thought we would," said right defensive end Osi Umenyiora, who did not add to his league-leading seven sacks despite lining up against rookie Renardo Foster all night. "But we still got pressure."
Credit the Atlanta staff for this much: The Falcons didn't go into a shell against the Giants and use maximum protections to try to insulate quarterback Joey Harrington from the New York pass rush. To the contrary, the Falcons spread the field much of the night and counted on Harrington to get the ball out on three- and five-step drops.
For a while, a short while, the blueprint worked. But then the New York defense tightened up, and twice held firm after turnovers provided the Falcons scoring chances. And the Giants' offense, despite hitting a lull in the middle of the game, when Manning tossed a pair of interceptions and cooled off for a while, still managed to move the ball well enough to control the tempo.
Even with the stretch of inconsistency, Manning threw for 303 yards and the Giants rolled up 188 yards on the ground.
"We have a lot of playmakers here," said wide receiver Amani Toomer, who finished with seven catches for 89 yards and one touchdown. "I don't think there are that many defenses that can keep us down for long. As long as we're not keeping ourselves down. There are times we kind of play down to the level of other people. If we play at our level, up to what we're capable of doing, I really do think we have the potential to do some special things. I guess we'll see."
Indeed, when the Cowboys show up on the schedule again, we will.
In a moment of incredible incongruity Monday night, the public address system at the Georgia Dome blared the Bruce Springsteen anthem "Glory Days" when Ward capped off the scoring late in the game. Maybe it was meant to entertain the thousands of Giants fans still remaining in a mostly empty stadium.
Or maybe it was designed to augur what might lie ahead if the Giants can stay on a roll.
"I guess," Wilson said, "time will tell."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
- Schefter: On the Saints and Colts
- Rumors: Kris Brown may be done in Houston
- Millman: How to bet football
- Tools: PickCenter | Game Predictor
- Draft: Mel's Big Board (11/25) | NFL draft blog
