Glauber: All meaningful games for Giants

PHILADELPHIA

If it seems a little odd that it has taken this long for the Giants and Eagles to meet in the regular season, it is.

As part of the NFL's effort to add more meaning to late-season games, the league decided to schedule more divisional games in the second half of the season. So instead of the more typical schedule in which teams play a divisional opponent in the first half of the season and then again in the second half, the idea was to add more drama by packing the games into November and December and - in this case - January.

And boy, is there some drama in the NFC East, particularly when it comes to these two longstanding rivals. Heading into last night's game at Lincoln Financial Field, the Giants and Eagles were neck-and-neck at 6-3. And with the rematch set for Dec. 19 at New Meadowlands Stadium, the odds are pretty good that the second game will be similarly packed with meaning.

"We've seen that commissioner [Roger] Goodell's purpose was to load the second half of the season with key games, and we have to answer the bell," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "This is where you find out what you've got."

It could not have been a more daunting challenge. Coming off a dispiriting, mistake-filled performance against the Cowboys in a 33-20 home loss, the Giants were up against an Eagles team that had played as close to a perfect game as you could imagine in a 59-28 win over the Redskins in Washington.

Michael Vick threw for four touchdowns, ran for two more and played what may have been the best game of his career. Shoot, it was one of the best games of any quarterback's career, a transcendent performance that demonstrated that Vick has firmly established himself as an elite player after nearly three years of inactivity. Incarcerated for 18 months on charges of running an illegal dog-fighting operation before serving as an understudy to Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb last season, Vick has re-emerged as a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback.

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The Giants got a glimpse of Vick's renewed brilliance on his seemingly effortless first-quarter touchdown drive, a 13-play, 68-yard march that he capped with a 4-yard scramble around right end for the game's first score.

"You put that kind of talent at the quarterback position, and more times than not, it's one-on-one all across the board," said Giants linebacker Michael Boley, a former teammate of Vick's in Atlanta. "Most defenses, you don't account for the quarterback, especially running the ball."

But Boley was hoping to get Vick at his best last night.

"We want somebody to bring their 'A' game when we play them," he said. "It's like a boxer. You don't want a guy who comes in and is sluggish and doesn't want to fight. What's the point?"

It won't be long before the Giants see Vick again for the return match at home next month. And by then, there's a decent chance the division will be as close as it was coming into this weekend. With the Redskins rallying from last week's pummeling against Vick by beating the Titans in overtime Sunday, it pulled them one step closer to the Giants and Eagles heading into last night's game.

Up next for the Giants is resurgent Jacksonville and then the Redskins at home. Then it's at Minnesota against a Vikings team that might very well feature Tarvaris Jackson and not Brett Favre. Then it's Eagles at home, Packers on the road, Redskins on the road.

That, my friends, is no easy mission. Counting last night, six of the team's last seven games are against playoff-contending teams. Talk about packing the last half of the season with meaningful games.