Rock: Giants' O-line still doing the job

The offensive linemen knew what people were saying about them.

"We're old, we're has-beens, we're injured, we can't play football anymore," David Diehl said last week, going through the list of observations some had made.

But it wasn't just outsiders who were thinking that as the Giants were preparing for the 2010 season. From the front office to the coaching staff, whispers of change built into a wave.

General manager Jerry Reese spoke openly about how second-year player Will Beatty would be given a chance to win the starting left tackle job and even drafted a powerful guard in the fifth round last spring.

Coaches speculated on how best to reconfigure the players, moving Diehl from left tackle to guard or right tackle during workouts. Even offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride seemed to suspect that the long, powerful reign of the five offensive linemen who had brought the team a Super Bowl XLII championship was coming to an end when he noted, in the spring, that guard Rich Seubert and tackle Kareem McKenzie were "fighting Father Time as valiantly as they can."

The team even added a former Pro Bowl guard in Shawn Andrews just before the start of the season. It seemed inevitable that change was coming.

So what happened?

The five pillars of the offensive line - from left to right Diehl, Seubert, Shaun O'Hara, Chris Snee and McKenzie - wound up starting the first game of the season. And except for the three games O'Hara missed with an ankle injury (and the one he's certain to miss this week with a mild Lisfranc sprain in his right foot), they've remained an intact unit.

Oh, and they're probably playing better than they have in a while. The Giants have the top rushing offense in the NFC, at 145.4 yards per game, 4.8 per carry. And Eli Manning has been sacked only 12 times, four of them in one game against the Colts.

"We've definitely been more successful," Snee said Monday. "The production is there, so we have to be doing some things better than we had in the past."

Even Gilbride, whose "Father Time" comment has become a bit of a running joke among the linemen (although no one actually laughs at it), was impressed at how the unit performed last Monday night against the Cowboys.

"They were maybe as physical as we've been in a long, long time," Gilbride said.

Diehl said he understood why some were talking about changes during the offseason.

"Coming off of last year, when you lose football games, anything can be a fluid situation," he said. "But I think it's a credit to the attitude that we have as a group up front and the way that we work and the way we prepare that we're going out there and playing hard football and fast football."

Snee said he doesn't pay attention to talk, from outsiders or even those in the building.

"I'm at the point now where it has happened so much during my tenure here that I really don't give a damn, to be honest with you," Snee said. "I don't care what anyone says. I just worry about doing what I have to do to help the team."

But he did admit that some of his linemates use speculation and doubt as a motivator. Diehl said he and others used the disparaging thoughts to their advantage. Ultimately, what has kept the five players - four of them 30 or older, three of them with at least 10 years in the league - on the field is what made them so good to begin with.

"We're just a hardworking group," Snee said. "That's what has made us successful and we knew that was what would keep us in there. I think we've all been vocal that none of us was going to go down without a fight."