Giants story lines
Prepping for Favre and Jackson
It's easy for everyone else to say that Brett Favre most likely will start Sunday's game against the Giants and keep his remarkable streak going to 298 straight, but the team is preparing to face either Favre or Tarvaris Jackson. They've faced both in the past, but the two present different challenges. "He's a different animal with his athleticism and his ability to create plays with his feet and prolong plays with his feet," Barry Cofield said of Jackson. "They definitely do pose two different types of offense that you'd want to prepare for." Given Favre's health these days and the penchant for the Giants to knock out quarterbacks this season, even if he does start there's a good chance the Giants might see Jackson anyway.
Tuck thinks JPP makes difference
Justin Tuck gets very excited when he talks about Jason Pierre-Paul. Part of it is selfish, he said Monday, because it means that teams will have to start accounting for the rookie and devote fewer double-teams and chips to him. But another part is because with three pass rushers such as Tuck, Pierre-Paul and Osi Umenyiora, Tuck knows there are few teams that will be able to stop them. He recalled the three pass-rushing ends the Giants used to win Super Bowl XLII. "That was the difference in our playoffs," he said of the 2007 run. "Eli played great, our offense played great, but the story was about how our defensive line was able to take over games and it came a lot with that pass rush. We're definitely trying to do all that stuff again."
Giants giveth, taketh away
The Giants had five more take-aways than turnovers in Sunday's win over the Redskins, which nearly balanced their ledger. For a while, the Giants were one of the teams with the worst differential in the league, but after 12 games, they are only minus-1 in that category. Still, they have the most volume. No one in the league has turned the ball over more times than the Giants (31), and no one has taken it away from opponents more than the Giants (30). The last team to finish a season first in the NFL in both take-aways and giveaways was the 2003 St. Louis Rams, who had 46 of the former and 39 of the latter. They finished 12-4 and lost a home divisional playoff game in double overtime to the Panthers. The winning touchdown in that game was set up by an interception.
