NFL rematches can create problems

The Giants face the Cowboys Monday night. In 20 days, they'll go at it again.

Such is the way the schedule has unfolded this season. The Giants will play each of their NFC East opponents twice in the final 11 weeks, but the Cowboys are by far the most compressed of the turnarounds, with a Giants bye and a game Nov. 7 at Seattle before they host Dallas on Nov. 14.

For teams that already know each other so intimately, that can create problems for the coaching staffs. Offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride has experience with it and recalled not only the time the Giants faced the Eagles late in the 2008 season and then in the first round of the playoffs - a span of 33 days - but his experience with the Oilers when they played the Bills in the final week of the 1992 regular season and again in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

"Ironically, teams make more changes then than ever before," Gilbride said. "You would never think it would be that way, but it's like, 'Hey, we just played them, we're going to have to modify everything.' So sometimes the degree of change is more than ever before, which wouldn't seem to make sense, but it's almost like there's a need that people feel. We just played them, they've got a feel for us, so we've got to change up some things."

In Gilbride's case when he was offensive coordinator for the Oilers, the Bills were forced to change drastically. Jim Kelly was injured in the regular-season finale in 1992 and Frank Reich played in the playoff game (and led the Bills to the greatest comeback in NFL history, from a 35-3 deficit to a 41-38 overtime victory).

Defensive coordinator Perry Fewell said there are disadvantages to facing the same team in such close proximity.

"They see some of your strengths and they see some of your weaknesses and they're able to expose them," he said. "There have been some opponents that have completely changed, and you wonder how they do that on such a short notice."

Neither Gilbride nor Fewell said that knowing they will face the Cowboys again in a matter of a few weeks will alter their game plan for this first game. There will be no holding anything back to save it for next month.

"If you knew you were going to win, you'd do it," Gilbride said. "The problem is, you're usually pulling everything you've got out to get a win that day and then you hope you've got something left for the following day."

Win or lose Monday night, the Giants will have 480 hours to come up with something else for the Cowboys in Round 2.