Face it, Dallasites: Giants Are Making a Run

Two weeks ago your Dallas Cowboys had a chance to get into the playoffs with one more win.

Instead, they fell flat on the road and were soundly beaten by their fiercest rivals, the NFC East champion New York Giants.

The Cowboys had their chance, but the Giants seized theirs, and now they've sent a memo to the rest of the NFC: We're here, and we're going a ways.

The Giants could very well lose to the greatest team that ever stepped on a field this weekend when they head up to Lambeau to play the one-loss Green Bay Packers, but there's a lot of reasons to believe that won't happen.

Take a little trip back to 2007. Once again, your Cowboys were in a prime position, this time as a No. 1 seed in the playoffs and hosting the wild-card Giants in this very divisional round. We all know how that ended, and it began a historic run by the Giants and Eli Manning all the way to Lambeau for the NFC title game and on to the Super Bowl to face the perfect New England Patriots. We all know how that ended.

This year's Giants squad is eerily similar to that one. They've caught fire in recent weeks, seemingly fixing all their regular-season problems with the snap of a finger.

They still have a monstrous pass rush that makes up for their lack of secondary play and can disrupt even the best offenses. Aside from the lowly Kansas City Chiefs, the Giants came the closest to beating the Packers this season in New York when Aaron Rodgers marched easily down the field with under a minute to play to help the Packers win in the last seconds.

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Their running game has come to life in recent weeks with the waking up of Brandon Jacobs, who doesn't put up flashy stats but pounds opponents into submission when he's on his game, and right now, he's on his game.

But the biggest similarity is the play of Eli Manning, who put together a magical postseason in 2007 after a very average regular season and became one of those "well, he's OK" quarterbacks that won a Super Bowl with the help of a hot streak.

That's not the case anymore. Manning has elevated himself into the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks and is making himself look pretty smart after saying he was an "elite" quarterback prior to the season. In 2007, he led the league with 20 interceptions to go with his 23 touchdown passes and 3,336 yards. This year? Try a career-high 4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

The Giants have the perfect recipe, and seem to be hitting on all cylinders at the right time once again, to make a deep playoff run. Swallow your pride, Cowboys fans. Accept it.

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