New York Giants Official Website

  Taking care of business
   By Michael Eisen, Giants.com

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - The Giants' big picture improved over the bye weekend, but two players said today they can take advantage of it only if they eye the task at hand.

Dallas and Philadelphia, the Giants' primary competition for the NFC East title, both lost yesterday. The Cowboys dropped a 17-7 decision in Green Bay, while the Eagles fell in San Diego, 31-23. The outcomes leave Dallas atop the division at 6-3, with the Giants and Philly tied for second a game back at 5-4. Washington, which plays at Dallas Sunday, is 3-6.

The Giants will host the Cowboys and Eagles on the first two Sundays in December, so their destiny is still firmly in their hands. But they also have to take care of business prior to those showdowns. On Sunday, the Giants will host the Atlanta Falcons, who lost yesterday in Carolina to slip to 5-4. Four days later, on Thanksgiving night, they will be in Denver to face the Broncos (who are 6-3 entering Sunday's game with San Diego).

Of course, the Giants have their own issues, most notably the four- game losing streak they've had to carry around for an extra week. After four days off, they returned to work today. On a conference call after practice, Justin Tuck was asked if the Giants are capable of taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them by yesterday's results.

"I hope so, that is the plan," Tuck said. "We have to have a great week of practice this week. We have a tough team coming in with Atlanta. We can't worry about what Dallas or Philadelphia did. We have to come out and hold serve at home. Our fans are going to be up for this one. We have to match the intensity that Atlanta is going to bring. If we can do that, I think things will work out for themselves."

Quarterback Eli Manning agreed that the Giants can capitalize on what occurred elsewhere only by concentrating on what happens internally.

"We have to worry about the Giants," Eli Manning said. "We have to handle our business; we have to go out there and play well and win games. We know that we have to play Philly again, the Cowboys and the Redskins again. Really what it comes down to is we have to focus on Atlanta this week. That's all we can do is focus on them, go out there and play well and see if we can get a win and get back on a winning streak."

The Giants appeared poised to do that in their most recent game, a 21-20 loss to the Chargers on Nov. 8. San Diego scored the game- winning points on Philip Rivers' 18-yard touchdown pass to Vincent Jackson with just 21 seconds remaining. Despite the defeat, the Giants played much better than they had the previous week, when they lost in Philadelphia by 23 points. The Giants believe they can continue that improvement in their upcoming games.

"I have seen enough in our team and the way that we have responded and put ourselves in a situation to win the game against San Diego," Manning said, "that we can play at a high level and win some games. I know in the NFL you are never out of anything, especially after nine games. There is a lot of football left and teams can turn things around. Teams can get hot at the end of the season. We have to go out there and start playing better football and we are capable of doing that."

The Giants haven't won since a 44-7 rout of Oakland on Oct. 11, but Manning and the Giants believe they can finish the season with a favorable outcome.

"We felt that all the way along," Manning said. "We knew we weren't in an awful situation. It's not exactly where we wanted to be, but we knew that there were still a lot of games left, a lot of season and if we went out and handled our business and played well, got hot again and got back to winning some games, we would be very much into the playoff hunt. We need to have that mindset. It really comes down to all we can worry about this week is Atlanta, go out there and play well and see if we can get a win."

Tuck admitted he was surprised by some of yesterday's results.

"It shows you how tough the NFL is," he said. "If somebody would have told me that going into that game Dallas was not going to score a touchdown until the last seconds of the game, when the game is out of reach (I wouldn't have expected it)," Tuck said. "Then I thought Philadelphia would be able to handle the Chargers. But that is why you go play the game. Lucky for us, it puts things back in reach with us. But we still can't worry about what other people did. We have to go out there and win games for ourselves."

"It's a matter of what we are going to do with the opportunity," Manning said. "We have to take advantage of where we are and know that we have to win some games."

NOTES

*Manning said the Giants needed a break after playing games for 13 consecutive weeks (nine regular season, four preseason) and the team returned today in the right frame of mind.

"It wasn't hard to shake off the rust," Manning said. "We went out and practiced. It wasn't a real long practice, but I thought there was good energy. Guys were sharp, we were excited about the opportunity that we have and excited to come back and play. I think they enjoyed the time off. I thought guys took advantage of it, were smart about getting back healthy and getting fresh and that we have to come back knowing that we have a great opportunity ahead of us."

In our little work that we did today it seemed like guys were happy to be back," Tuck said. "Guys were bouncing around and things like that. But like I said, it only matters what we do on Sunday, so we will find out this week."

*Tuck said the bye week helped the sore shoulder he has played with since the Week 2 victory in Dallas.

"It helped me a lot," Tuck said. "It allowed me to do the strengthening work that I needed to do without having to go out in practice and bang on it and gave it a lot of time to recover. So it felt pretty good today and I will probably do a little bit more work on it and then have tomorrow off. Hopefully, I will be that much better coming up this week."

*Manning returned to his alma mater, Ole Miss, and saw the Rebels thrash Tennessee, 42-17. Yesterday afternoon, he watched portions of all the NFL games and last night he watched his brother, Peyton, lead Indianapolis to a dramatic comeback victory over New England.

"It was a great game," Manning said. "It was a great game to watch and you never know in this league what can happen. You have to keep fighting and put yourself in a situation where you have a chance to win in the fourth quarter. That's kind of what the Colts did; they kept fighting and found a way to win. It was a fun game to watch."

*It took a while, but the Elias Sports Bureau has made a scoring change from the Giants' game in Kansas City on Oct. 4. With 13:08 left in the game, Larry Johnson was originally credited with a rush for zero yards, but the Chiefs gained 19 yards on a fumble recovery. The new ruling is that Johnson, who is no longer with the team, ran for 19 yards before fumbling. Guard Brian Waters gets zero recovery yards.

Johnson's rushing totals for the game are now 18 carries for 71 yards. Kansas City's team totals are 25 attempts for 124 yards, and the Chiefs' total yardage was 212 yards.

*The Giants will host their 13th annual food drive when they host the Falcons on Sunday. Fans are encouraged to bring canned or non- perishable food to Community FoodBank of New Jersey trucks parked at each entrance to the stadium. All collected food will be donated to the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, a division of America's Second Harvest, who will then distribute it to local food banks in the area.