​Giants Packers Preview

The Giants will play the Packers in the first round in Lambaue.  It’s the worst draw they could have gotten. The Lions in Detroit would have been ideal and even the Seahawks in Seattle would have been ok as they have not been that good since losing Earl Thomas.  

The Packers are the league’s hottest team and dominated the Giants in their earlier season match up. However the Giants are a different team now than they were then.  Also, if you look at who the Packers have beat on this 6 game winning streak its not a very impressive list.  The one quality win was against a not as good as advertised Seahawk team. Rodgers is a great player and is playing lights out, but they haven’t played a defense this good during the streak the likelihood of continuing to have no interceptions for 7 straight weeks is low.  The rest of the team is ok but nothing special.  The one thing that scares me is what Rodgers can do with his legs.  He can escape pressure and make things happen.  Barring such heroics that Giants could hold their own in Green Bay.  It would be an upset but not a shocker for the Giants to come out of there with a win and head to Dallas to play the Cowboys for a third time this year. 

The game plan will have to involve even a bigger move towards Perkins and away from Jennings.  Its not a coincidence that Perkins finished the season with a very respectable 4.1 yards per carry versus the anemic 3.3 yards per carry that Jennings provided.  Manning will also have to get enough time to throw some deep balls.  His game has clearly slipped, likely the result of age, but he can certainly still get hot and do enough to score the points needed to win with a very good Giant defense. Lastly, now that we are in the playoffs the Giants should use Beckham more as a punt returner.  He had at least 3 excellent run backs that were called back due to penalties.  He showed his potential as a returner.  In the regular season sits likely not worth risking the injury but its lose and go home so now is the time to take the risk. I think the Giants will go in and surprise some people and pull off a 20-19 victory to advance to the second round (but if Jenkins is still injured, I don’t think the Giants can win).

-Ari Glass