NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

Giants offense vs. Lions defense

This matchup is more even than the special teams matchup where Detroit has a clear advantage. Dave Caldwell writes that the Giants are protecting the ball but still have some work to do.

Dre Bly is one of Detroit's corners. He knows how good Warner can be. We'll need a big game from Warner as no team has had a lot of success running on Detroit. Their front 7 is very good and will create problems for the Giants offensive line.

That's why I'm skeptical when Mike Garafolo writes that their should be opportunities to go deep against a weak Detroit secondary. Kurt Warner simply won't have time to sit in the pocket and wait for deep routes to develop. Still the Giants must find a way to try to stretch the field. It will be a challenge.

The Giants need to do better on third down. A big part of the equation here is avoiding third and long as the Detroit defensive line can really bring some pressure. The Giants also have some trouble on third and short because they haven't found a reliable short yardage running game. Again, Detroit's strong front 7 will make that difficult.

As for the running game in general, Tiki has been awesome, but Detroit is strong against the run. Barber knows he'll have to do something special to pick up yards against the Lions. The Giants probably won't run him at Detroit's middle; Tiki should be able to pick up some yards on the outside.