New York Giants (1-0) at Dallas Cowboys (1-0)
Even though the New York Giants have clearly been a superior team to the Dallas Cowboys the past few seasons, the Cowboys have beaten the G-men four of the past five meetings, including 20-8 in Week 15 last season, heading into this week’s matchup.
The Cowboys are 3-point favorites on WagerWeb.com for Sunday night’s game, the first NFL regular-season game at the new $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium.
Both teams enter off pretty impressive wins. Dallas’ offense, behind QB Tony Romo’s 353 yards passing and three touchdowns, put up 34 points on a solid Tampa Bay defense. It was Romo’s 17th career regular-season contest with at least 300 yards through the air, and Dallas is now 14-3 in those games. However, the Cowboy defense allowed 450 yards to a very mediocre Bucs offense, including three straight Tampa Bay drives of 11 plays. The yardage total was Dallas’ highest allowed in a victory in 52 games.
The Giants’ defense was excellent in last week’s 23-17 win over the Redskins. It held the Redskins to 272 yards and forced two turnovers and got three sacks. It’s clear the return of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, sidelined last season by a knee injury, has this unit back at a Super Bowl-caliber level as it was in 2007; Umenyiora returned a fumble that he caused for a TD last week. The one concern in the opener was the two turnovers by the New York offense after setting an NFL record with just 13 all last season (the Dolphins also had 13 last year). The G-men are 12-12 since the beginning of 2006 when they have at least two turnovers in a game. The Giant running game also was average in Week 1.
Look for New York to double-team Dallas pass-rush stud DeMarcus Ware, who has at least one sack in the past four meetings with New York. In that Week 15 game last year, Ware had three of the Cowboys’ eight sacks of Eli Manning (the Cowboys didn’t have a sack last week and were the only NFL team that went sackless to get a victory). The Giants’ QB had two interceptions last week, and he better not throw one to Dallas’ Terence Newman on Sunday, as the Cowboys have won seven in a row when Newman has a pick.
Dallas is 17-4 against the Giants in games played in September and 34-14-1 in home openers all time, the best mark in the NFL.
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