It will be a tale of two teams Sunday night when the Chicago Bears (3–0) and New York Giants (1–2) take the field at the New Meadowlands Stadium. The Bears come into the game flying high as the NFC’s only unbeaten team while the Giants are in jeopardy of hitting an early season downward slide.

With a road game next week against the talented Houston Texans, and a brutal second half season schedule, the G-Men can ill afford to fall to 1–3.

Outside of their terrible game in Week 2 against the Colts, the Giants defense has played reasonably well. The offense, however, has been another story.

The Giants are tied for second most turnovers in the league with 10, and even when the offense has clicked, they’ve been prone to hurting themselves with costly penalties.

While the passing game is fair, the Giants’ rushing attack has been severely hampered by a battered offensive line that has no push; New York is getting 115 yards per game on the ground. Against the league’s best run defense, that doesn’t bode well for the G-Men as Chicago’s defense has limited opponents to a minuscule 39.7 rushing yards per game.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning commented on the Bears’ tough “D” on www.giants.com: “They have a very talented defense with playmakers all over the field. It’s always a challenge to run the ball against them.”

It doesn’t get any easier in pass protection as the Bears bring one of the most aggressive defenses in the league led by All-Pro defensive end Julius Peppers. If the Giants are going to have any success protecting the ball, they must give Manning time to throw.

Facing Peppers and the Bears’ fierce pass rush, look for Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride to assign running back Brandon Jacobs the honor of chipping away at Peppers.

Jacobs knows what to expect, saying, “It’s very important because Julius [Peppers] is playing on a high level. He’s a high-level player that’s playing at a very high level right now, and we’ll have to do something about it. We can’t let him come interrupt our game.”

In order to beat Chicago, the Giants offense must control the ball and establish some sort of running game in order to slow down the Bears’ pass rush and keep them off balance.

Forcing Mistakes

When the Giants defense takes the field, the players must find a way to disrupt the rhythm of Chicago’s passing game and contain outstanding running back Matt Forte.

First-year offensive coordinator Mike Martz has Bears QB Jay Cutler playing at the top of his game—Cutler is ranked fifth in the NFL in passing yards (870) and has thrown 6 touchdowns with only 2 interceptions.

But as good as Cutler has been so far, he has a history of throwing interceptions and making mistakes. The Giants could have success on defense if they can force Cutler into some bad decisions and capitalize on them.

Assisting Cutler is Forte, who is a weapon catching passes out of the backfield. When being spread out, he puts the onus on the defense to worry about his pass catching ability and limits the effectiveness of their pass rush.

One player the Giants must account for is Devin Hester, an extremely dangerous receiver and return man—Hester returned a punt for a touchdown against the Packers en route to the Bears’ 20–17 win on Monday night.

When asked about the Giants’ strategy for Hester, head coach Tom Coughlin had few words, saying, “Kick it out of bounds. Don’t let him have the ball.”

Game time is at 8:20 p.m.

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