The slumping New York Giants (6-5) welcome the red-hot Green Bay Packers (11-0) this Sunday in what head coach Tom Coughlin mildly termed a “challenge.”
After facing the league’s third-ranked passing offense (in terms of quarterback) Monday night and surrendering 577 total yards in the 49-24 loss, the Giants now face the top-ranked passing team, led by Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers.
The rankings aren’t lost on Coughlin, but he’s not spending time dwelling on them either. “You can read all the 1’s and 2’s (in the statistical rankings) and what have you, but the fact of the matter is that three times on the road they had close football games. That is what we have to cling to,” the head coach said on the team’s website.
Another bit they can cling to is the franchise’s precedent with ending undefeated seasons.
In 2008 Coughlin’s Giants famously dashed New England’s dreams of a perfect season with their shocking 17–14 Super Bowl XLII win—led in part by Amani Toomer’s team-high 84 receiving yards.
Ten years earlier Jim Fassel’s 5-8 G-Men ended Denver’s 13-0 start with a 20-16 win on the strength of a 37-yard fourth-quarter touchdown catch by Toomer.
Coughlin didn’t see much in common with the Super Bowl upset four years ago when asked about it Wednesday. “No, only the fact that it is an undefeated team. It is a different circumstance when we played but it is the challenge of playing a team that is obviously a very good football team.”
The Giants were once looking like a very good team themselves, sitting at 6-2 the first week of November. Since then, they have hit a three-game skid and are currently second in the NFC East. Whether they can regain that magic in time to knock off another undefeated remains to be seen—as they'll be without Toomer this time around.
