ESPN.com - NFL - It's time to lay off the Giants

"All year we've been sitting up there, convinced they weren't any good," Harper said. "Any time they played a quote 'good' team, they got beat up. The Redskins, the Titans, the Rams, even the Lions outclassed them badly. Now, I'm not so sure.

"It's unimaginable. You start thinking, 'These guys can't go all the way.' But at this point, anything's possible."

Granted, the Giants are an easy team to bash. Sure, they have a low-impact offense and an exceedingly thin secondary. And yes, the head coach is hopelessly earnest and sincere. The G-Men don't have the weapons that stimulate the imagination like, say, St. Louis and Minnesota. But understand this: After the 11-5 Giants defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday afternoon, they won NFC home-field advantage and a week off for the holidays.


	Michael Strahan is one of the leaders of a defensive unit that is among the best in the NFL.

All things considered, this is more amazing than the rise of the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. Why, then, won't people get off their backs?

A former Redskins quarterback who pontificates for ESPN.com (and shall remain nameless, but his initials are J.T.) said this about the Giants' NFC East-clinching 17-13 victory at Dallas: "The Giants showed enough holes Sunday to make you wonder even more about their chances."

Tom Oates, a columnist for Wisconsin State Journal, is another doubter. One cynical New York scribe (is that redundant?) wondered aloud if the Giants would be the worst team in NFL history to hold the home-field advantage. Nationwide, the Giants get no respect. None.

Enough, already.

General Manager Ernie Accorsi has had it up to here with all the negative vibes.

"I don't know, I don't care," he said earlier this week. "People have to do that to justify their position as experts. It just doesn't matter. The great thing about the NFL is you get what you deserve.

"Sure, it wasn't artistic on Sunday night. Hey, this isn't figure skating. Football isn't a style sport. Style points, that's fine in October. Now, these are dogfights."

I am a professional journalist. Oh, I admit to growing up in a pro-Giants family; I've been watching them on television since I was about four years old. But I can set that aside. Objectively, when I see the Giants, I see a glass that is well over half-full.

Are they as good as the Tennessee Titans or, say, the 1990 Giants? No. Still, there is a lot to like about this team.

Bottom line, they've won 12 games. This, from a team that was 7-9 last year. They have two wins over 10-5 Philadelphia and a rousing win against Washington on Dec. 3 that defined their season -- and their team.

The Giants' defense, when it can protect its fragile secondary, is hellacious. Linemen Michael Strahan and Keith Hamilton, who each have 9½ sacks, have been great. So have linebackers Jessie Armstead (98) tackles and Micheal Barrow (84 tackles).

Numbers, you want numbers? The run defense is No. 2 in the league after Baltimore. Going into Saturday's game against the Jaguards, the Giants had given up 221 points, fewer than any NFC team.

As long as the Giants can get pressure on opposing quarterbacks via the blitz, they can survive. The secondary was revealed in their worst losses - 28-14 at Tennessee and 38-24 to St. Louis. Their worst nightmare (the Rams) probably won't be visiting for the playoffs.

The offense, when quarterback Kerry Collins gets time to throw, is nicely efficient. The offensive line with its three free agent signees Lomas Brown, Glenn Parker and Dusty Zeigler has been the source of strength. Tiki Barber (928 yards) has a chance to clear 1,000 yards and rookie Ron Dayne has progressed. Wideouts Amani Toomer (70 catches, 901 yards) and Ike Hilliard (51 catches, 736 yards) have been serviceable.

	“	Sure, it wasn't artistic on Sunday night. Hey, this isn't figure skating. Football isn't a style sport. Style points, that's fine in October. Now, these are dogfights. ”
		— Ernie Accorsi, General Manager

Collins, at times, has looked like the second coming of Phil Simms. But when the defense closes in and his feet start shuffling, his accuracy suffers and bad things happen. If the Giants beat the Jaguars, they would be looking at two January games at wind-chilled Giants Stadium, which would leave passing difficult.

The wild-card in all of this is head coach Jim Fassel. After the loss to Detroit on Nov. 19, Fassel predicted his team would make the playoffs. They have won five straight games since. In retrospect, it smacks of coaching genius. In truth, it was a low-risk option. With a 32-27-1 record in four seasons, Fassel probably would have been fired if the Giants didn 't make the playoffs.

Was he in trouble?

"I have never talked about his status, and I'm not going to start now," Accorsi said. "John Mara, Wellington [Mara] and Bob Tisch, we had a timetable to discuss it after the season. We didn't advance it just because the media wanted us to. We don't get into that. He's done a great job, and we'll leave it that."

Fassel gets a little testy when the subject comes up.

"It only mattered because these guys backed it up," he said. "I could be standing up here and you guys could just be cutting me up if they didn't. Words came be pretty cheap and hollow sometimes, unless you're willing to back it up."

The image of recent Giants teams that lingers is the players screaming at each other on the sidelines during the 1997 wildcard loss to Minnesota. The defense could never quite forgive the offense for being so limited.

Well, when Barrow made his free agent visit to the Giants during the offseason, he had 16 questions for Accorsi. All of them involved the offense.

"He grilled me," Accorsi said. "He had played with Kerry before, in Carolina, but he wanted to know what our commitment was. Well, we signed those guys on the offensive line and drafted Ron Dayne.

"We've had three all-stars on defense for awhile: Strahan, Armstead and Seehorn. They weren't resentful when we weren't winning -- they were just dying for us to have more firepower. Well, now we have more firepower."

Is it enough to reach Super Bowl XXXV? We'll see. Just cut the Giants a little slack. No one really expected them to get this far.

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

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