The New York Giants have no more time to celebrate Saturday's satisfying and season-saving victory over the New York Jets. The Giants are where they wanted to be, hosting the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night (8:20 p.m. ET/NBC) at MetLife Stadium for the right to go to the playoffs. The winner takes the NFC East title and a playoff berth. The loser begins their off-season.
"It [beating the Jets] was a great feeling but we have to win one more to get to where we want to go,' said Giants safety Kenny Phillips. This is just the beginning and if we don't take care of business next week, this was all for nothing. It was a great win."
Should the Giants lose to Dallas on Sunday night it would mark the third consecutive season in which they missed the playoffs. If they win Sunday, it would mark an excellent achievement for a team that suffered a rash of devastating preseason injuries and free-agent defections, and had lost five of six prior to beating the Jets on Saturday.
"We knew that if we won two that we would be the winner of the NFC East and be in the playoffs so we have two games and now one under our belt. To be honest with you, we need to put this one aside as fast as we can and go to work on Dallas with the same attitude we had last week," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "Basically, I just walked into the team meeting Tuesday and said, ‘if we win two, then we are in. I am not going to focus on last week's game at all, everything that we are going to do is in front of us.'
Dallas quarterback Tony Romo injured his throwing hand Sunday against Philadelphia, but expects to play Sunday against the Giants. The Cowboys look as if they have lost starting left guard Montrae Holland to a torn bicep, however.
For the Giants, it appears they will be without defensive end Osi Umenyiora (ankle) for a fifth straight week.