The New York Giants travel to Texas this Sunday to face the Dallas Cowboys (8:20 p.m. ET/NBC) in a game the 6-6 Giants have to win to maintain a realistic chance to make the NFL playoffs. The 7-5 Cowboys lead the NFC East by one game over the Giants. The two teams will meet not only Sunday, but also on Jan. 1, the final Sunday of the regular season, and that game could determine which team makes the playoffs.
The Giants were once 6-2 with the division lead, but have lost four consecutive games, including Sunday's 38-35 last-second heart-breaker against the unbeaten Green Bay Packers. The Cowboys lost to the Arizona Cardinals in overtime Sunday, 19-13, but had won four straight games prior to that.
In reality, the fan bases of both teams are wondering their teams are playoff caliber.
"I think our goals are still in hand. Everything that we wanted to achieve at the very beginning of the season, having played 12 weeks, they're still there," said Giants coach Tom Coughlin. "This is obviously a big game in the division, in Dallas, for first place in the division."
SB Nation's Blogging The Boys referred to the Cowboys as a "schizohrenic" team while polling its readers to find out if Cowboys fans believed Dallas is a playoff-caliber outfit.
The Cowboys are four-point favorites as the week begins. You can see all the point spreads for NFL games at SB Nation's NFL Odds Page powered by Odds Shark.
-- See Big Blue View for more about the Giants. See Blogging The Boys and SB Nation Dallas for coverage of the Cowboys