If, as Jason Pierre-Paul says, Sunday’s clash with the Cowboys is “not a playoff game, it’s like the Super Bowl,’’ then figure the Giants have the advantage. After all, they’ve won two Super Bowls since the 2007 season and have players scattered through their lineup with the championship rings to prove it.
“This is going to be a bloodbath out there,’’ Pierre-Paul said Wednesday, not backing off the violence theme he has been proliferating. “I know they’re going to be ready to play. This is going to be a physical game. I’m sure that I’m going to be ready, and I know my boys are going to be ready to back it up.’’
The Giants have backed it up before. Their core group has been through so many of these big games the past few years. They haven’t won ’em all, of course, but they have a decided experience edge on the Cowboys when it comes to playing in and winning these pressure-cooker games.
“I’m counting on it,’’ coach Tom Coughlin said. “I’m counting on the same fervor that we’ve built up here over the last few weeks, that it just gets better. And that leadership group is in the core of pointing this thing in the right direction.’’
None of them have ever endured a 0-6 start to a season, and the four-game winning streak the Giants take into this game with the Cowboys (5-5) has served as an appetizer for what comes next. Never have these win-or-else games come along so early in a season, and what is usually the norm around Christmas has now been thrust on the Giants a few days before Thanksgiving.
“Personally, I feel like this game is going to determine the outcome of the season,’’ Antrel Rolle said. “I think this is such a huge game, being they’ve already beaten us once. I think this is a game, we can’t walk away with a loss.’’
It is somewhat surprising Rolle could even utter the word “loss,’’ considering he insists he has wiped that possibility from his thoughts.
“There is no room for error whatsoever. My mind is not even factoring in a loss,’’ he said. “I don’t see it. I’m not trying to even picture it, just trying to make sure I keep my eye on the prize.’’
The Giants have a history of earning the prize, something the Cowboys have not done in 17 years, since winning Super Bowl XXX — many Roman numerals ago. Since then, the Cowboys have just two playoff victories. The last time these franchises met in a mega-game is a night the Giants still recall fondly: a 31-14 trouncing of the Cowboys in the 2011 regular-season finale, a game the Giants affectionately call “the NFC East championship game,’’ as they clinched the division that night and went on to win their second Super Bowl in a five-year span.
“Anytime you’ve done something once against a certain opponent you always feel confident about the next time when you play ’em and vice versa, those guys have had success against us as well,’’ Brandon Jacobs said. “But I don’t think in critical moments they have.’’
That’s a pretty significant “but.’’ Not winning the big one is a source of palpable frustration around the Cowboys. The Giants? Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl MVP, says games like the one that arrives on Sunday are “fun’’ and “you get excited for these.’’ Manning has been around this block many times and says, “you shouldn’t get nervous about it.’’
The Cowboys beat the Giants, 36-31, in the season-opener in what should have been a blowout, considering Manning threw three interceptions as part of a six-turnover ball-security atrocity. The stakes are raised for the rematch, and the Giants like what that means.
“It puts us in perfect position because we know how to win these types of games,’’ Terrell Thomas said.
“This group of guys has played in a ton of big games, a ton of games of this magnitude,’’ Victor Cruz said. “I think it definitely helps having that experience and having a bunch of guys that played the Cowboys numerous amount of times and understand what that rivalry is like, be able to tell the other guys about, not have them come in blind to what this game is all about.’’