The best Giant team ever? Don’t put that stamp on Big Blue just yet, but anything seems possible.
If the Giants continue rolling through the NFC East and win a second straight Super Bowl – a big if – you might even get a few members of the 1986 champion Giants to concede this year’s team is the best in franchise history.
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“You are talking about two totally different eras, and what they are achieving right now, it doesn’t take a backseat to any era,” said Carl Banks, who starred at linebacker for the ’86 Giants and now works as a WFAN color commentator and co-hosts Giants GameDay on WNBC-TV.
Nevertheless, there is still too much football left for the Giants to start wondering about their place in history. One of several potential stumbling blocks awaits Sunday at FedEx Field, where the 7-4 Redskins still cling to a microscopic hope of wrestling the NFC East title from the 10-1 Giants.
Even so, the manner in which the Giants have dominated, at times with key players injured, has Fox analyst Darryl Johnston convinced the race is finished.
That was abundantly clear to him while watching the Giants thump the Cardinals in Arizona on Sunday without Brandon Jacobs and mostly without Plaxico Burress.
“The thing to me about the Giants this year is they are the best team,” Johnston said, putting emphasis on the final word. “They don’t have the superstars. Dallas has a bunch of big-name players, the Eagles have a bunch of big-name players. The Giants are so much better than them as a team, and that is what makes them unique.
“The Giants have really separated themselves, and that second seed in the NFC is going to be fun to watch, because nobody has grabbed it. Nobody has grabbed it and ran with it like the Giants have with the first seed.”
Banks credits the Giant front office and coaching staff for creating a system in which players are largely interchangeable. Burress was injured Sunday, but that didn’t stop Steve Smith, Domenik Hixon, Kevin Boss and others from stepping up in his place.
“In most cases if your star player goes down, you hope that somebody can come in and do half the job,” Banks said. “But in this offense, the production stays high, so I think that is a testament to how well they are being coached.”
The Redskins’ NFC East title hopes took a nosedive with successive losses to Pittsburgh and Dallas earlier this month, but Washington has an MVP candidate in running back Clinton Portis, and quarterback Jason Campbell has thrown 10 touchdowns and only three interceptions. The Redskins beat Seattle 20-17 last Sunday.
“If you’re sitting in Washington, you’ve got to say, ‘We’ve got a shot at [the NFC East],’ ” Banks said. “If you’re sitting in New York, you just say, ‘Let’s continue to do what we do and take every opponent seriously.’ ”