Giants Performing at a High Level

Giants Performing at a High Level

All the faces remain the same. The names and numbers likewise exist unchanged.

But in watching the New York Giants defense perform these days as opposed to the unit that opened the season, one is left with one overriding perception: Are these guys somehow experiencing some sort of out of body experience? How else can the look and persona of one go virtually unscathed, yet the resolve and mindset become something altogether different?

Keen and astute observation? Perhaps, but if it's all the same, Tom Coughlin will simply chose to count his blessings. And where his vastly evolving team is concerned, that all starts with the defense, a unit that over the first two games allowed a staggering 80 point but has rebounded to yield only an equally eye-popping 53 over the last five.

That, not so coincidentally, is also representative of five consecutive victories for the Giants, who now find themselves safely supplanted just a game behind the NFC East division leading Dallas Cowboys with the second of their face-to-face showdowns looming just three weeks away.

If Sunday, when the G-Men smashed the San Francisco 49ers 33-15 behind a sack-happy defense that added six more to its league-leading total of 27, was any indication than Jersey stands well prepared for that showdown.

Veterans Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora have ignited a unit that now seems to strike fear in opposing quarterbacks well before even the first snap. At least Strahan is convinced of as much.

"I think when you've done what we've done the last four or five games and start having pressure like that, before the game the quarterback is thinking about the rush," Strahan told NFL.com., after his 2½ sacks gainst the Niners gave him the most he's had in a single game since 2003.

And then there's Umenyiora, whose spectacular takedown, forced fumble, recovery and touchdown run back following a sack of Trent Dilfer gave him a co-league leading eight on the year and, once and for all, changed the tide against the Niners.

He made it look simple,” Coughlin said of Umenyiora, though he could have been speaking of his entire defensive unit. “I like this team in terms of their approach," he added. "There is real good support on the part of these guys for one another and that is what we are striving for and have always been."

And yet, these Giants appear to be so much more. Almost, you could say, like a unit that's been somehow possessed.

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