Will Big Blue Fool Us Again?

While they are far from the biggest surprise in the league, don't try to tell me you had the New York Giants in first place at 6-2 by the season's halfway mark.

Before the season started, there was much turmoil as tight end Kevin Boss defected to a certain silver and black eye patch organization and slot receiver Steve Smith departed for the bitter rivals in Philly barely a hundred miles away. The attempt to lure back jailed star receiver Plaxico Burress fell flat when quarterback Eli Manning made it clear he wasn't exactly about to massage the big fellow's gunshot wound or his ego. As all this was happening the divisional rival Eagles were winning the Nnamdi Asomugha sweepstakes and building the alleged Dream Team, creating a sense of preseason hopelessness for Big Blue.

All that was before Jake Ballard and Victor Cruz happened.

These two rookie pass-catchers have strikingly similar stories. It becomes difficult to determine Smith and Boss's value over replacement players when these were the two replacement players brought in. Ballard was expected to be merely a blocking tight end with hands like frying pans. Instead, he went and made every big catch you would normally expect of Boss and then some. Cruz, while unpolished, has shocked many with freakish athletic ability and several eye-popping deep catches mixed in with a few rookie blunders.

Instead of falling off as expected, this Giants team hasn't missed a beat. 6-2, right on schedule with the perennial first half success they always experience.

Now hold your breath, Giants fans ... it's about that time of year.

The torment machine that perpetuates this year's second half collapse has been noticed by many observers since the season started. Notable in this case is the fact that few believed the Giants would be good enough by this point for any string of losses to be considered a collapse.

This machine I speak of was meant to subject the Giants to a number of cruel and unnecessarily brutal elements in succession. Surprisingly, the first one, the New England cold weather and surgically precise projectiles from one Tom Brady, proved strangely ineffective. Impressive a feat as that was for Big Blue to turn their Patriot games into one Super Bowl XLII sized re-enactment, last Sunday was merely the opening act.

You may take the 49ers seriously, or you may not. Alex Smith is not a name that strikes fear into defenses, especially one with the brute force of the Giants defensive line, but the team is not 7-1 by accident. Their only loss was an overtime thriller. And yet a man named Frank Gore is fully prepared to create some blood-red gashes in the Giants D. Did I mention Big Blue is 25th in the league in stopping the run?

Following San Fran, they face the Eagles. Hey, who knew Philly could possibly be considered a breather on the Giants' schedule? There's a reason for that. Even as the Bad Dream Team, they're probably not. Divisional rivals, plenty of bad blood, we can assume nothing here.

Then it's the Saints and Drew Brees, then it's the unbeaten Pack and Aaron Rodgers. Don't cringe too much, kids, your neck might lock up that way.

The home stretch then features schizophrenic Dallas twice (a team in a very similar category as Philly), the Redskins (a seemingly weak team that has beaten the Giants), and the Jets (watch out for Plaxico Burress in a potential revenge game).

After so many second-half collapses by the Giants over the past several years, the NFL schedule makers seemed to decide they would have one built in this year. And yet while the Giants have clearly played down to their competition as losses against Washington, Seattle and a mere 3-point win over winless Miami showed, they have also risen to the occasion against the better teams, with thrilling wins over the Bills and Patriots and a comfortable victory over rival Philly in Week 3.

So is it possible that this Giants team can do the unthinkable and play up to that high level week after week without the floorboards giving way underneath them this time? The answer may lie in that New England game.

Last Sunday's thriller was so potent that even former Giant Michael Strahan jumped out of his seat in the FOX studio and did his "Stomping Out" dance to the Pats one more time.

Eli Manning rose to a heavy challenge against an angry Pats team that never loses at home, already coming off a loss. Their top receiver was out and so was their top running back. They gave up a demoralizing go-ahead touchdown with only 90 seconds left in the game and still went down the field and made Tom Brady say, "not again!"

After a win like that and a 6-2 record, how can they not be considered elite? Now a win in San Fran and they could be on the short track to a No. 2 seed. Beat the Pack in a few weeks and they'd have the tiebreaker for the top seed. Who knows...

Then again, most Giant fans would be happy just to see them sneak into the playoffs as a wild card. Some good things followed the last time they did that.