NEW YORK (AP) The New England Patriots have a perfect winning record in the NFL. Their next opponents are the New York Giants. Sound familiar?
If there is one team that seems to have figured out how to deal with Tom Brady and company, it’s Tom Coughlin’s G-Men from the Meadowlands.
New York has a 3-1 record against New England under Coughlin, including a couple of rather important victories: the 2008 and 2012 Super Bowls.
In all of their meetings, the Patriots were favored, and the Giants had an inferior record. That’s still the case.
The major caveat: New England has been playing lights-out in building an 8-0 record, while the Giants have struggled to grasp first place in the NFC East.
Coughlin sees no gain from looking at the past meetings in the first game between them since the 2012 Super Bowl.
Brady has struggled against New York’s dynamic pass rush in the past. That pass rush has been dormant for most of this season, though. If Jason Pierre-Paul, back from his long hiatus after losing a finger in a fireworks accident, can’t spark that rush, it could be the decider on Sunday.
While the Giants have scored 84 points in their past two games, their defense is last in the league. Drew Brees of New Orleans embarrassed the unit, throwing for 505 yards and seven touchdowns on Nov. 1.
”We’ve always had very, very close games against them even when we’ve won,” Brady says. ”We just haven’t won as many of them as I would’ve liked to have won.”
The Week 10 divisional visit by the Arizona Cardinals to the Seattle Seahawks could be the most physical game of the season. Both teams are staunch on defense with aggressive schemes, besides being pretty fierce opponents.
An Arizona victory puts it in command of the NFC West, but with a daunting schedule ahead: Seven of the Cardinals’ final eight games are against teams currently at .500 or better. They are equipped for such a challenge on offense now that Chris Johnson has brought some reliability at running back, and Carson Palmer is the top-rated passer in the NFC.
The Seahawks have shown some vulnerability at home for the first time in years, but have matched up well with the Cardinals. Key offseason acquisition tight end Jimmy Graham is coming on, so now the Seahawks need to get Beast Mode, Marshawn Lynch, back into his powerful running style.
Bradley Roby is expecting a lot more action in Denver’s rematch with Kansas City, although it’ll be hard for the second-year cornerback to top what he did when the Broncos beat the Chiefs in September.
Roby’s scoop-and-score of Jamaal Charles’ fumble with 27 seconds left capped a two-touchdown spurt in the final minute and gave the Broncos a stunning 31-24 win.
It propelled Denver to a 7-1 mark at the halfway point, and sent the Chiefs on a five-week freefall they finally halted with back-to-back wins over Pittsburgh and Detroit.
”I’m sure that they’ll try to have some stuff ready for me since I’m starting now and kind of ended the game as the bad guy the first time around,” Roby says.
Denver has won 11 straight regular-season home games, and Peyton Manning is one win away from passing Brett Favre as the quarterback with the most all-time wins. Manning also needs three yards to pass Favre’s mark of 71,838 yards passing.
The week’s action began with coach Rex Ryan’s successful return to the Meadowlands in Buffalo’s 22-17 victory over the New York Jets.
Ryan was fired by the Jets after six seasons, and immediately hired by Buffalo last January. Buffalo’s defense shut down Ryan’s former team for much of the game, and the Bills scored on offense and special teams. The Jets have lost three of their last four games.
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