Last week, the defense stopped the Eagles at the New York 17 after Eli Manning threw his second interception of the fourth quarter in a 28-23 win.

The unit had to pitch a shutout over the Rams in the final three quarters in a 17-10 win in London on Oct. 23.

The streak started with the defense holding in the waning seconds after the Ravens got to the Giants 24 in a 27-23 win.

”We know how good we can be, but we are not there yet,” linebacker Keenan Robinson said. ”We still have a long way to go. We haven’t done anything yet.”

The job for the defense will be tougher Monday night when the Giants (5-3) host the Cincinnati Bengals (3-4-1) at MetLife Stadium. While the Bengals’ defense has struggled this season, their offense is stacked.

Andy Dalton has had a 100-plus quarterback rating in four of his last five games. A.J. Green leads the NFL in receiving with 59 catches, and his 896 yards are No. 2 overall. The running game is averaging 120.3 yards, with Jeremy Hill gaining 5.0 yards a pop. Giovanni Bernard gains roughly 4.0 yards per run and is second on the team with 31 catches.

There’s more, too. Tight end Tyler Eifert returned to the lineup in London on Oct. 30 and had nine catches for 102 yards and a touchdown.

`’Man, they can run the ball or pass the ball,” Giants defensive end Olivier Vernon said Friday. ”They have a good quarterback and they have a good receiver as well. They have good weapons on the offensive side of the ball, so we just have to play our ball.”

If there is one thing that the defense has done well, it is stop the run. New York is ninth in the league, limiting opponents to an average of 93.9 yards. Only three teams have gotten 100 yards on the ground – Green Bay (147), Minnesota (104) and Dallas (101) – and none in the last three games.

”You have to make them as one-dimensional as possible,” linebacker Devon Kennard said. ”We have to go in and stop them on first and second down when it comes to the run game and make them have to throw; put them in third-and-long situations and make it harder on them.”

Stopping the run is going to fall on the Giants’ front seven with tackles Johnathan Hankins and Damon Harrison stuffing the middle, Vernon and fellow end Jason Pierre-Paul holding the edges and funneling the plays back inside.

Safety Landon Collins gives the front seven an extra boost with his ability to come into the box. He leads the team in tackles, sacks and interceptions, picking up three in the last two games.

”He’s a big key part of their defense,” Dalton said of Collins, who has taken major strides in his second season. `He’s all over the place, and you have to know where he is. He’s been playing well for them. For a guy to lead in sacks and interceptions, it shows how great a player he is.”

The defense has also excelled in the red zone. It has allowed only 11 touchdowns in 28 possessions, the best in the league at 39.3 percent.

There are concerns, though. Too many big plays surrendered: The Eagles had seven plays of 20 or more yards last week and probably would have had more points had they not failed on two fourth-down plays in New York territory and had a field goal blocked.

”Sometimes big plays happen,” said Robinson, who has done an excellent job recently covering tight ends. ”We want to make sure we play disciplined, sound football so we limit the big plays. Sometimes they are going to make the great catch or the great throw. If we are giving up big plays because we are not in the right position or made the wrong call, that’s what we have to eliminate.”

Still, this is a major improvement from a year ago when the defense blew leads either in the fourth quarter or overtime in six games.

”I feel good,” said cornerback Janoris Jenkins, the free agent signee who has given New York a shutdown cornerback, one who will probably draw Green on Monday night. ”I have been saying it since the beginning of the year, I think we can be special, and I still feel that. We just have to continue to work.”

NOTES: WR Victor Cruz (ankle) did not practice for the second straight day. He hopes to play. … Coach Ben McAdoo moved the practice into the team’s bubble with winds gusting.

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The Giants have gone from a veteran group that struggled last season to the young and inexperienced corps that features an oft-injured third-year pro, a second-year player without a career start and two draft picks.

”Right now it is a challenge,” Spagnuolo said with the Giants going through a three-day veterans minicamp. ”Challenge is probably the best word. It is a challenge for our patience and our trust in them. Every day it gets better, I can tell you that.”

It’s different than in recent years. Safety Antrel Rolle was always around to hold things together. But he signed with Chicago in the offseason and Stevie Brown and Quintin Demps were not re-signed, leaving the position wide open.

If anyone has the inside track, it would be rookie Landon Collins. The Giants made a trade before the start of the second day of the draft to move up and grab the Alabama product with the first pick. He has worked with the first team during the offseason training activities and he has been the No. 1 defense during the minicamp along with Cooper Taylor, the third-year pro who missed last season with a foot injury. He has four tackles in 10 career games.

Backing them up are Nat Berhe, a second-year pro who is nursing a calf injury, and rookie Mykkele Thompson, a fifth-round draft pick out of Texas.

”A lot of us are young and don’t have much or any experience in the NFL,” said Thompson, whose biggest drawback is keeping his hands on the ball. ”If you play your cards right and do well, the right opportunity could be there.”

Collins has been given the biggest task. He is making the calls from the secondary, something he did at Alabama. Being vocal helps him get his point across but it’s still a learning process.

”We play a lot of the same coverages as at Alabama with three (and) middle four closing,” he said. ”The only thing that changes is the names. It is the names and those landmarks. Guys are very keen to landmarks and being in the right position at this level.”

What is helping now is that the defense is getting a chance to play against the Giants’ offense. Eli Manning and company use a lot of personnel groups in their version of the West Coast offense, forcing the safeties to make adjustments.

”Safety is a very cerebral position,” Taylor said Wednesday. ”You have to know what everybody is doing. It’s not a spot where you say: `This is my job and that’s all I need to know.’ Here you need to know what the guys up front are doing, what the corners are doing, all the shifts and adjustments. Once you know that you know the whole defense and you can play fast.”

The Giants also want their safeties to be interchangeable, play the strong side on one play and switch to free safety the next. In other words, make it difficult for the opposing quarterback.

”It’s always a concern when you don’t have guys with NFL experience, and now you are getting ready to possibly start two inexperienced players,” said Dave Merritt, who coaches the safeties. ”There is always a hiccup in your throat.”

Merritt said the kids on the field have the ability and smarts to succeed. The keys will be to trust each other, hear the calls, know you assignments within the call and then help each other out.

The player missing the most now is Berhe. He played in all 16 games last season and might have been working with the first unit had he not injured his right calf in the offseason workouts.

”I’m glad it happened now than in the season,” he said. ”It’s a muscle. It will heal. I’m taking all the mental reps. I know what I have to do. I’ll be ready for camp.”

It will be interesting to see whether the group is ready for the season, which starts Sept. 13 in Dallas against Tony Romo and the Cowboys.

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The New Orleans Saints said Saturday they had hired the former Dallas Cowboys assistant coach as their new defensive coordinator, hoping he can help overhaul a unit that was historically bad last season.

“We have experience in preparing and playing against his defenses and they’ve always been challenging in terms of the different looks and pressures that they feature,” Saints coach Sean Payton said when Ryan’s hiring was announced Saturday, one day after he interviewed for the job. “We’ve had the chance to visit with each other and talk about our visions for our team and I’m excited about moving forward as we prepare for the 2013 season.”

Veteran NFL coach and former Buffalo Bills assistant Stan Kwan was also added as the Saints’ special teams coach. Kwan has been an NFL assistant 23 years, the past three in Buffalo.

“Stan is a veteran coach that understands all nuances of the special teams game,” Payton said. “He has a wealth of knowledge and I believe he will be a good fit.”

Ryan was fired from the same position with the Cowboys on Jan. 8, soon after owner Jerry Jones said he would make major changes to a team that finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs.

Ryan, after his ouster in Dallas, said,”I’ll be out of work for like five minutes.”

In 2010, Ryan was Cleveland’s defensive coordinator when the Browns beat the Saints in the Superdome 30-17, intercepting passes by Drew Brees four times. One of those interceptions was made by linebacker Scott Fujita, who had been a captain of New Orleans’ defense a season earlier and had helped Ryan prepare and execute the game plan against the Saints.

Just days after returning from his season-long suspension in connection with the NFL’s investigation of the Saints’ cash-for-hits bounty program, Payton fired defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and said he would switch New Orleans’ defensive scheme from a 4-3 alignment (four down linemen, three linebackers) to a 3-4. The Saints yielded 7,042 yards last season, the worst single-season total in NFL history.

Ryan has run 3-4 schemes for years. He worked as a linebacker coach in such defenses in New England, where he was part of two Super Bowl-winning teams. He then spent five seasons as defensive coordinator in Oakland (2004-2008), followed by two seasons in Cleveland before moving to Dallas in 2011.

Now the 50-year-old Ryan takes his fourth defensive coordinator job since 2004 while becoming Payton’s fourth defensive coordinator since 2006.

“I have had the opportunity to get to know Sean Payton and his staff a bit better recently and I am excited about joining the team,” Ryan said in a statement provided by the Saints. “I’m ready to get to work on all facets of the game. This is a great opportunity and we’re getting started right away.”

When Payton took over as head coach in 2006, New Orleans had a 4-3 scheme overseen by Gary Gibbs, who was fired after the 2008 season. In 2009, Payton brought in Gregg Williams, whose hybrid scheme used a 4-3 base alignment but switched to a 3-4 in certain situations, usually on passing downs in order to help disguise which player might be blitzing.

Williams left after the 2011 season, and months later was suspended along with Payton, general manager Mickey Loomis and Saints assistant head coach Joe Vitt by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in connection with the league’s bounty probe.

The NFL said Williams ran the bounty pool and gave him an indefinite suspension. He was reinstated this past week and hired as a top defensive coach by Tennessee.

Williams has long proclaimed himself a disciple of Buddy Ryan, who was the defensive coordinator of the Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears in 1985 and later served as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

Williams often spoke of wanting his defenses to be “nasty” and used mottos like “defenses are respected when they’re feared.”

Now, a little more than a year after letting go of Williams, Payton has brought in the son of Williams’ mentor.

Rob Ryan got his start in the NFL on his father’s Arizona staff in 1994. He later spent three seasons as defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State before returning to the NFL with New England, under Bill Belichick, in 2000.

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