Things can certainly change a lot in a couple weeks.
At 1-2, the New York Giants seemed to be in shambles. Now, riding a two-game win streak, they suddenly look like Super Bowl contenders.
The Giants hope to continue their hot streak when they host the Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon. The Lions snapped a 10-game losing streak last week.
New York (3-2) dominated both sides of the ball on the way to 34-10 rout at Houston last week.
Eli Manning and the offense even got in on the fun. The Giants gained 414 yards and controlled the clock for nearly 39 minutes. Hakeem Nicks caught a career-high 12 passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns and nearly scored two more.
Nicks is second in the NFL in receiving touchdowns with six.
Once again the defense, which has vaulted to No. 1 in the NFL, was outstanding.
Perry Fewell’s unit limited Houston’s Arian Foster to just 25 yards on the ground. Foster entered the game leading the NFL in rushing by a wide margin.
A week after recording 10 sacks in a win over the Chicago Bears, the defense limited the NFL’s top rushing team — the Texans had a 172-yard average — to a franchise-low 24 yards.
The Giants have only themselves to blame for their 1-2 start. They turned the ball over way too much and took several undisciplined penalties in losses to Indianapolis and Tennessee.
Since then they’ve dominated.
Ahmad Bradshaw continues to power the running game (449 yards, 3 touchdowns) and previously disgruntled Brandon Jacobs has said that he has accepted his role as a backup. That’s what winning can do.
The Lions (1-4) had been knocking on the door looking for their first win of the season before they kicked it in last Sunday. Detroit, which had lost three times this season by a combined 10 points, hammered St. Louis 44-6.
Detroit forced three turnovers in the game and its defense denied the Rams any points all three times in the red zone.
Calvin Johnson, Brandon Pettigrew and Nate Burleson caught touchdown passes from Shaun Hill, who had his best game since taking over for injured Matt Stafford.
Hill finished with a 117 passing rating by throwing for 227 yards and no interceptions. He has thrown for over 1,200 yards on the season with eight touchdowns.
This figures to be Hill’s last start for a while as Stafford is scheduled to return next week. He will face a tough test against a Giant defense that has 13 sacks in the past two games.
Johnson, who leads the team with 291 yards receiving and has four touchdowns, hopes to play Sunday despite being very limited in practice during the week. The Lions’ top offensive weapon injured his shoulder late in last week’s game.
Detroit rookie Jahvid Best had rushed for 241 yards and leads the team with five touchdowns.