Not so long ago the Jacksonville Jaguars were headed nowhere and the New York Giants were being touted as perhaps the best team in the NFC.
Flash forward a month and the streaking Jaguars find themselves in a pleasant but unfamiliar position, while the Giants are wondering if they are headed for another brutal but familiar ending.
The Jaguars seek a fourth straight win and the Giants hope to snap a two-game slide when the teams collide at New Meadowlands Stadium on Sunday.
Jacksonville was left for dead after a humiliating 30-3 loss to Tennessee on Monday Night Football and a 42-20 drubbing by Kansas City the next week before turning it around with wins against Dallas, Houston and Cleveland.
The Jaguars (6-4) now find themselves tied with Indianapolis atop the AFC South – the latest in a season that a Jacksonville squad has been atop its division this late in the season.
New York (6-4) was being mentioned among the league’s elite after winning five straight games by a combined 86 points to improve to 6-2, but after losses to Dallas and Philadelphia, fans and media are beginning to wonder if this might be the same team that started 5-0 last season before totally collapsing.
Right now the Giants are out of the playoff picture, one game behind Philadelphia in the NFC East and a game back of Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Green Bay for the two wild card berths.
Jacksonville thoroughly whipped Dallas 35-17 to start its three-game streak but needed a tipped Hail Mary pass to fall into the arms of Mike Thomas to edge Houston. The Jags overcame six turnovers to beat Cleveland 24-20 last week after Maurice Jones-Drew took a screen pass 75 yards to set up his 1-yard score with 76 seconds left.
The three-game win streak has coincided with the re-emergence of Jones-Drew, who has tied a career high with three straight 100-yard games – 368 rushing yards combined. He had 220 yards from scrimmage against the Browns, and Jacksonville’s defense held Cleveland’s Peyton Hillis to 48 yards on 21 carries and sacked Colt McCoy a season-high six times.
Quarterback David Garrard threw two touchdown passes, but he was picked off three times as the Jags escaped. The 32-year-old is completing 67.8 percent of his passes with 17 touchdowns and 10 picks this season, and the nine-year veteran has excelled on the road with a passer rating of 111.4. He has been exceptional in the fourth quarter with a 129.3 passer rating.
But the Jaguars are a minus-11 in turnover-takeaway margin for the season after last week’s minus-5, but they’ll be matching up with another turnover-prone club Sunday.
The Giants turned the ball over five times – including three picks and a fumble by quarterback Eli Manning – in last week’s 27-17 loss in a critical NFC East first-place showdown against Philadelphia.
With a turnover-takeaway margin of minus-8, head coach Tom Coughlin, who spent 1995-2002 as coach of the Jaguars, addressed the situation this week. The Jags’ all-time winningest coach re-inserted Brandon Jacobs back into the starting running back spot in place of Ahmad Bradshaw, who is second the NFC with 867 yards but has lost five fumbles this season.
But replacing Bradshaw won’t make any difference unless Manning cuts down on his turnovers.
Manning threw two touchdowns last week to become the seventh quarterback in history to post six straight 20-touchdown seasons, but he’s thrown five picks in the last two losses and has 16 for the season – just eight fewer than he had in the last two seasons combined and one fewer than Brett Favre for the most in the NFL this season. Manning has also fumbled seven times.
The teams have split four games in their history but haven’t played since 2006, when the Giants won 24-17.