23 - 13, Cardinals.
The Cardinals come out firing on opening day as they did against St Louis last year. The Cards held the Rams to 17 points that day, the only TD coming late in the 4th. I can't see any reason why they can't hold tough against an offense that has yet to establish itself.
The defense will be in Mannings face too often for him to establish a rythm with his targets. Manning has big targets in Shockey and Burress, but both are egmatic and lack consistency. Not only that, the Giants have yet to establish that they can hold up against a pass rush of this quality, as generally Manning has to get the ball out of there too quickly (often only allowing him to make one read) because his line just can't hold up. Kareem MacKenzie will help as he is a very good RT. But he won't help when Pendergast starts to move players around to create mismatches on the D-line.
Tiki Barber is a force, but is going to be far less effective for two reasons. One, because the Cardinals are going to be more stout against the run with the additions of Okeafor, Huff, Rolle, Griffith and just general gap play. The 2nd being Tiki Barber is/was far less effective behind Manning than he was with Warner. This could just be a product of playing better defenses, but Barbers all purpose yds fell once Manning took over, which consiquently made him (Barber) less effective and made the Giants offense more one dimensional and easier to defend.
On offense, the key is obviously the offensive line. Quite frankly, I'm so sick of talking about this that I'm not going to go into it in depth. But from looking at who NY is starting, they won't be getting much of a push up the middle with their DT's. Osi is going to be nuetralised for most of the game against Leonard Davis, but it will intreasting to see what Strahan has left. As I noted in a previous thread, Strahan has had a string of injurys and at age 33/34 I'm wondering if he will be as effective as he once was. I am not questioning for one minute what he has acomplished, but just posing the question here.
I would not underestimate the effectiveness of an improved running game here ether. At the start of last year, the O-line was in just as bad shape, but they did come out with a solid performance against the Rams clearing the way for Emmitt Smith on about 4.0 YPC. To be simple about it: JJ Arrington, Marcel Shipp and James Jackson > Emmitt Smith, Troy Hambrick and Larry Croom. The Giants defense is MUCH better than the Rams, but the Cardinals personnel (sp?) is also improved, so again, an intreasting match up.
The one thing that I also haven't seen brought up is that we have shown vritually nothing on offensive. There was no shifting or motion what so ever during the pre-season. And I'm wondering how the Giants will exactly deal with something like that without any film on it. No question, they have seen it (motion and movement) before, many times. But, most teams don't have the talent at WR and present the matchup problems the Cardinals do. The TE isn't a featured part of this offense, but I wouldn't doubt for a moment the impact of moving Q, Fitz and BJ around to make holes in coverages for a pass catching TE like Adam Bergen to thrive in.
