Giants vs. Eagles

New York -4 vs. Philadelphia

The New York Giants have to be frightened with this Sunday’s matchup with their division-rival Philadelphia Eagles. After all, no one knows you better than a team you face twice per year, but the Giants fright may be in the fact that the Eagles are looking eerily like the 2007 edition of the New York Giants.

The Giants foundered their way through the regular season a year ago and entered the playoffs as a wild-card team. In the divisional round, they face a Dallas Cowboys team that won the NFC East and dominated the league until the last quarter of the year. The Giants who rode a hot streak into postseason play surprisingly dominated the Cowboys and earned a berth in the NFC championship game, which would, of course, later result in a Super Bowl title over the heavily-favored New England Patriots.

The Eagles (10-6-1) have the same record the Giants had a year ago and are in the same fifth seeding which New York resided in. Philadelphia had to be red hot in the final month of the season following a season of ups and downs.

New York (12-4) rested last week after losing three of its final four regular season games. Meanwhile Philadelphia was able to handle the NFC North champion Minnesota Vikings, on the road, 26-14.

The Eagles won four of their last five games to get into the postseason. They seemed to respond after two weeks of negative attention was shown to Philadelphia and their quarterback Donovan McNabb. The veteran was criticized for not understanding the tie rule in the NFL after the Eagles and Bengals played to a Week 10 draw. The following week, the team was thrashed by Baltimore, which resulted in the benching of McNabb.

McNabb responded and so did the Eagles. Philadelphia was able to give New York their only home loss of the season on December 7th, 20-14. McNabb passed for 191 yards and was helped by running back Brian Westbrook’s 131 yards rushing and 72 yards receiving, including a 40-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.

That same week was the same week that may have turned the Giants season around for the negative. Plaxico Burress and Antonio Pierce were involved in a nightclub incident that left Burress with an accidental shotgun wound to his leg. Burress was dismissed from the team and the Giants offense has suffered since.

The offense also struggled in the second half because starting running back Brandon Jacobs was in and out of the lineup due to various injuries. He was forced out at halftime in the December game against Philadelphia but ran for 126 yards and two scores when the Giants dropped the Eagles in Philadelphia 36-31 on November 9th.

Despite the most recent nod going to Philly, New York has won six of the last nine meetings. This will be the fourth time that the rivals have met up in the postseason, with the Philadelphia Eagles winning the last matchup, 23-20 in a January 7, 2007 wild-card contest.

InSpin.com

Red Wings vs. Stars

Detroit -260 vs. Dallas

The second rematch of the season of last spring’s Western Conference Final will take place in Joe Louis Arena Thursday night as the Detroit Red Wings look to avenge a loss earlier this season to the Dallas Stars.

The rematch is not what is seemed in May. While the Red Wings (27-7-5) are on their usual winning clip, the Stars (17-16-5) have sunk to the bottom of their division. The two rivals sit separated by twenty points in the conference standings.

Detroit is on pace for 124 points but have been winning games in much different ways than it was a year ago and in the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring. A year ago, the Wings have up the league’s fewest goals, at 2.82 per game. But injuries and lackluster play from Chris Osgood has helped balloon that mark and pushed Detroit to the middle of the pack in GAA.

The bright spot in net for the Red Wings has been backup Ty Conklin who has gone 6-1-1 with a 1.86 GAA since December 18th. Conklin became the answer to the future trivia question of being a starting goalie in each of the first three regular-season outdoor hockey games. After beating Chicago 6-4 on New Years Day, the goaltender improved his record to 2-1 outdoors.

Currently the Stars are only one point above last place Los Angeles in the Pacific Division, but a big victory over a good team can turn around their season quite quickly. Despite their troubles this year, Dallas is only four points out of the eighth and final playoff spot.

They have played well of late, going 6-2-1 in their last nine contests, including a shootout victory in Vancouver in their last game Sunday night.

Marty Turco is quite familiar to Joe Louis Arena. He played college hockey just up the road in Ann Arbor for the University of Michigan and regularly took part in CCHA games in Detroit’s hockey venue. Turco has not fared well at Joe Louis Arena since becoming a pro, winning only once, in Game 5 of the conference final. Overall Turco has posted a 3-10-0 record and a 2.78 GAA in his career against Detroit, including a 3-1 home victory on December 12th.

Detroit won the first three games of the Western Conference Final last spring before taking the series in six. The Red Wings took three of the four regular season matchups last year.

InSpin.com

Titans vs. Lions

Tennessee -11 vs. Detroit

In one of the bigger mismatches of the NFL season, the Titans (10-1) will travel to Ford Field to take part in the annual early Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit. Perhaps a bit of embarrassment for this matchup has gone away for the Lions (0-11). Certainly the media would be billing it as the battle of the unbeaten and winless. However for Detroit, who has let a pair of 10-0 and a 17-0 leads evaporate over the last two weeks, there is plenty of embarrassment to go around.

The chances of the Tennessee Titans becoming the third modern team to go undefeated in the regular season were long, and for two teams to do it in back-to-back years, astronomical, so they were bound to lose. Being perfect, Tennessee was clearly the hottest team in the NFL. But the second hottest team, with all apologies to the New York Giants, were the New York Jets. The Jets staked their claim to the hottest team, at least in the AFC with their 34-13 road victory over the Titans this past Sunday.

Tennessee’s offense seemed out of synch throughout the game. Kerry Collins was 21 for 39 for 243 yards and a touchdown, but the running game did not help the veteran. Chris Johnson had only 46 yards on the ground and Lindale White only received one carry for minus one yard. The Titans won 10 games in a row as a team and this was the case with their first loss. The defense surrendered 409 yards and allowed Thomas Jones and Leon Washington to gain 178 yards with Washington scoring twice.

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and the Titans can truly be thankful that Detroit is their next opponent and if they do what is expected, they will be 11-1 with 10 days to rest until their next game against Cleveland December 7. Tennessee will undoubtedly be able to get its offense on track against the Lions who are susceptible to big plays. Detroit fell to Tampa Bay at home 38-20 despite building a first quarter 17-0 lead. This was only one week after Carolina spotted them 10 points only to storm back and win 31-22. This has been the story of the season for the Lions, who have held leads in seven of their games this season.

Daunte Culpepper continues to struggle as he learns the offense. The veteran who came out of retirement prior to Week 10 has looked decent in certain drives, but has continually made key mistakes. Culpepper has completed just over 50 percent of his passes for 432 yards with two touchdowns and five interceptions in three games. Against the Buccaneers, Culpepper threw for 121 yards with a touchdown, but two costly interceptions, one which was returned for a touchdown and caused him to be benched in favor of Drew Stanton. Although with Stanton suffering a concussion late in the game, it appears certain Culpepper will start Thursday.

Detroit has never beaten Tennessee in two games since the team relocated from Houston. They last beat the franchise in 1995 at the Astrodome.

InSpin.com

Spurs vs. Heat

San Antonio -6 1/2 vs Miami

Any sort of improvement will be seen as a step in the right direction for the Miami Heat after last year’s debacle. Only two seasons after claiming their only NBA championship, the Heat had fallen to the bottom of the NBA standings while Dwyne Wade was injured and Shaquille O’Neal was shipped to Phoenix. Now the rebuilding Heat have gotten out to a respectable 2-2 start and have a very good chance within perhaps the worst division in basketball. A stellar defense has helped propel the Heat to respectability. They lead the league in steals and forcing turnovers and have held their two opponents in American Airlines Arena to 39 percent shooting.

The Heat had improved to 2-0 at home with a victory in South Beach over Philadelphia 106-83 Wednesday night. Miami had the distinct edge in fast-break points at 21-8 and scored 32 points off of 76er turnovers. Friday they will take to the road in search of their first victory away from Miami and a victory in San Antonio for the first time in 12 years and where they have gone 1-20 all-time.

Meanwhile the Spurs (1-3) have gotten off to an uncharacteristic slow start. And like the Heat last year, the Spurs are now in the midst of their second season following their most recent champion. San Antonio hopes their season will not collapse onto itself like Miami’s 2007-2008 Season.

The San Antonio Spurs will be prepared for the Heat who take advantage of their opponents mistakes, leading the league with 22 turnovers a game. San Antonio commits a league-low 10 turnovers per contest. But still with this distinction the Spurs were a few shots away from being 0-4.

Wednesday night they edged the Timberwolves on the road in double-overtime 129-125. Tony Parker easily surpassed his career high in points, by going 22 of 36 from the field and netting 55 points, collecting seven rebounds and recording 10 assists. In fact Parker’s desperate 25-footer in the first overtime period sent the game to a second extra period.

InSpin.com