National Football League

Giants remain confident despite loss to Cowboys

Published Nov. 16, 2010 12:29 a.m. ET

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Don't bother calling the New York Giants the best team in the NFC this week.

In seeing their five-game winning streak end Sunday in a 33-20 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Giants looked like the team that collapsed in the second half of last season.

They turned over the ball. They committed penalties. Worst of all, they played without the passion and hunger that had experts proclaiming them the NFC's top team after an impressive win over Seattle the week before.

Heading into Philadelphia for a Sunday night game against the Eagles, there are once again questions about the Giants (6-3).

''We lost a football game,'' defensive end Justin Tuck said. ''We won five in a row and everyone talked about how great we were. We won five in a row and now we lose one, and everyone wants to talk about what went wrong. This is the NFL. Only two teams went undefeated in the regular season, so it's rare. You are going to lose some games. It's all about how you come back from it now.''

Tuck didn't seem worried about another collapse at this point. He intends to remind players about last season's 3-8 record down the stretch. He also said most of the mistakes the defense made were correctable.

Quarterback Eli Manning was upbeat about the Giants' offense, which gained 480 yards and controlled the ball for nearly 38 minutes.

However, the good was offset by several bad plays. The one everyone remembers was the 101-yard interception return for a touchdown by Cowboys rookie cornerback Bryan McCann.

Manning remembered the false start penalty on tackle Will 1/4 a couple of plays before the pick-six when the Giants had a run call on a second-down play from the Dallas 2 that probably would have resulted in a touchdown and a 10-9 lead.

Instead, it was 16-3 a few seconds later.

Manning also pointed out a questionable holding penalty against Kevin Boothe midway through the fourth quarter that nullified a touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks. It would have gotten the Giants within 33-27 with seven minutes to play.

''Dallas hit some big plays and got some breaks and we gave them some breaks,'' Manning said. ''That's how you have to look at it. We have to get ready for Philly and go play.''

Giants coach Tom Coughlin said the bottom line was the Giants just played poorly.

''It was things we hadn't done all season long, so we have to correct that,'' Coughlin said. ''I'm not going to go the route of it was uncharacteristic. You deal with the facts and the facts are that we did not play very well.''

If there was a major disappointment it was the performance of the defense, which came into the game ranked No. 1 in the league. It allowed Jon Kitna to complete 10 passes of 13 yards or more and four of 44 yards or more, including a 71-yard touchdown on a screen pass to halfback Felix Jones.

The defensive line, which knocked out five quarterbacks this season, put very little pressure on Kitna.

Safety Antrel Rolle said watching the videotape was an awful experience, noting the mistakes were obvious.

''The good thing about this is no one is hanging their head down,'' Rolle said. ''We fought all 60 minutes of the game and we understand what went wrong. It will be fixed.''

Rolle said the Giants didn't take Dallas for granted despite its 1-7 record coming into the game. It was just a contest Dallas started fast and never looked back.

''I feel we are as good as we've displayed,'' Rolle said. ''We just didn't play that way last night, that's what it boils down to. We are the team that wins and whups you.''

Calling on his 11 years of NFL experience, safety Deon Grant told teammates to learn from the game and then forget about it. There are still seven games to play and the Giants are 1-1 in the NFC East.

''We have a long season left, so at the end of the day, you have to let that go,'' Grant said. ''The guys that had bad games, made a lot of mental mistakes, and just didn't play the game that they usually play, you just have to let it go and get back to basics. Keep this brotherhood that we have going, keep it together.''

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