Well, I’m back. I was out of commission this past week, battling a particularly ornery case of the swine flu. Apparently, the Giants are back too. Yes that’s right, that football team from New York that’s been locked in a nosedive since early October (no, not that New York football team) wants to play with the big boys again.

Yesterday, the Giants improved to 3-1 in the NFC East with a somewhat-convincing 31-24 win over the hated Dallas Cowboys. With the win, the Giants captured their first season sweep of the Cowboys since 2004 and most importantly, capture a little bit of the momentum that has eluded them as of late. The win pushes the 7-5 Giants to within one game of the division lead, behind the Cowboys and Eagles, both 8-4.

Looking at the box score from yesterday’s game, you would most likely find it hard to believe that the Giants won the game rather decisively. But as we all know, in football more than any other sport, who wins and who loses goes far beyond what you read in the stat sheet. After all, the Giants were topped in every single statistical category except for rushing yards yesterday (they outgained Dallas 100-45 on the ground). The 31-24 final score doesn’t even tell the entire story; with less than 5 minutes to go in the game, the Giants held a 31-17 lead. The Cowboys cut the lead to 7 with under a minute to play when Romo connected with Miles Austin for a touchdown. The Cowboys soundly beat the Giants in the time of possession battle, holding the ball for more than 38 minutes, to the Giants’ 21:10. They also managed to top us in total yards (424-337), first downs (27-15), total plays (80-49), and they turned the ball over fewer times.

So how did the Giants do it yesterday? Magic. Mostly smoke and mirrors, actually. You see, they were able to suspend an entire second team, just slightly above field level, while keeping them completely invisible to the naked eye– I’m just kidding. The Giants got help yesterday from a little something I like to call The Big Play. We haven’t seen too much of The Big Play this season, mostly because Plaxico Burress and Tiki Barber were our two biggest Big Play contributors in the past, and neither wear blue anymore. And Ahmad Bradshaw, who can typically be counted on to break a Big Play every now and then, is playing on not one, but two sprained ankles. In case you’re keeping score at home, he doesn’t have any more ankles to sprain. He has sprained just about every ankle he has. That’s two. In fact, the Giants number one Big Play guy so far this season has been the rookie Hakeem Nicks. The first touchdown of his NFL career was a nifty 54-yard catch and run against Kansas City and his highlight reel 62 yard touchdown catch against Arizona were two of the biggest Big Plays the Giants have seen all year. Until yesterday.

Yesterday the Giants used The Big Play, and they used it well. I mean, how else do you score 31 points when your starting quarterback completes only 11 passes the entire game (11/25, 241 yards, 2 TD)? That’s right, The Big Play. One of these big plays came late in the third quarter, immediately after the Cowboys had just recaptured the lead at 17-14 on Romo’s second touchdown pass of the game to one of their Roy Williamses. The one that catches passes (or doesn’t, if you’re going by his stats from the last two years). Anyway, on the Giants’ first play following that touchdown, Manning swung the ball out into the flat for Brandon Jacobs, who proceeded to make a few defenders miss and then tight-roped his way down the near-sideline for 74 yards and a Giants touchdown. I was going to follow that with an analogy about the last time I saw Brandon Jacobs run that fast, until I realized that I have never seen Brandon Jacobs run that fast. Ever. All of a sudden, it was 21-17 Giants, the momentum was priority-shipped right back to us in a nice neat package, and we would never relinquish it.

After a 25-yard pass to Steve Smith (6 rec., 110 yards) and a 29-yard scamper by Bradshaw set up another Tynes field goal to extend the Giants’ lead to 24-17, the rejuvenated Big Blue defense forced Dallas to punt and the Big Play that came next, would serve as the proverbial nail in the coffin. Domenik Hixon returned Mat McBriar’s punt 79 yards for the touchdown, electrifying the Giants Stadium crowd and most importantly, letting Giants fans breathe a little bit easier on the way to victory. The punt return was the Giants’ first since Chad Morton brought one back against Arizona in the 2005 season opener and it was Hixon’s first return touchdown since he brought back a kick-off against New England in the 2007 finale.

Team/Player Photos: New York Giants Team / Player Photos on Jul 23, 2010

As for the defense…they still allowed a ton of yards. Although they succeeded in shutting down the run game and neutralizing Dallas’ three-headed monster of Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice (they allowed 251 yards rushing at Dallas in Week 2), the pass defense still left a lot to be desired. Tony Romo completed 41 of 55 passes for 392 yards with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. Jason Witten had a field day, and continued the pattern of tight ends absolutely torching the Giants secondary. His 14 catches for 156 yards were both career highs and I swear that if he converted one more 3rd and 16 with a sliding catch over the middle I was going to chug Windex and light myself on fire. The changes that the coaching staff made to the defense yesterday, starting Kiwanuka over Umenyiora, Chris Canty over Fred Robbins and Johnathan Goff over Chase Blackburn at middle linebacker, seemed to spark the defense where it mattered; Umenyiora ended up recovering a huge Marion Barber fumble at the end of the first half and returned it deep into Dallas territory which led to Brandon Jacobs’ one-yard touchdown run and the Giants 14-10 halftime lead. However, the same weaknesses that we’ve been seeing all season were still exposed yesterday, namely the middle of the field, where Romo picked apart the Giants linebackers by hitting Witten and Austin over and over again on slant routes.

The big difference though, was that the Giants defense stepped up and made stops when they had to, and because of that, Big Blue lives to fight another week. Not only is a win over the Cowboys important in the race for the NFC East, but it’s always sweeter to beat the hated division rivals, not once but twice in one season. Their schedule gets tough over the next few weeks (San Diego and New Orleans) which means that the Giants need to take advantage of this door that has suddenly been re-opened for them. A win at home next week against Philly and the week after that in Washington could put the Giants back in first place. As we all know however, winning in the NFC East is always easier said than done.