Thoughts on the Kickoff Classic

Three thoughts from the first game of the new NFL season:

- The Giants have issues with their offensive line. The Giants haven't infused their offensive line with significant draft capital in quite awhile. When you're starting Sean Locklear as your LT, you're in a bit of trouble (granted, it was due to an injury). It showed in their offense. The Giants still struggle to run the football, and Eli faced considerable pressure most of the night. Now I'm not going to try and tell you the Giants are building their team incorrectly, they do have 2 Super Bowl trophies in the last 5 years. But questions along the offensive line usually lead to inconsistent results. Sure, great quarterbacks and receivers can make plays even under constant duress, but they'll make those plays more consistently when given room to breathe by the men up front.

- The offseason cornerback splurge worked out nicely. Dallas struggled to cover anybody by the end of last season, so they went out and signed Brandon Carr to a 5-year, $50.1 million contract with $26.5 million guaranteed. Then they traded up to the 6th pick and used it on LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne, the consensus top CB in the draft. Last night they looked good, disrupting the Giants' offensive rhythm well, and allowing the front 7 to bottle up the running game and pressure Eli Manning. It's one game, but it was miles of improvement over the end of last season.

- Dallas rose to the moment. If you had never heard of American football before, and I sat you down before the game and told you one of these teams you're about to watch is the defending champion and one has struggled living up to expectations over the past 5 years, at the end of the game you would have told me the Cowboys were the defending champions. Not because they won, but because of how each team played on the national stage. The Giants were the ones who went conservative when given a chance to land a haymaker (their playcalling after the interception return to the 1.5 yard line). The Giants were the ones who's star receiver dropped no less than 3 passes. The Giants saw their receivers struggle to get open most of the night. And it was Dallas, who saw their quarterback make a play to seal the game (after he famously failed to make a game-sealing play last year against the Giants). Now, I wouldn't worry about the Giants, they've been part of so many big, pressure-filled moments that one game won't shake their confidence. But Dallas, Dallas showed something tonight. And it's something that one can build a season off of, if they don't get complacent after a big divisional win.