***SNF IN THE SWAMP - WEEK 1***

***NEW YORK GIANTS @ DALLAS COWBOYS***

Tonight we get to feast on what it feels like has become the traditional Sunday Night Football season opener. The last two seasons, the Gmen and Cowboys faced off and traded 1 pt victories to start the season. Dallas has recently received the news that they will indeed have their prized young RB Ezekiel Elliot suiting up tonight and what is looking like, all season long. That will surely provide a jolt of confidence into this football team. This is important because they are facing a rival whom they were swept by last season and the Giants should once again be no pushover either. However as we know, the Giants can tend to start a bit slow, and they will now be without a young stud of their own in WR Odell Beckham Jr. While this is no doubt a huge hit to the Giant offense, they did pick up veteran WR Brandon Marshall and drafted a new toy in TE Evan Engram who will both surely become adequate pieces to the NY passing game.

The Giants offensive line still remains a big question mark however, so QB Eli Manning will still be under fire this season when dropping back to pass. It will be interesting to see how a Bechkam-less Manning does tonight against a Dallas defense that has gone through quite the makeover. The secondary is almost completely full of new faces and they will have last year's highly regarded 2nd round draft pick making his long awaited debut, LB Jaylon Smith. If not for suffering a huge knee injury in a meaningless college bowl the last game of his season, Smith would have been one of most coveted players in the 2016 draft. After a year of rehabbing his knee, I look forward to watching the former Notre Dame MLB play next to LB Sean Lee. This year's first round draft pick DE Taco Charlton will also be making his debut. Despite the new look Dallas D, I still think Eli will get his, and find his weapons to get points up on the board tonight.

As high as I am on the Giants defense this year (I believe it is possibly the top unit in the league), I feel as though the Boys just have had this one circled on the calendar since the schedule came out and will want it more. I believe that they'll just be slightly more hungry for this game in particular and want to get revenge on the National stage, at home, to start the season. After listening all offseason how the Giants have the formula for stifling the Cowboys offense and the way they were able to bottle up Zeke and shutdown Dez for the most part last year, I just have a feeling that that offensive line and QB Dak are going to make sure that their guys get the rock and get in the endzone tonight. This is a statement game. COWYBOYS-6