New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys to battle in the season opener – NFL News
The National Football League (NFL) announced on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, that the defending Super Bowl champions, New York Giants, will host their division rivals, Dallas Cowboys, in the next season’s opening game on Wednesday, September 5, 2012, at MetLife
Stadium.
It will be the first time in more than 60 years that an NFL game will take place on Wednesday.
Giants and Cowboys belong to the National Football Conference (NFC) East Division and are each other’s rivals.
Many observers are considering this matchup as an opportunity for Cowboys to take revenge for the defeats they face against Giants during the last NFL season.
Giants did not start the last season well and Cowboys maintained supremacy in the division for a long time and became one of the playoff contenders from the division.
However, Giants’ late surge in the season completely startled everyone. They won three out of their last four games and topped the division to qualify for the playoffs.
Out of the three victories, two came against the Cowboys, who were not able to play in the postseason.
In the first game against Cowboys, Giants won by a three-point margin after scoring two touchdowns during the final five minutes of the regulation.
The next encounter, which was the season finale, was almost one-sided as Giants maintained their grip over the game right from the start and won it by a 17-point margin.
Giants’ owner, John Mara, seems excited about the matchup. He said:
"Who cares who we are playing; hosting the game is all that's important. It's exciting. They're one of our big rivals. We had two great games last year. The fans will be jacked up for it."
On the other hand, Giants’ owner, Jerry Jones, thinks that his players could use this game as a motivation and prepare hard to beat the Giants.
He said:
"We can use this, being on this stage, in the preparation of our offseason, as well as certainly preseason.”
Jones also said that he was with Cowboys’ head coach, Jason Garrett, when the league told them about the fixture. He further said:
“We both got chills, saying, 'Man, we can use this to help inspire to work hard, because our guys are going to have to be ready to play the Giants on that stage.' It'll inspire us."
Giants and Cowboys have played 100 games (one in playoffs) against each other. Out of them, 42 were won by Giants and 56 by Cowboys whereas two games were tied.
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