NEW YORK GIANTS @ SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS 
Vegas Line: Giants + 3.5
Rob’s Line: Giants + 4.5
For a game as big as this between two teams at least hoping to advance to the NFC Championship Game (all roads to the Super Bowl go through Green Bay), I find it particularly easy to side with one team, both from scratch and also on the handicap. I love the 49ers here. Now, being a Seahawk that statement sticks in the craw somewhat, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re dealing in cold, hard facts and placing your hard earned on a winner…hopefully.
Firstly, I have to address the Giants’ running game or perhaps, not unfairly, the lack of one. Leading rusher Ahmad Bradshaw won’t play this week so backup Brandon Jacobs again gets the call. He was good but not great in New England last week (18 carries, 72 yards), but that game was all about Eli Manning out-quarterbacking (if such a word exists) Tom Brady in the Patriots’ own back yard. This week, Jacobs finds himself up against the No. 1 ranked run defense in the league. So, Manning will have to out-perform San Fran’s Alex Smith…only he won’t because Smith isn’t in Manning’s class and the 49ers can turn to running back Frank Gore to shred a Giants run defense that ranks a lowly 24th in the league.
Hakeem Nicks, who missed the win in New England last week, is expected to return at wide receiver and that’s a big boost although Manning did OK without him last Sunday…then again, the Patriots do rank dead last defending the pass.
The win in New England last week surprised me, not least because it’s rare for the Patriots to lose two in a row. Yes, it’s as simple as that. It was an emotional victory especially as it mirrored, in many ways, the outcome of Super Bowl XLII, the last time those two met. And that’s where I bring out the intangibles. A team coming off an emotional victory with no running game to speak of (against the league’s best run D) travelling all the way across the country and holding a two game lead in their division points to me taking the 49ers to cover.
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