Giants aren't gonna get trapped by Houston.....

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. –Tom Coughlin’s philosophy is that every game in the NFL is a one-game season. The next game is always the most important game. No game is any more or less significant than any other. Also, it is pointless to dwell on where you’ve already been or to look too far ahead.

Those values came into play this week, as the Giants prepared to entertain the Houston Texans on Sunday. The Giants are 5-2, while Houston is 2-5. The Giants’ 17-3 victory last week over Tampa Bay extended their winning streak to four games. The Texans lost in Tennessee to a Titans team that has just one other victory. The Giants are ranked fourth in the NFL in offense and 14th in defense. Houston is 22nd and 28th.

Although Coughlin and his players haven’t looked ahead, it seems everyone who works outside of Giants Stadium has. And what they see are the Chicago Bears, who will pay the Giants a visit next week, probably with an 8-0 record. That means the first game rescheduled under the NFL’s new flex scheduling guidelines will be a prime time extravaganza between the two teams with the NFC’s best records.

But first the Giants must avoid the trap that has allegedly been set. The theory states that this is a trap game, because the Giants will be looking ahead to the Bears and not concentrating fully on the Texans.

The Giants insist the premise has less credibility than one presented by the Flat Earth Society. And they’ve gone out of their way this week to dispel it. Coach Tom Coughlin got noticeably agitated when he was asked what he would tell his players to prevent them from looking ahead to the Chicago game.

“We don’t think about that at all,” Coughlin said. “This next game is the most important game of our schedule, okay? I don’t even want to entertain questions about that. The next game is the most important game that we’ll play, and that’s against Houston.”

Coughlin then provided evidence to enhance his case that the Texans are a good team. He cited their 776 total yards in their last two games, the 197 yards they allowed the Titans to gain last week and the 27-7 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars two weeks ago.

The data is at once relevant and inconsequential. The Giants aren’t attuned to this game because of the opponent, but instead for the importance it holds for them.

The Giants know they must win to keep pace in the crowded and competitive NFC playoff race. They can’t afford to lose their home games. And they certainly can’t look past any team, even one that is three games under .500 before midseason.

“We’re not overlooking anybody right now,” quarterback Eli Manning said. “We understand that we have to get better. Houston beat Jacksonville two weeks ago. They have some playmakers on their team. They have the ability to do some things on defense. They’re showing you some different looks and stuff, so we have to focus and prepare for their style of defense and go out there and play good football.”

Defensive end Michael Strahan, on the verge of becoming the Giants’ career sack leader, did not care for the phrase, “trap game.”

“No, it’s a football game,” Strahan said. “I think we’ve all been around long enough to understand that no matter who you play (or) when you play them that they can beat you. This is a team that beat Jacksonville and Jacksonville in turn has beaten a lot of good teams and was a playoff team last year. I don’t think you can relax with anybody. I think we’re smart enough and we’ve been around long enough to realize that. That’s one of the differences between this team and maybe some of the teams that we’ve had in the past.”

Long-time Giants like Strahan know they have to be on top of their game to defeat the Texans. On Nov. 24, 2002, the teams met for the first time in Houston’s Reliant Stadium. The Texans won, 16-14, one of just four victories the expansion team celebrated in its inaugural season.

“I don’t see them as trap games,” middle linebacker Antonio Pierce said. “I don’t think you play any game as a trap game. You just don’t have a letdown game. You don’t go out there and expect because a team is 2-5 or whatever its record is that it’s now going to come out and not want to play. They're professional football players and we expect their best.”

“As a team we know we have to prepare every week,” Manning said. “We’ve got to get better. If you don’t show up in this league with your ‘A’ game every week, then you can be embarrassed very quickly. We have to go out Sunday and play flawless football again.”

A corollary to the trap game theory is that this is the week the Giants can finally exhale. Their seven-game starting stretch was the NFL’s most arduous. It included four difficult road games (including one at defending NFC champion Seattle), an opener against still-undefeated Indianapolis and only two home games before the final weekend in October.

Yet the Giants emerged from that gauntlet in first place in the NFC East. Now, the hypothesis goes, they should cruise past the Texans and begin setting their sights on the Bears. But Pierce, among others, turned that theory upside down.

“Everybody is gunning for us,” Pierce said. “Everybody is talking about the Giants now, so we know we’re going to get the best from everybody.

“The toughest part in the NFL is week in and week out being able to go out there and give your best. Any letdown now wouldn’t look good. When you go out and play four solid games like we played where everything’s been going right, everybody is looking for some kind of letdown. The biggest challenge for us is not to have one.”

If they do, that matchup with the Bears that everyone outside the Giants’ locker room is impatiently awaiting will lose much of its luster.

Credit to Michael Eisen of Giants.com