Giants haven't put pressure on McNabb this year

What needs to be pointed out is that the Giants' defensive line is not the same as a year ago. Seven-time Pro Bowler Michael Strahan retired after last season and Umenyiora was lost for the season when he suffered a major knee injury in a preseason game against the Jets.

Tuck, who moved into one of the starting defensive end positions, has been slowed for more than a month with a lower leg injury.

"He is not 100 percent, but this is the NFL," said fellow defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka, who was moved from linebacker back to defensive end after Umenyiora's injury. "You have 16 games, plus preseason and you are going to have guys who aren't 100 percent. Justin is one of those guys. I'll take him at 50, 60, 70 percent over a lot of guys at 100. We know how tough he is and how much he contributes to this defense even when he is not at his best."

Defensive tackle Fred Robbins is another starter who has struggled down the stretch with a shoulder injury. He missed two of the final five games. He has not had a sack since Oct. 19.

"Our job is to generate pressure and harass the quarterback a little bit and sack him and frustrate him a little bit, and we haven't done that in two games," Robbins said. "It makes it easy on our defensive backs when we get the quarterback rattled. When you don't get to the quarterback, it gives him confidence when he is not rattled and not getting hit a lot. That's the major issue for us. We have to do a better job this time around of putting pressure on McNabb."

McNabb expects Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, a former Philadelphia assistant, to have some new wrinkles for his blitz package this weekend.

"We expect him to bring the heat," McNabb said. "Obviously, coming off a bye week and seeing how we played last week, we expect them to bring the heat. And we will be prepared and go out and try to make some big plays."

The key for the Giants will be to put McNabb and the Eagles in some third and long situations. Philadelphia had a lot of makable third-down chances last month and converted 12 of 18 third-down tries. That allowed the Eagles to control the ball for almost 35 minutes.

"They just out-executed us," Kiwanuka said. "That is the bottom line. It is always going to be a physical game whenever these two teams meet each other, but a lot of what it comes down to is stopping big plays and, like you said, getting off the field, especially on third down. We just didn't do that. They did a lot of good things, you have to give them all the credit in the world, but we understand that we did not play a good game that time."

The defense needs to come up big this weekend if the Giants want a shot at another championship.