OPINION

By Troy Aikman

updated 3:02 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2008

GLENDALE, Ariz. - When the Patriots and Giants played in Week 17, New England did not run the ball well, gaining 44 yards on 26 attempts. In all honesty, trying to replicate that accomplishment Sunday night not be the wisest of moves for the Giants.

Quite simply, if the Patriots aren’t running the ball, they’re passing it — and that’s when they are most dangerous.

In that Dec. 29 game at Giants Stadium, Tom Brady passed for 356 yards and two touchdowns and the Patriots scored 38 points and won by three, completing a perfect regular season. Not counting two possessions that ended in kneel-downs, the Patriots scored on 7-of-9 offensive possessions, punting only twice. Had they made touchdowns instead of field goals early in the game, the game wouldn’t have been that close.

So it’s hard to argue that shutting down the run was a successful tactic for the Giants.

The bottom line is New York is unlikely to win a shootout with New England. The Giants’ offense has looked sharp in recent games, but it just doesn’t have the firepower to match the Patriots score for score. New England simply has too many offensive weapons.

The key for the Giants is to keep it a low-scoring game, and the way to do that is to focus on taking away the big plays. Concede the run if the Giants must, but don’t let Brady, Randy Moss and Wes Welker go crazy.

There is a precedent for this mind-set, and it comes from none other than Patriots coach Bill Belichick. When he was the defensive coordinator for the Giants against Buffalo in Super Bowl 25, Belichick knew his defense had to stop Jim Kelly. Thurman Thomas was a great running back, but Belichick feared what Kelly and his receivers would do if he devoted too many of his defenders to ganging up on Thomas.

Belichick even went so far as to tell his players, “We want Thurman Thomas to run for over 100 yards. I will quit this business if Thurman Thomas runs for over 100 yards and we lose.”

Thomas got his 100 rushing yards -- 135, in fact—and the Giants won by a point. Belichick, of course, lived to coach another day.

Eleven years later, do you think Belichick was worried about the Rams’ running game when his Patriots went in to Super Bowl 36 as big underdogs? He respected Marshall Faulk, just as he respected Thomas, but it was Kurt Warner and “The Greatest Show on Turf” passing attack that concerned Belichick. The Rams scored only 17 points, and the Patriots won their first Super Bowl.

Belichick doesn’t approach every opponent that way. The beauty of Belichick is he can devise 16 different game plans for 16 different teams. The point is that he knew his Giants and Patriots teams had bigger concerns than his opponents’ running games in those two Super Bowls—and now Tom Coughlin’s Giants are looking at a similar situation against Belichick’s Patriots in Super Bowl 42.

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The NFC divisional playoff game against Dallas is a good example of how this can work for the Giants. The Cowboys ran the ball well, with Marion Barber gaining 101 yards by halftime. The Cowboys had a 20-play, 90-yard drive that ate up more than 10 minutes of game clock and put them on top, 14-7.

Great spot to be in, right? Well, not bad. But from the Giants’ perspective, they were down only one score despite Dallas’ supposed first-half dominance. And when the Giants stormed downfield and tied the game just before the half, you had to wonder if the Cowboys might have been better off attacking the Giants more through the air and scoring in bunches. One more touchdown would have done the trick in that 21-17 game.

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It brings us back to Sunday’s game. What should the Giants do?

Above all, the Giants should keep trying to limit big plays, as they’ve done throughout the playoffs. Blanket Moss and Welker. Make sure they have somebody on Donte’ Stallworth at all times. Keep an eye on Benjamin Watson.

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Brady is so good that if he has time, he’ll find a way to get the ball to one of them. But if the Giants’ pass rush is effective—thereby limiting Brady’s time in the pocket to pick apart the secondary—and if the pass defense manages to avoid big plays, the Giants have a decent chance of pulling off the upset.

If it’s the running game the Giants’ are concerned about, though, forget it. We’ve already seen that result.