Maybe it was the Redskins. They were pretty woeful offensively most of the game (209 yards for the game) and didn’t exactly pose a daunting threat. Maybe it was the letdown from the pregame hype and an exhale that followed. Maybe it was just the first game of a season in which teams are going regular-season speed for the first time. Maybe it was just the way things are in the NFC East most weeks. Rockfights.

It likely was a little of all of that. But aside from the suffocating job by the Giants defense against the overmatched Redskins, New York's offense had just Brandon Jacobs (21 carries for 116 bruising yards) and Plaxico Burress (10 catches for 133 as Eli Manning fixated on him throughout).

Manning finished the game 19 for 35 for 216 yards and an interception. He ran for the Giants' only touchdown. Aside from the one pick, he threw at least four other woulda-, coulda-, shoulda-been interceptions. Not a bad night. Not a stellar night. Just par for the Eli course.

"I think that we won the game and that is what we set out to do, and (Manning) controlled and managed the game," Coughlin said.

The Giants defense, even without the aforementioned players, played to the level one expects from a Super Bowl champion. The offense? Not nearly. Not against a Redskins team that seems far, far away from the playoff entrant it was in January.

Looking for a silver lining, Washington coach Jim Zorn mustered, "I feel like we learned where we need to improve tonight. If anything is positive out of it, it’s got to be that. If I was trying to look at the cup half-full, that would be it. (But) I don’t know if the cup has any water in it right now for me."

The Giants are fighting a far different war than Washington. Theirs is for validation.

"There’s a lot of people saying that we’re not going to make the playoffs and that we’re going to have a Super Bowl hangover and we’re going out with a chip on our shoulder," Diehl said. "We have something to prove."

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