IRVING, Texas – In terms of perspective on this division clash, no one did a better job than Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones this week.
The Giants are limping into AT&T Stadium, both literally and figuratively, after being shutout in their last outing this season. They'll be without their starting running back and their top receiver, and both their offensive line and secondary are in disarray.
Jones didn't want to hear any of that on Thursday, and he tossed out a bit of personal history – going all the way back to 1989 -- to prove his point.
"Any time you play an NFC East team, you can throw out any records," Jones said. "Someone was talking to me the other day about the '89 team – the only game we won was against a really good Washington Redskin team, and we were 1-15."
That was the Cowboys' first season under the ownership of Jerry Jones, and those Cowboys were 0-8 when they went to Washington D.C. and won, 13-3. The Cowboys wouldn't win again, while the Redskins finished with a 10-6 mark.
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"Any time you go against the East – there's not a question in my mind that Eli and the Giants and Coach Coughlin will have them ready to play," Stephen Jones said. "If we don't come ready to play, we'll get beat. If we come ready to play, it'll be a hell of a game."
Recent history would indicate that his attitude is correct. Eight of the last 10 meetings between the Cowboys and Giants have been decided by a touchdown or less. Of the five games the two have played at AT&T Stadium, they've all been decided by six points or fewer – and the Giants have won four of them.
Eli Manning famously signed a wall in the stadium's visiting locker room after the Giants defeated Dallas, 33-31, in the first game in the building.
"I've got to go find that just to remind me of what a player he can be," Jerry Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan. "I have, unfortunately, written his dad every time that he's had a great game against us and just told him that I sure can appreciate what it must feel like to have sons who perform on the level that he and Peyton do."
