2011 New York Giants

The 2011 New York Giants season is the 87th season for the team in the National Football League. They will play all of their home games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

With a 9–7 record, the Giants returned to the NFL playoffs for the first time since 2008, when they won the NFC East and finished the season as the NFC's #4 seed. New York finished 10–6 in 2010 but failed to qualify for the playoffs due to not having any tiebreakers over any NFC playoff team. The Giants entered their week 17 match up with the Cowboys with both teams tied for the division lead with 8–7 records. The Giants took a 21–0 first half lead and while the Cowboys closed the gap to make the score 21–14 early in the 4th quarter, the Giants held on to defeat the Cowboys 31–14, clinching the divisional title and a playoff berth.

2011 draft board
Todd McShay (ESPN), Steve Wyche (NFL.com), Pat Kirwan of NFL.com, New Era Scouting, and DraftKing.com predicted that the Giants would use their first round pick to draft Gabe Carimi, a left tackle for the Wisconsin Badgers who won the 2010 Outland Trophy as the nation's top collegiate interior lineman, and was a Consensus All-American. Charles Davis of NFL.com predicted that they would draft Mike Pouncey, a center/offensive guard from the University of Florida. They instead drafted Prince Amukamara, an all-American cornerback from the University of Nebraska.


 * undefined The Giants traded its fifth-round selection (#150 overall) and a 2012 conditional draft selection to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for RB Darius Reynaud and QB Sage Rosenfels.
 * undefined Compensatory selection.

Movement
In the first week of the offseason the Giants signed some road free agents and former members of their 2010 practice squad to reserve/future contracts in order to bolster the roster for the 2011 season. In early March the team signed potential free agents to contract extensions: on March 2 the team signed running back D.J. Ware to a two-year extension and on March 3 they signed wide receivers Domenik Hixon and Darius Reynaud to one and two-year extensions, respectively. They also offered tenders to some of their restricted free agents but the effectiveness of these tenders rely on the ongoing CBA talks.

Staff changes

 * On March 9, 2011 the assistant special teams Thomas McGaughey accepted a job in the Louisiana State University as special teams/defensive line coach of their football team. He was with the Giants since 2007.
 * On June 24, 2011 it was reported that Larry Izzo will become the Giants' new assistant special teams coach once the NFL Lockout has ceased.

Preseason
The Giants' preseason schedule was announced on April 12, 2011.
 * § - Due to Hurricane Irene, the Week 3 preseason game against the Jets was moved up to 2:00 p.m. from the originally scheduled time of 7:00 p.m. (EDT). Then, later in the evening of August 26, the game was rescheduled to Monday, August 29 at 7:00 p.m. EDT

Week 9: at New England Patriots
In the rematch of Super Bowl XLII, Tom Brady was picked off in Giants territory early in the game. With the ball at the New York 29, Brady's pass was tipped by Michael Boley and intercepted by Mathias Kiwanuka, who returned it to the Giants 28, for Brady's 2nd pick of the game. However, the next possession had the Patriots drive down to the Giants 12. Stephen Gostowski's 27-yard field goal went slight left, making this the first time the Patriots had no score at halftime since December 10, 2006. In this game, turnovers marred both teams. First, Lawrence Tynes kicked a 22-yard field goal that put them on 3–0. Then Brandon Jacobs ran it in 10 yards to put the Giants up 10–0. After that, Aaron Ross muffed the punt, giving the Patriots the ball at the Giants 33. However, they could only muster a 32-yard field goal. Devin Thomas muffed his punt, but scooped it up. Then, Julian Edelman fumbled the punt in Giants territory. Driving in the red zone, Manning got picked off by Kyle Arrington in the end zone. Seven plays later, Brady hit Aaron Hernandez for a 5-yard touchdown, tying the game at 10 just 32 seconds into the fourth quarter. With 7:08, Gostowski's 45-yard field goal gave the Pats their first lead of the game, 13–10. Manning then led the Giants on an 85-yard march to a 10-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham with 3:03 remaining, putting the Giants on top 17–13. It looked like the Pats would win with a comeback of their own when Tom Brady threw a 14-yard pass to Rob Gronkowski, making it 20–17 with 1:36 to go. However, leading the New York Giants 80 yards in just over a minute, Manning hit Jake Ballard for a 1-yard touchdown with 15 seconds left for a 24–20 win on Sunday, repeating a come-from-behind victory similar to the 2008 title game between the teams. They were helped by a 20-yard pass interference penalty against safety Sergio Brown of the Patriots (5–3) that put the ball at the 1 with 30 seconds left.