Time to put up or shut up: With season on line, Giants need to walk the walk against surging Cowboys

The Giants have spent two months explaining how good they really are, how confident they are, and how they're sure they'll find a way out of their slump. Now, with less than a month left in the season, they're faced with this bleak reality:

They're nearly out of time.

In fact, it's now or never, at least as far as the NFC East race is concerned when the slumping Giants (6-5) mount one last divisional stand against the Dallas Cowboys (8-3) at Giants Stadium this afternoon.

A loss would put them three games back with only four games to go.

And given how poorly they've played, while losing five of their last six games, that's far too big a deficit for the Giants to overcome.

"You can call it whatever you want, you could put whatever cliché on it that you want, but the way we're looking at it is we've got to win this game," said center Shaun O'Hara. "We have to fight with every ounce that we have to try to win this game.

"And then we have do it all over again the next week."

That's the sad truth about the situation the Giants have put themselves in, that they can't afford anymore missteps down the stretch. Because not only are they in danger of ceding the division to the Cowboys, but they're also one game behind the Packers (7-4) and Eagles (7-4) in the wild-card chase as well.

That's not an enormous hole — at least not yet. But there's no way out if the Giants don't dramatically improve their play. If they hadn't won the overtime coin flip in their 34-31 win over Atlanta two weeks ago, they might be riding a six-game losing streak into this game. Their defense — which they'll shake up today by benching Osi Umenyiora and Fred Robbins in favor of Mathias Kiwanuka and Chris Canty - hasn't made a big stop since early October. Their running game has all-but disappeared. And Eli Manning is coming off a stinker of a game in Thanksgiving on Thursday night.

Yes the Giants say they're confident they'll still be able to salvage their season. But they don't have much time left to actually offer any proof.

"You know the old Coughlin saying, 'Talk is cheap, play the game'?" said linebacker Danny Clark. "This is one of those weeks where you have to put your money where your mouth is and your actions are going to speak louder than words. This is an opportunity for us to go show who we say we are, vs. saying it."

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