(AP)

The narrative is easy and longstanding, but not necessarily accurate these days -- Tony Romo has the stats; Eli Manning has the rings. In 2011, Manning made that a moot point by not only grabbing his second Super Bowl MVP award, but also finally entrenching himself in the statistical pantheon of elite quarterbacks. Manning outdid Romo in passing yards (4,933 to 4,184), and held serve in many other numbers. Manning did especially well in his two games against the Dallas Cowboys in 2011, totaling 51 of 80 for 746 yards, five touchdowns and one interception.

You stay classy, New York Post...Meanwhile, Romo is just trying to gain some ground -- any ground -- back when facing the Giants. From 2006 through 2008, Cowboys teams quarterbacked by Romo were 4-0 against the G-Men, and that included the Giants' 2007 Super Bowl championship season. From 2009 through 2011, the 'Boys are 0-5 against their division rivals with Romo under center, and the stats tell the story. Romo's passing yards per game have plummeted during that losing streak (233.6, down from 273.3), and his yards per attempt totals (7.4, down from 9.4) are even more worrisome.

It could very well be so again when the Cowboys welcome the Giants to their stadium Wednesday night to kick off the 2012 NFL season.

Perhaps the primary reason Romo has struggled against the Giants in recent years is that while the Cowboys' offensive line has regressed due to a lack of organizational focus on the position, New York's pass rush -- particularly the Giants' ability to bring pressure with four linemen and minimal blitz pressure -- puts the burden on quarterbacks while also relieving the team's somewhat suspect secondary.

"It's right near the top," Romo said on Monday when asked about New York's pass rush. "They're one or two, and probably the other one is in our division too. They're good. They can attack you with a lot of different guys and each one has an uniqueness to his move or the way he approaches rushing the quarterback. You've got to dig in, grind out the week with the offensive linemen and some of the other guys and figure out what they like to do, each guy, try to use that to your advantage."

But with 2011 first-round pick Tyron Smith and veteran Doug Free moving to different slots -- Smith to left tackle and Free to the right side -- continuity has been tough to find. Newbie guards Mackenzy Bernadeau and Nate Livings will help on the inside, but the days of Dallas' stout lines seem a thing of the past, at least in the short term. Injuries through the preseason prevented the projected starters from practicing together once this past week, and that's a scary thought given the fact that most great lines grow from repetition and consistency.

Receivers like Victor Cruz force defenses like Dallas' to run more dime formations. (AP)

The NFL returns for real Wednesday night, and with that, we celebrate the official return of our preview podcasts with the great Greg Cosell, the longtime NFL Films All-22 maven and executive producer of ESPN's "NFL Matchup." As he did so well last year, Greg will give you a sense of the week's upcoming games you won't get anywhere else, based on his conversations with players and coaches past and present, and his OCD-level evaluation of coach's tape. We went 75 minutes in the Week 1 preview without even getting to the two "Monday Night Football" games, so we'll preview those later this week. Here are the games discussed in this podcast:

Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants
Indianapolis Colts at Chicago Bears
Philadelphia Eagles at Cleveland Browns
New England Patriots at Tennessee Titans
Atlanta Falcons at Kansas City Chiefs
Jacksonville Jaguars at Minnesota Vikings
Washington Redskins at New Orleans Saints
Buffalo Bills at New York Jets
St. Louis Rams at Detroit Lions
Miami Dolphins at Houston Texans
San Francisco 49ers at Green Bay Packers
Seattle Seahawks at Arizona Cardinals
Carolina Panthers at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Pittsburgh Steelers at Denver Broncos

The Shutdown Corner Week 1 NFL Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

A few highlights from Mr. Cosell:

On Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride's formational versatility: "It's interesting, and it goes back years. When Eli Manning started in his rookie season of 2004, and he certainly was not ready to play as a rookie, they gave Manning an awful lot on his plate right away. We've seen that grow and grow, and it's obviously reaped a ton of dividends. The Giants have always done a lot more things than people may think. When people talk about multidimensional offenses, I'm not sure the Giants come to mind, but they do a lot in the run game -- which is never talked about when people are discussing run games, because 99 percent of the time, they're talking about the passing game. But they're very intriguing in the run game, and that's Eli Manning. He calls that at the line of scrimmage. I would agree -- they're a lot more multiple than they're given credit for."

On the "little things" that make Andrew Luck great: "Eye discipline and eye manipulation are two terms that I like to use, and Ron Jaworski and I talk about this all the time. The play you're talking about [Luck's 23-yard touchdown pass to Austin Collie against the St. Louis Rams] was in his first preseason game, and what he did is that he immediately recognized the coverage, which was 2-deep, and he knew that in his route combination, because he had Collie running a corner route, he had to beat the safety to that side. Because the cornerback will sit in the flat.  He's responsible for that, and they had a receiver going there. So, Luck knew that he had to beat the safety to that side. They also had a slot route attacking that safety. But what Luck did on his drop, in his first preseason game as an NFL quarterback, was to keep his eyes totally focused right down the mid-line. And that kept the safety from reacting to Collie's route. And then, he very comfortably threw the ball to Collie within the timing of the play for what looked like a very simple touchdown pass that you or I could throw. But it was his ability to calmly manipulate the defense with his head and his eyes that made it look as easy as it seemed."

The Shutdown Corner Week 1 NFL Preview Podcast with Greg Cosell

On Brandon Weeden's early struggles:

(Getty Images)

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton is out of the NFL for the entire 2012 season for his role in the Saints' bounty scandal, but that doesn't mean he's lost his love for coaching the game. In one way, Payton has used his off-time to mix family and football as never before. This fall, Payton is coaching the Liberty Christian Warriors, the Dallas-area team that includes Payton's sixth-grade son, Connor.

Payton isn't even a head coach for the Warriors -- his official title, if he has one, would be "Offensive Assistant" -- and he is using the same base offensive verbiage he used to propel the 2009 Saints to a Super Bowl championship, and quarterback Drew Brees to one of the most productive spans in the history of the game.

"I run the offense," Payton told Mike Triplett of Nola.com on Tuesday. "The head coach is Brennan Hardy, who does a great job. We had our first game Saturday, and we won 30-0. Obviously it's a completely different element. Yet you get just as excited to see the team you're a part of do well. It was about 110 degrees on the Astroturf, I was just glad no one melted. But it was a good win for us to start the season. We scored a lot of points and created some turnovers. And they get excited about it, which is great to see."

Of course, an entire Saints playbook wouldn't go over too well with a horde of kids, so the Warriors use just a handful of plays on gameday.

"We have 12 plays on the wristband," Payton said. "The terminology is the same as we used in New Orleans. The kids said, 'This looks hard.' But I said, 'I've seen your homework. That's a lot harder.' And they've done a great job with it."

This is as close as Payton will get to the Superdome this year. (Getty Images)

Of course, Payton will watch the Saints through the season. Per his suspension, he can't contact the team (or any NFL team) on any matters, especially matters having to do with football, without first contacting NFL VP of football operations Ray Anderson. That "break" has given the coach, who is one of the game's great offensive minds whether you like him or not, a chance to study the game from a wider view.

(AP)

After 41 completions in 66 attempts for 522 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions in his first NFL preseason, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is ready for perhaps the most anticipated rookie season since Peyton Manning first went under center for this same Colts franchise in 1998. Luck knows that he has a tough act to follow, but he's also about as pro-ready as any young quarterback we've seen in a long time. We spoke with Luck as he was preparing for the Chicago Bears this Sunday.

As Luck told us, he's enjoyed running around and playing outside since he was a kid, and that's why he also wanted to talk about the initiative he has going with Quaker Oats and the NFL's PLAY 60 campaign, in which you can win a free trip to Super Bowl XLVII. You can find out more here.

As for Luck, here's what he had to tell us.

Shutdown Corner: Everyone has asked you this, I'm sure — the whole thing about defenses being faster in the NFL. But now that you've faced NFL defenses, how specifically are they faster, and what challenges have you faced in your first preseason from that perspective?

Andrew Luck: Besides the obvious — bigger, faster, stronger at all positions on the field, the linebackers are noticeably faster. Your tight end is not going to run right by a linebacker — that flat-out speed. In college, the guys we had could do that. That's been the biggest difference.

SC: There's a lot of Cover 3, straight quarters and more standard coverage schemes with the defenses you played against in college. Cal runs a 3-4 of sorts and you would see different things, but how much more advanced are the defensive concepts when you hit the NFL? Certainly when you faced the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dick Lebeau's defenses, that must have been a different experience.

AL: I was lucky enough at Stanford to have Vic Fangio as the defensive coordinator for a year, and then Jason Tarver. [Fangio is currently the San Francisco 49ers' defensive coordinator and Tarver now does the same for the Oakland Raiders.] They ran sort of a 3-4 scheme with a lot of different personnel groupings and different blitzes, so I went up against that type of structure. That's obviously not a substitute for a Pittsburgh Steelers defense by any means, but it did prepare me in that sense to go from a 4-3 one week to a 3-4 the next. Back and forth, you know what I mean? So that was good, and going up against our [the Colts'] defense and what coach [defensive coordinator Greg] Manusky and [head] coach [Chuck] Pagano do with defenses has been great as well.

SC: So, Fangio ran hybrid fronts at Stanford, and the Colts are transitioning to a hybrid idea after years in that more conventional Cover/Tampa 2. How much of what you see in practice now did you see in practice at Stanford?

AL: A little bit. This is the NFL, and there are better players and everyone's more on the screws with things. There are much more complicated blitzes and coverages, but there's a decent baseline understanding of defense from the Stanford days.

SC: Everyone made a big deal about the 63-yard pass to Donald Brown; the touchdown you had to open your NFL career ...

AL: It was a 3-yard pass [laughs].

SC: I know. And I was gonna say that's a nice way to start your NFL career, but it was the 23-yard touchdown pass to Austin Collie that really impressed me. Not only did you put perfect touch on the ball, but you looked off the Rams defender to make way. People always talk about your command of the little things, and having a father that played in the NFL certainly helps, but how did you acquire that over time?

AL: I've been lucky enough to be around some great coaches, all the way from Pop Warner to now. In high school, I had a great offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach named Jeff Green, who, funny enough, was a graduate assistant for [current Colts offensive coordinator] Bruce Arians way back when. So, it's a small world. And then, with Coach [Jim] Harbaugh and Coach [David} Shaw at Stanford, and BA and Clyde [Christensen] here, I've been fortunate to have coaches that know football and care about me, and I bought into what they teach.

SC: I talked with [Stanford guard] David DeCastro at the scouting combine, and he said that when he watched the 49ers in 2011, he knew what plays were coming before the ball was snapped because he had an easy familiarity with an offense that would work at the next level. How was it to have a relationship as you did with a coach in Jim Harbaugh who helped you become so NFL-ready?

(AP)

AL: It was great, especially to have a coach who was an NFL quarterback. To go through a lot of similar situations was good. He was great with on-field stuff, but also educating me on the media, how to answer questions, and why it's important to build relationships with people in terms of leadership — how you don't have to change your personality to be a leader. I thought we had a great relationship.

SC: You had a lot of reps in the preseason, while Robert Griffin III, the man with whom you'll be connected for all time, really didn't. Not asking you to criticize that approach, but how specifically did having that extra time in games help you? What did you learn that you did not know?

(AP)

For the second time in a five-season span, the New York Giants won a Super Bowl despite an indifferent regular season that had them as nobody's pick to take the Lombardi Trophy. On Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on the NFL Network, NFL Films will debut the newest installment of the "America's Game" series, covering the Giants' unlikely but ultimately successful trip back to the big game. We were recently able to speak with Steve Lucatuorto, who produced this year's show. Steve has been with NFL Films for 13 years and has won four Emmy Awards for his work there: the New York Jets and Cincinnati Bengals editions of "Hard Knocks," "Inside the NFL," and "Special Edition Sound FX: Bengals at Jets." Steve also produced "Walter Payton: A Football Life" in 2011.

Shutdown Corner: Working up close with the Jets as you have, you must have seen that the Giants and Jets seem so different in their approach to things. The Jets seem more brash, and the Giants appear to be far more old-school. Were those perceived differences easy to see when talking to both teams?

Steve Lucatuorto: They seem to be -- the Giants definitely have that old-school feeling through their entire operation. When you're in the facility, when you talk to the players and coaches, they're very buttoned up, and they do things the old-fashioned way. It trickles down from the Mara family -- that's the way they like things, and that's the way they want the players and coaches to conduct themselves. I don't think they concern themselves with the Jets too much -- they just go about their business and do things their own way, and that's how it is.

The Jets have toned things down in the last two or three years -- Rex Ryan wasn't coming out and guaranteeing another Super Bowl. I think the media has made the Tebow thing into a story; I don't know if that was their plan or not -- I can't comment on that. But it's the perception that I feel.

SC: This is the Giants' second Super Bowl win in the last five seasons, and it seems as if this team can't win the big one until they've gone through this process where they appear to be out of it and everybody wants to fire Tom Coughlin. For the 2011 season, you had an interesting part in the show about Coughlin's reaction to the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and that was really compelling.

SL: Yeah. Where he locked himself in the [office] and didn't have the lights on? I had heard that before -- it was one of the things I read when I was doing research, and that was one of the things I wanted to ask him. I didn't prompt him, but with Coughlin, he'll usually give you a straightforward answer. It's usually, "Oh, it was hard or difficult." But for him to have that reaction and be that honest and forthcoming was very interesting.

SC: Coughlin had said before that prior to the 2007 season, a light went on in his head, and he realized that he had to temper his need for discipline with the players' need to know that he cared about them. You have worked with him before -- how is he different now? I talked with him after the Super Bowl, and he seems to be able to add the human touch now in ways that may have seemed incomprehensible 10 years ago.

SL: I agree completely . You can sense it when you talk to him and when you talk to the players -- Eli, Tuck and Cruz. He really has found that comfort zone -- that place he always wanted to be as a coach, and I think that came out in the show as well. He said that he'd never told a team he coached that he loved them. It's something that you'd never expect to hear out of Tom Coughlin's mouth. But he's in a really good place as a coach, and he's done it for so many years. I don't know if "wiser" is the right word, but he really seems to be at peace with his approach.

He's found that happy medium between being a strict disciplinarian and a comforting presence for his players. He's got a great track record as a coach -- he wins wherever he goes -- and the new players who come in [get it]. [Safety] Antrel Rolle was one of the big critics of Coughlin when he first came in, but he bought into the Coughlin Way. Once they get to know him, they understand that he just wants to win. They understand that he's not being tough because he doesn't like them; he's being tough because he wants the best for his players.

SC: It's been an uphill battle for Eli Manning at times -- he has really struggled in spots through his career. He came out and insisted that he was elite before the 2011 season, and then went out and proved it at a level he never had before. People talk about "leaders," and it's such a nebulous term, but are things different in his dynamic with the team? Michael Strahan made fun of him in the 2007 "America's Game," but it seems that Eli has that team in hand now.

SL: Yeah. I asked him about that and he sort of deferred in the way that he does. He doesn't really like the spotlight. But I asked other players about it, and I said, "Why is Eli so respected as a leader in that locker room?" They all said that it's the way he conducts himself. He has no ego. He's a starting quarterback in one of the biggest NFL markets, and a guy that should have a huge ego and a chip on his shoulder -- "I'm better than everybody else" -- doesn't. Everyone else sort of feeds off of that. He doesn't brag or raise his voice, and I think what you saw in the show is that when he does speak, they do listen. When he addressed the team before the Super Bowl and said, "Hey -- we're going out there to win this game. We're not messing around. We're prepared, and we're going to win." That set the tone for the whole week leading up the Super Bowl. That egoless attitude is the way their locker room is. That's the way they're expected to act.

SC: When the Giants started their game-winning drive in Super Bowl XLVI, they were heading my way where I was sitting in the media area, it was right before his ridiculous pass to Mario Manningham, and I turned to Will Carroll of SI.com and said, "Oh, [bleep] -- they're gonna do it again." And then, they did it again. What is it about Eli that allows him to make these plays under the harshest of spotlights when other players simply can't?

SL: I think it has something to do with that whole ego thing. He doesn't worry about the ramifications, and he said that in the show -- You can't worry about what they're going to write about you. You don't think about failure in that moment. He said that you think about your past successes in those situations. You don't worry about failing, or what if you don't score a touchdown. You don't go out to be the hero. You've been trained for this, and you've done this hundreds of times as a player. Just go out and do what you studied and prepared to do. That's a good mindset to have when the pressure's on, I think. The bigger the moments, the better he plays.

SC: Victor Cruz came out of nowhere in 2011 to have a historic season for the Giants. What was that process like for him? He was completely off the map, and then, he just blew up.

SL: He said that it wasn't that things clicked all at once -- I think he was just overwhelmed by the success that he had the summer before [in the preseason of 2011] and living up to those expectations. He had a hard time with that at first, and because he was so inconsistent early on ... one of the things that didn't make the show, but was talked about, was how it bothered him when they brought in Brandon Stokely to get another body in that slot. He knew that he was running out of time. He even said in the show that you don't get these chances every day. He realized that he was going to get buried on that depth chart for the whole season, and this was it.

SC: And that 99-yard touchdown against the Jets on December 24 -- was it that game or the Eagles game on September 25 where Eli said that he knew Cruz was the guy?

SL: He scored a couple touchdowns in the Eagles game, and he just took off from there. Every week, he seemed to have a big play for them.

SC: With Justin Tuck, and I have joked about this before -- he is basically two ridiculous Eli Manning throws away from owning two Super Bowl MVP awards. How underrated is he? He seems to unleash hell when the team most needs him to.

This might be it for Donovan McNabb as an NFL player. (AP)

In March, Fletcher Smith, Donovan McNabb's agent, told the Chicago Tribune that he wasn't sure what the next move would be for his client. According to Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal, we now know what that will be -- the six-time Pro Bowler, selected in the first round of the 1999 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, is moving on to a career in broadcasting. Mullen reports that McNabb has signed with Maxx Sports and agent Mark Lepselter in preparation for work with one or more networks.

McNabb was benched by Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier after several rough outings early in 2011 and replaced by rookie Christian Ponder. The Vikings waived McNabb later that season, and though the Chicago Bears were criticized for not signing McNabb (or another veteran quarterback) after Jay Cutler was injured and out for the season, McNabb was unable to find another NFL team.

[Related: Vikings rookie LB amazes with a pair of pick-sixes]

"We're just weighing our options right now," Smith told the Tribune back then. "No real set timetable to make a decision on what he is going to do this year. So he's in a holding pattern at this point."

It was telling that through the 2012 offseason, Peyton Manning was thought to be the best available free-agent quarterback following his release from the Indianapolis Colts. Former Green Bay Packers backup Matt Flynn was second in line based on two impressive career starts, and McNabb rated barely a mention from anyone. That was most likely his best chance for NFL survival, and eventual curtain call.

"Obviously, once his career is over, he has got a career in broadcasting. And that's an option as well," Smith said. "I think right now we haven't closed the door on anything. He's keeping his options open. When he is ready to make a decision, everyone will know."

Now we know, and this should be a successful move for McNabb. He's had his (sometimes unfair) detractors through an up-and-down NFL career, but he's smart, funny, and self-deprecating enough to avoid the "I coulda done that better" stuff we get from some ex-jocks once they hit the booth.

In 2011. Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets and Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos combined to complete 434 passes in 814 attempts (a combined completion percentage of 53.3) for 5,203 yards, 38 touchdowns, and 24 interceptions. In that same 2011 regular season, Eli Manning of the New York Giants completed 359 passes in 589 attempts for 4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns, and 16 picks.

With 14 fewer games and 11 fewer starts than the Sanchez/Tebow "powerhouse," Eli was able to nearly match the more popular and newsworthy duo all by himself. A second Super Bowl championship in five years later, and with Sanchez and Tebow as front page fodder for every possible media outlet, one starts to wonder: Why aren't we talking more about Eli Manning?

It isn't as if Eli doesn't have an interesting story, after all -- son of Archie and little brother to Peyton, Eli came into the NFL in 2004 with impossible expectations as an immediate professional birthright. Still, the younger Manning has managed to keep pace with them in a way that flies very much under the radar to the media -- but certainly not to the teammates who have learned to respect his quiet leadership.

"Listen, we've always made fun of the guy,'' guard Chris Snee said in July. "He's a goofy guy. He's easy to make fun of, from his running motion, I love when he wears cutoff shirts to try to show off his arms. He'll fire right back, that's why no one's uncomfortable being around him. He's obviously an elite quarterback, two-time Super Bowl MVP, but he's just another guy on the team.''

Defensive lineman Justin Tuck was not amused when NFL Films gave Manning the 31st ranking in its 2012 Top 100 series. In his mind, the quarterback who had to work his way up the food chain in the NFL and in his own locker room has earned much more respect.

"That's a joke," Tuck said in July. "No question. He is top five, hands down. Top five. "You win the Super Bowl, you have the season he had, you are automatically top 10. But it's how he did it, as far as the fourth-quarter comebacks, leading a team that really didn't have a super, superstar wide receiver at the beginning of the year. He made two guys in Hakeem [Nicks] and Victor [Cruz], he made those guys what they are now. I really feel as though he should have been a lot higher than he was."

There's a lot of that going around, especially among the football cognoscenti who marvel at the fact that Sanchez's poor on-field decision-making and Tebow's frequent airballs earn them so much more attention. Manning, as is his wont, couldn't possibly care less.

Oops! (Old Navy)Somebody at Old Navy needs a little help with their American Football League history. In 1961, the Dallas Texans went 6-8 and finished second in the AFL West division behind the San Diego Chargers, who lost the 1961 AFL championship to the Houston Oilers. The next year, the Texans beat the Houston Oilers in the AFL championship and promptly moved to Kansas City to become what is known today as the Chiefs.

That's a 1962 championship for the Dallas Texans, not a 1961 championship. And the Houston Oilers won the 1961 championship. Keep these things in mind, and we'll continue.

In 2002, the Texans name returned to pro football when Houston was awarded the franchise that  replaced the Oilers, who moved out of town after the 1996 season. In 2011, the Houston Texans won their first division title with a 10-6 record, good enough for the pole position in the AFC South. The Houston Texans went on to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 31-10, in the wild-card round of the 2011 playoffs before dropping 20-13 to the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional frame.

Why this little history lesson, you might ask?

Because Old Navy had themselves an epic fail with the replica T-shirt pictured here. The Houston Texans didn't exist in 1961, the Houston Oilers won the 1961 AFL championship, the Dallas Texans weren't even in the playoffs in 1961, and the American Football Conference shown on the shirt didn't exist until the AFL and NFL merged into one big NFL in 1970.

[Related: Texans appear ready to deliver on their promise]

In as many ways as possible, whoops.