The New York Giants are:
A, Methodical; B, Boring; C, Good, or . . .D, All of the Above.
The answer has to be "D" after the Giants dismantled the New Orleans Saints 24-14 Monday night behind two touchdown passes by Phil Simms and a 75-yard punt return by Dave Meggett.
It was their sixth straight win and kept them on course for the 1993 regular season's Game of the Century, a meeting Jan. 2 at Giants Stadium with Dallas which probably will decide the NFC East title and home field in the NFC playoffs.
"They looked like what we used to be," said Vince Buck of the Saints, who have now lost seven of nine after a 5-0 start.
Now 11-3, the Giants also looked remarkably like the team that won the Super Bowl three years ago, controlling the ball for 36 minutes, 14 seconds.
The Giants held the Saints to just 11 yards rushing - the third-lowest figure in NFL history. That with a defense minus the injured Michael Brooks, New York's premier run-stuffer.
"We've got something going here that could be real positive if we continue," said center Bart Oates, a former BYU player and the 35-year-old veteran of the team's 1986 and 1990 teams that won Super Bowls.
This one went to some of the veterans led by the 38-year-old Simms, who hit 10 of his first 12 passes and finished 15 of 23 for 166 yards.
Mark Jackson, a veteran of three Super Bowls with Reeves in Denver, caught five passes, including a 9-yard TD; Howard Cross, a 1990 veteran, caught the other, a 17-yarder, and Meggett, one of the NFL's top all-purpose backs for five years, closed it out with his punt return for a touchdown.
The Saints cut it to 14-7 at halftime by parlaying a fake field goal into a 6-yard play that set up Brad Muster's 1-yard touchdown run. That came at the end of an 80-yard drive, the only sustained movement the Saints had on offense until the Giants had clinched the game.
The win put New York's lead over Dallas in the NFC East back at a game and ensured that the Giants will play the Cowboys for no worse than the division title and NFC home field advantage at the Meadowlands in two weeks. The Giants could clinch the division and the home field next week if they win at Phoenix and the Cowboys lose to Washington.