I respect your take... You will be hard pressed to find many here who think the Giants should be ranked #1. I know defense wins championships.. and ours is easily in the top 3.. as a matter of fact, I can't think of a team that has better defense than us right now... We lost Stra and Osi but we have Kiwi and Tuck who are, at least in my opinion, better than Stra and Osi... Strahan wasn't getting any younger.
Then add to the mix our much improved D backfield. Offensively, we have as many play makers as any.. less egos now that Shocky in NO.
Having said that I believe respect is earned. All the Giants need to do is beat those better teams and the analysts will catch up.