Playing twice in the last month of the 2011 season was such a success that the NFL couldn't wait that long to see the Giants-Cowboys rivalry re-kindled in 2012.
On Tuesday, the league announced that the defending Super Bowl champion Giants will host the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL Kickoff game on Wednesday, Sept. 5, at 8:30 p.m.
Just like the nation watched Jason Pierre-Paul block the last-second field goal in Dallas and the Giants win NFC East championship game, the drama will be seen on NBC.
And John Mara and Jerry Jones couldn't think of a better way to open the new season.
"I'm sure our fans will be jacked up for it, and I'm sure they'll be ready to play, too," Giants president and CEO John Mara told NFL Network. "I think it was a good choice on the part of the league."
Jones, the Cowboys owner, says it should motivate his team.
"Why it is so exciting for us is we can use this, being on this stage, in the preparation of our offseason, as well as certainly preseason," Jones, in Florida for the NFL Annual Meeting, said in the article. "I was sitting with my coach (Jason Garrett) when the league told me this morning that they were going to announce it this afternoon, and we both got chills, saying, 'Man, we can use this to help inspire to work hard, because our guys are going to have to be ready to play the Giants on that stage.' It'll inspire us."
The Giants will open a season against a divisional opponent for the fifth time in six years in their first opener against Dallas since 2007 and first home opener vs. the Cowboys since 1995.
Since 2004, the Super Bowl champion has hosted the league's Kickoff game, and it will be just the second time division rivals will play against each other.
"I don't really think that makes a difference," Mara said. "We knew it was going to be a tough opponent one way or another. Whether it was Dallas or Green Bay or somebody else, I don't think that really makes much of a difference. If you look at the last 10 or 12 games with them, they've usually been great, great games, going right down to the wire. And I'm sure this one will be no different."
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