Kristian Dyer’s 3 things to watch for: Giants take on the Rams in London

Following a breakout performance by the passing offense last Sunday, the New York Giants are hoping to continue the good vibes this weekend on the road. And when we say on the road, we mean it.

Welcome to London for the Giants, who are making a return trip to England – this time to play the Los Angeles Rams (Sunday, 9:30 a.m., NFL Network). It is the chance for the Giants to get above .500 and to get some momentum before the bye week.

Three Things to Watch from the Giants in Week 7:

Frequent flyer miles

It will be a long road trip for the Giants, who depart Thursday for London to play in one of the NFL’s international showcase games. There is plenty of talk this week about time zones, jet lag and the such, but both teams have to face it. And playing a West Coast team that has even more miles to go is a definite advantage for the Giants.

Leaving Thursday for a Sunday game is a bit later than most teams going overseas depart.

“We wanted to get our heavy lifting done early. Get on a normal week at the beginning of the week,” head coach Ben McAdoo said. “Get plenty of rest in and give them an opportunity to get ahead of the game as far as that goes and then battle through our fresh Friday over there.”

The Case for Keenum

Coming off what might have been the best game of his professional career, albeit a loss, Rams quarterback Case Keenum might be finding his stride. He completed a gaudy 84 percent of his passes for 321 yards and had three touchdowns to one interception. Against a Giants secondary that is banged up and had some struggles, this could be a match-up advantage for the Rams.

Keenum came into the league as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2012 and has played in just 22 games in that stretch.

He is forming a great chemistry with wide receiver Kenny Britt, a Rutgers product.

“Kenny is a great target. I noticed this offseason and in training camp that he is hungry this year. He has a lot to bring to the table as an athlete,” Keenum said. “He is a good target out there, big, strong guy, goes up and gets the ball and he is hard to bring down when he gets the ball in his hands, so I have really enjoyed throwing him the football and I think he is working hard, doing a good job of being in the right place and we have been managing to hook up a little bit.”

Getting some pressure

It wasn’t a perfect performance from the Giants last weekend against the Ravens but it was much improved in terms of getting after the quarterback. In particular in the second half, the Giants did a good job in collapsing the pocket on Joe Flacco.

They came into that Week 6 game with just four sacks and had two against the Ravens. The trickledown effect of the pass rush was that it aided the secondary as Flacco had to rush a number of throws or find his safety outlets.