Giants’ Collins will be keeping tabs on ‘Bama in Iron Bowl

An MVP candidate for the New York Giants, safety Landon Collins is putting together a Pro Bowl caliber season. But while he will be in Cleveland this weekend hoping to extend the Giants winning streak to six games, he will certainly have an eye on what is going on in Tuscaloosa, AL on Saturday afternoon.

Collins’ alma mater, Alabama, has this tiny little game with Auburn. No big deal though.

The Iron Bowl, as the annual meeting between these two in-state programs is called, is one of the most hotly contested rivalries in college sports. Every year, no matter the records between the two teams, is a tightly contested game, a heated match-up that is the best rivalry in American sports. There is really nothing like it.

And Collins will be keeping an eye on the score as any good son of Paul Bryant is apt to do.

“We win. They always play us hard; I’ll tell you that much. It’s always a struggle with them,” Collins said on Wednesday. “It’s always a three or seven-point game.”

He won’t comment on if his 2012 team is better than this Crimson Tide squad, a side ranked No. 1 in the nation.

As for his Giants team, winners of their last five games, they face an 0-11 Cleveland Browns team that is bad. Not only is his team streaking, but so too is Collins.

He’s had an interception in each of the last four games, a run of form that has him currently in the midst to be an MVP candidate. He’d like to keep that interception streak going this weekend, not for personal reasons he says, but because it helps his team out.

“Definitely. I want to catch as many interceptions as I can,” Collins said. “The more interceptions, the better chance the offense has to score and sometimes when I have the ball in my hands I can get down the field and score myself.”