Jan 22 When Eli and Peyton Manning spoke Sunday night in the hours after the grandest win of Eli's four-year NFL career, big brother graciously stepped aside from his role as mentor. "He said I'm past the point where he can give me advice now," Eli recounted with a smile in the Giants' locker room yesterday. "He wants it the other way around. I don't know if I believe that..."
It was a vote of confidence from the reigning Super Bowl MVP, who has been one of his brother's most vocal supporters. While the younger Manning was questioned and doubted through most of the season, Peyton never doubted that his little brother would follow in his successful footsteps.
Peyton knows better than anyone what awaits Eli once he gets to Arizona; the hoopla, the media and all the questions about proving his critics wrong and finally reaching the Super Bowl. Peyton got all those questions last year when he led the Colts to Super Bowl XLI in Miami where he was a rain-soaked MVP in beating the Bears. That was Peyton's vindication. Eli has now earned his.

For too long he was the hot-and-cold Eli. The Eli who wasn't worth the trade that brought him here. The Eli who got it right one week and stepped into quicksand the next. All of a sudden, the last four weekends, he's become the quarterback New York was told to expect. Gave the perfect Patriots their closest shave, and then - now free to move about the country - raced through Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay.
Suddenly, the most disastrous draft in Giants history looks like a stroke of genius. As Ernie Accorsi says, Manning wasn't drafted to win a passing title or have his picture taken on a beach with starlets. He was brought here to take the Giants to the Super Bowl. After only three full seasons, he has done that. Whatever you thought of him between draft day and Week 1 of this postseason, rethink it.

Even though the temperature was below zero all game and the wind-chill factor made it feel as if it were 20 below, Eli Manning's future wife was, in his words, "supposed to be in the stands." They agreed to this because Manning has a history of playing poorly when fiancee Abby McGrew watches from a luxury box. And they weren't going to let a bout of cold weather change their plans now. Or so Manning thought. Turned out McGrew did not watch from the stands, much to Manning's surprise. She called an audible before Manning's biggest game, at some point deciding to go inside and watch from a luxury box with her future in-laws.
They beached America's Team. They froze out America's Quarterback. Might America be warming up to New York's scrappy Boys of Winter? They certainly are watching, in numbers massive enough to have gotten to know the team well. Neil Best Neil Best Bio | E-mail | Recent columns One week after the Giants and Cowboys recorded the highest rating for a divisional- round game in 11 years, the Giants and Packers scored the best overnight rating for a conference final in 12 years.

After kicking the winning 47-yard field goal in overtime Sunday, Lawrence Tynes was rewarded with a nice surprise for the plane ride home - the ball he kicked to send the Giants to the Super Bowl. Gordon "Red" Batty, head equipment manager for the Green Bay Packers, waited for an hour after the game to meet with a Giants equipment manager to deliver the ball safely to Tynes.
There was a point early in the season -- maybe more than one point, actually -- when Coughlin seriously considered replacing Tynes as his kicker. Tynes missed two extra points, and his kickoffs didn't always go where the coaches wanted them to go, leading to some big kickoff returns by opponents. The kickoffs got better, though, and Coughlin stayed with Tynes, who responded with a decent 23-for-27 success rate on field goals, with a long of 48 yards.
Tom Coughlin and the rest of the Giants never lost faith in Tynes, who didn't wait for instructions from Coughlin and sprinted onto the field in overtime to boot the game-winner. "When he started out on the field, that was the very strong impression he made upon us," Coughlin said Monday. "His attitude about it was really the key factor in why I sent him out there - he felt like he could make it and he did."
The proud mom, who lives in Milton, Fla., said she agonized over the two field goals her youngest son shanked in the fourth quarter - but never doubted he could win the game. "The coach was angry after the second miss," she said, referring to Giants coach Tom Coughlin. "It upset me. That's my son." The 29-year-old kicker - who is called L.T. by pals - was holed up Monday at his Clifton, N.J., home with his wife, Amanda, and their 6-month-old twin boys, Caleb and Jaden. While Tynes was Mr. Cool on the frigid field in Green Bay, he wasn't feeling well Monday and couldn't talk with reporters.

It took Jeff Feagles 20 years to get to the promised land. The Giants punter pondered retirement after last season, but decided to come back for one more year. That decision is looking pretty good now. Feagles, 41, said it hasn't really sunk in that in two weeks he'll be making his first trip to the Super Bowl, but he expects the reality of it all should hit him sooner or later.
Jeff Feagles had just called "heads" for the overtime coin toss, and the silver piece landed tails up. The Lambeau Field faithful went nuts and Packers defensive end Aaron Kampman raised his arms. He later said he just felt his team would march down the field and win. But Antonio Pierce had a smile on his face.

Giants' spokesman Peter John-Baptiste said all season-ticket holders have a chance for Super Bowl tickets through a lottery in which seniority is weighted. Both winning and losing ticket holders are notified by mail or e-mail, and losers do not get anything in consolation. Of all the tickets available, 17.5 percent will go to each conference champion, according to Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman. The rest of the tickets are divided among the remaining teams in the league and the league itself.
The congratulatory phone calls to Giants co-owner John Mara came into his Meadowlands office yesterday at all hours. Among the first in the morning was from Jets owner Woody Johnson. Rest assured, Johnson is almost certainly pulling for the Giants to beat the Patriots on Feb. 3 in Super Bowl XLII. And not just because he's in partnership with the Giants on the teams' new stadium under construction in East Rutherford.

The quarterback has grown up before our very eyes. The defense has come together under coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. The running back situation is as good as it's ever been. Same with the receivers and the offensive line. And they've weathered myriad injuries along the way. Which is all well and good as the Giants ponder what lies ahead for Super Bowl XLII against the Patriots.
It's been an extremely productive postseason for the Giants. They finally got payback against Jeff Garcia. They made Terrell Owens cry, which was incredibly entertaining. Then they intercepted what could be the last pass of Brett Favre's career and turned that into a trip to the Super Bowl. Now they will finish off this amazing run in style. They will prevent the Patriots from achieving football immortality at 19-0 and end their perfect season by beating them in Super Bowl XLII in Arizona.
The next time they suit up for real will be Sunday, Feb. 3, in Super Bowl XLII against the unbeaten Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium. It probably won't be zero degrees at kickoff. More like 70, if the long-range forecast for the Phoenix suburb of Glendale holds. The Giants don't care about the weather, though. Surely they proved that Sunday. They also proved that a team can make the Super Bowl after an 0-2 start, and by winning three playoff games on the road, and with Tom Coughlin as its coach and Eli Manning as its quarterback.

That the big game is a date with New England also would seem to serve the Giants. The postseason brought them two much-desired rematches, with Dallas and Green Bay, and they didn't waste either chance to repay regular-season defeats. Avenging their 38-35 loss to the Patriots would be the ultimate payback against a team trying to complete a perfect season.
None other than Mark (Rambo) Bavaro, the great tight end, thinks the Giants can play The Perfect Game in Super Bowl XLII and give us Deja Blue all over again against the Perfect Team. "Absolutely," Bavaro told The Post. "With Brandon Jacobs and (Ahmad) Bradshaw, that 1-2 punch is pretty formidable, and you combine that with Eli (Manning) all of a sudden looking better than his brother . . . he looks like a top-rated quarterback."

Bill Belichick didn't say he was rooting for the Giants to beat the Packers. But he did admit that having to face such a familiar opponent in the Super Bowl - the Patriots and Giants met in the regular-season finale Dec. 29 - gives the Patriots an advantage they wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise. "We know what we're dealing with the Giants," he said. "We had a great game with them last month. It looks like they've done nothing but get better." He added that most of the legwork, video archiving and tendency charting already is completed for the Giants.
Team Perfect eventually ended up with a 38-35 victory in that hyped Week 17 matchup, a game that actually mirrored the nonstop buildup during the week. But therein lays a slight Patriots advantage. Belichick has piping-hot game film of his team's dealings with the Giants to devour throughout this week, whereas if his team were playing the Packers it would require valuable time and effort to piece together the material. Granted, the Giants have the same tape as well, but few coaches can expose weaknesses on film like Belichick.
Las Vegas already has given its verdict (12 1/2 points). The last time the odds were this steep against a New York team in the Super Bowl was in 1969, and we know how that turned out. All the Giants have going for them is the events of Dec. 29, when they pushed an unbeaten team hard. They have that and the sympathy of a country that figures they're dead meat No. 19 for the Patriots.
"I love Vegas," was the cheery message that Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce had delivered last week through a defiant smile, his way of admitting that not only have the Giants looked at the point spreads that have defined them as underdogs for every second of their three-week playoff run, but also they've gained an appreciation from them.

The Giants are just the third team in NFL history to win via the wild-card route and win three road playoff games to advance to the Super Bowl. "We're real excited here," receiver Amani Toomer Amani Toomer said. "Everyone knows we can make our own history. If we go down there and do what we have to do, I think it's going to be one of the best Super Bowls in history. We've got a great shot."
One thing that Amani Toomer said he marveled at with Michael Strahan on the flight home was how Super Bowl fortune cannot be predicted. "I knew I'd get back one day, but I never thought it would be this year," he said. "I thought it would be a lot earlier, to be honest with you. But I'll take it when I can get it. I'm really excited."
Toomer and Strahan are the Giants' remaining players from that game. Now 33 years old, Toomer realizes this could be his last shot at earning the Super Bowl ring that has eluded him throughout his 12-year career.
Plaxico Burress nearly got to the Super Bowl twice with Pittsburgh, losing in the AFC Championship Game to the Patriots in both the 2001 and 2004 seasons. Now he will contact his old mates - who were knocked out of the playoffs via a first-round loss to the Jaguars - to let them know he's on his way to Super Bowl XLII. "No question, it's my turn to make the phone calls," Burress said.

Quarterback Tom Brady apparently suffered an undisclosed injury to his right foot in Sunday's 21-12 victory over the Chargers in the AFC Championship Game. Brady played the entire game, but he was spotted wearing a protective boot Monday as he walked near girlfriend Gisele Bundchen's Manhattan apartmen. Brady appeared to be limping slightly after a fourth-quarter sack by Stephen Cooper and Igor Olshansky. Later, in the postgame interview room, Brady stepped down gingerly from a raised platform after his Q&A session with the media.

Terry Bradshaw won't be the last TV analyst to pay his respects to Coughlin over the next two weeks. Today, reflecting over the intense nature of some of the critiques made by some of the marquee mouths on TV, it's fair to wonder what they all are thinking. Or, as someone wrote four years ago: "If Coughlin should ever turn the Giants around, make them winners again, all the analysts will suddenly come down with a case of amnesia. And their 'jerk' will become a genius."

His name is Lt. Col. Greg Gadson and he used to wear No. 98 for the Army football team and was with the Second Battalion and 32nd Field Artillery, on his way back from a memorial service for two soldiers from his brigade when he lost both his legs to a roadside bomb in Bahgdad. It was the night of May 7, 2007, and Lt. Col. Gadson didn't know it at the time because he couldn't possibly have known, but it was the beginning of a journey that brought him to Lambeau Field Sunday night.

Jan 21 Giants move on to the Super Bowl with a 23-20 win over Green Bay.

---

On The Game: Game 19 Recap Gamegirl... "....The Giants had the ball at the Packers 34 yard line. You were hoping they could make at least one first down here, but they were only able to move the ball up 5 yards. That meant that Tynes would have to make a 47 yard field goal after missing those last two shorter ones, but guess what? Take your hands off your eyes! He did it, and now the Giants move on to the Super Bowl!......." Mikefan.... ".... As we said last week, it was time for the Giants to avenge the second game loss to the Packers in this NFC Championship game, and then if the Patriots were still around, end their perfect season in the Super Bowl......."

---

ESPN - Manning, Giants head to Super Bowl for rematch with Pats.
Giants.com - Giants advance to Super Bowl XLII!
CapitalTimes - A quick review of Giants' 23-20 victory.
WisconsinStateJournal - Packers notes: Penalties hurt in third quarter.
WisconsinStateJournal - Packers: Extra painful loss ends season.
PackersNews - Packers' dream season comes to a bitter end in the bitter cold.
PackersNews - Burress burns Harris.
PackersNews - This stinker was a team effort.
PackersNews - Favre: 'I just didn't throw it outside enough'.
StarLedger - Giants reach Super Bowl as kicker gains redemption.
StarLedger - Eli steps out of Peyton's shadow and into spotlight.
StarLedger - Batteries recharged.
StarLedger - One fan volunteers for a view up close.
StarLedger - Webster emerges in secondary as hero.
StarLedger - A quick-kick trick.
StarLedger - Burriess burns a corner.
Newsday - Giants heading to Super Bowl.
Newsday - Giants reach Super Bowl on Tynes' OT field goal.
Newsday - Packers star Favre threw away his dream season.
Newsday - Some intrepid Giants fans make the frozen scene.
Newsday - Madison back from injury, but it hurts Giants.
Newsday - Giants rode belief in themselves to Super Bowl.
Newsday - Burress a towering presence in Giants victory.
NYDailyNews - Giants' next stop is Arizona.
NYDailyNews - It's a moment frozen in time.
NYDailyNews - Now he's the Mann of the hour.
NYDailyNews - This upset is ice as nice.
NYDailyNews - Wait to see Tynes goes overtime.
NYDailyNews - Corey's Web catches Favre.
NYDailyNews - Tynes' kick is a snap.
NYDailyNews - No duress for Plaxico Burress.
NYDailyNews - Brady, Pats bracing for Giant rematch.
NYDailyNews - Giants seek revenge for Week 17 loss.
NYDailyNews - Tuck rules in battle with pal Grant.
NYDailyNews - Is Brett Favre finished?
NYDailyNews - Ahmad looks like Super weapon to spring on Pats.
NYPost - 3rd Tynes a charm.
NYPost - Bench warmers get the job done.
NYPost - You'd better believe it: Coughlin's True Blue.
NYPost - Alford overcomes bad snap.
NYPost - He's a Brad man.
NYPost - Grant: Kudos to Jints.
NYPost - Super second chance for Strahan.
NYPost - Giants know what it takes to beat Pats.
NYPost - Cornering the market on big-game dramatics.
NYPost - Call him Brr-ess.
NYPost - Unbelievable: Favre can't save the day for ice-cold Pack.
NYPost - Eli's new Mann in NFC.
TheRecord - Tynes finally gets it right .
TheRecord - Kicker boots Big Blue into Super Bowl .
TheRecord - Kicker is big cheese.
LoHud - Patriots heavy favorites against Giants.

Game Preview Giants (12-6) vs Green Bay (14-3).
Last Saturday it looked like the Packers were on their way out. They were down 14-0 after only four minutes in their playoff game against Seattle, but fast forward to just the end of the quarter and it was all tied up. Fast forward to the end of the game, where Seattle scored only six more points to the Packers 28, and the final score is 42-20. That left the Pack wondering if they'd next be traveling to Dallas or be meeting up with the Giants at Lambeau Field.
On Sunday the Giants battled it out in Dallas and they surprised a number of people by upsetting a team they had lost to twice already this season. Especially surprised was owner Jerry Jones who reportedly slipped two tickets for the NFC Championship Game into last week's ticket package for his players. The game was tied 14-14 at the half and the Cowboys went ahead 17-14 in the third quarter, but that one field goal was all the Giants defense allowed them in that second half. The Giants scored one more touchdown to make it 21-17, and their defense held on to win when Dallas was on the Giants 23 with three plays left. They intercepted Tony Romo's fourth down pass to Terry Glenn in the endzone with nine seconds left to play.
Brett Favre. He owns records for wins (160), touchdown passes (442), passing yards (61,655) and completions (5,377). His record is 43-5 at Green Bay when the gametime temperature is 34 degrees or colder, and thanks to the Giants knocking off the Cowboys, he doesn't have to travel to Dallas where he is 0-9 lifetime.
Eli Manning. He's thrown eight touchdown passes with one interception over these critical last three games, and no picks in the playoffs. They'll probably call him 'Cool Hand Luke' if he puts on a successful showing against Green Bay. Not only for his demeanor, but you see, Eli doesn't like to play with a glove on his throwing hand, and the temperatures are predicted at around 4 degrees with a 10 mph wind. Manning had a real hot 132.4 passer rating last week at Dallas, but it tends to dip in the cooler regions and that could be trouble.

Daily News NFC title game playbooks

Credits: Vincent Jovic/News

Jan 20 There is a game Sunday night. It has the chance to be only one of the greatest nights the Giants have ever had if they can beat Brett Favre and the Packers.
Five times they have met for pro football's ultimate prize before Super Bowl entered the lexicon. Four times the Packers have won. The players who remain still remember.
As now, it was cold. That was the setting when last the Giants and Packers met for a championship. In those days, 1961 and '62, this was the end of the line. There was no Super Bowl, and few paid attention to the new league, the AFL. And, as now, it was cold. "It was just a miserable day," recalls Y.A. Tittle, 81, the Giants' quarterback and one of 17 Hall-of-Famers participating in the '62 game at Yankee Stadium.
I wonder how many of you wonderful geezers remember the Giant squads of those two years that lost back-to-back title games to Vince Lombardi's powerhouse Packers.

Stare at the display long enough and the grainy images of the frozen football players suddenly feel alive. The temperature in this basement room drops a few degrees and in an eye-blink, it is 1967 again and the Packers and Cowboys are playing for the NFL championship.
The coldest game in NFL history was not the 1967 NFL title game at Lambeau Field when the Packers beat Dallas 21-17 in the Ice Bowl. It was minus 13 that day and the wind chill factor was estimated at minus 48. But in the 1981 AFC championship game, while the temperature was minus-9, the wind chill plunged to minus-59 at Cincinnati as the Bengals beat San Diego 27-7.
The only thing that's preventing tonight's Giants-Packers from being played in daylight, when severe but regularly anticipated weather conditions will not be as severe, is money. The good of the game? You've got to be kidding.

Expect to see a lot of Brandon Jacobs early and often for New York.
"This is what the Giants have become: Let this big load find a hole," Ron Jaworski said as Brandon Jacobs rumbled in Texas. "They have morphed into a different team.
Running the ball remains a Giants staple and they must continue to do so with Jacobs and rookie Ahmad Bradshaw, who has shown little trepidation about carrying on a big stage.

The Giants are playing the Philly defense. And unlike the first time they faced Green Bay, it actually looks like it.
When Steve Spagnuolo turned down a chance to interview for the Falcons' head coaching position, rather than disrupt the Giants, who play the Packers for the NFC championship today in Green Bay, respect for him rose higher still. "This is too important a game to think about anything else," Spagnuolo said.

Eli Manning has beaten Jeff Garcia, the Giants killer, and Tony Romo, the Eli killer. Now he steps up in class Sunday and takes on the legendary Brett Favre, who is trying to write a fairy-tale ending to his career.
"We've played in cold weather, we've played in wind, we've played in snow, we've played in rain," Manning said late last week. "We've played in pretty much anything they've thrown at us this year, and I think whatever the conditions are on Sunday, we'll be OK."
Eli Manning said, he's prepared to go the entire game without a glove. If he tears up the Packers' defense, he'll do it with his bare hands.

Nearly everyone is wondering if the Giants are going to get the Good Eli or the Bad Eli in the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field, yet few people are harping on which Favre the Packers will get.
Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks of this or any generation, but he's also the NFL's all-time interception leader. That's a title he's earned in his 17-year-career, and the Giants' defense knows it. As capable as the Packers quarterback is of winning the game himself, he's equally capable of giving a spectacularly bad performance.
In a 35-13 Week 2 victory over the Giants, Favre passed John Elway as the winningest quarterback in league history (149 wins, now 160). In Week 4 at Minnesota, Favre eclipsed Dan Marino as the all-time leader in touchdown passes (421, now 442). In Week 15 at St. Louis, Favre surpassed Marino as the all-time leader in passing yards (now 61,655).

The Giants' secondary is still the issue. CB Aaron Ross will wear a harness to protect his shoulder, but CB Kevin Dockery (hip) is out, and Sam Madison, who hasn't played since he pulled an abdominal muscle against the Pats, has been limited. RT Kareem McKenzie will have to face DE Aaron Kampman on a wobbly ankle. Former practice player Geoffrey Pope could be rushed into service again..

It was the third game of the 1992 season when it all began. Brett Favre was in his first year in Green Bay after being traded from Atlanta following a washout rookie season that saw him complete no passes in four attempts. Two of those passes were intercepted.
Green Bay's season started in disarray after an irate Favre reportedly wanted to be dealt in May. And it was all because of Randy Moss. Concerned about his young and unproven receiving corps, Favre wanted Moss and was furious when New England acquired the mercurial receiver for a mere fourth-round pick.

Thanks to the combination of Packers protection and Brett Favre's ability to unload the ball quickly, the Packers have allowed only 19 sacks all season. The Giants, with their dominating pass rush, must find a way through and around this problem. Pressure Favre, and he does make mistakes.
Ryan Grant had 956 yards in seven starts, notching five 100-yard games along the way while averaging an eye-popping 5.1 yards a carry. The former Notre Dame standout was a big reason why Brett Favre was able to rejuvenate his career and the upstart Packers rolled to the NFC's No. 2 playoff seed.

Big Blue Bus just keeps rolling along. The Giants have won nine consecutive games on the road. Take a look back at the wild ride.
Tiki Barber said he has no regrets about retiring and added, "I'm proud of them. They've done a lot and accomplished a lot."

John Mara and fellow team executive Jonathan Tisch decided to keep Coughlin for one more year and give the GM job to Jerry Reese. "We took a lot of heat for those moves," Mara said Friday.
Tom Coughlin probably would have preferred duplicating Lombardi's dictatorial, no-nonsense style, the kind of coaching the Giants' boss grew up around. But he eventually learned you can't use that approach with today's players, nearly losing his job as a result of his unyielding ways.

What would possess a grown man to walk around with a cheese-shaped piece of foam on his head? "Girls," says Ralph Bruno, the inventor of the now-iconic Cheesehead. "It's a girl magnet."
To think, if it weren't for that girl coming up and trying on Ralph Burn's new hat, he might still have been known as the guy who made a cheese hat out of his mom's couch cushion. Instead, he's now known as the inventor of the Cheesehead.

Eli would have to win today and then lead the Giants to a Super Bowl championship to transform himself into an advertising darling like his older brother, who is practically ubiquitous during NFL commercial breaks.
The allegations that Brett Favre took a dive for Strahan - who had broken in free as Favre first looked downfield and then headed groundward before Strahan laid a finger on him - live to this day. And they have become a nettlesome conversation for both men.

Of course, players want to win their respective championship, but it's never the only goal. There are personal goals, contractual goals, easier to achieve goals. But since they're mostly kept quiet we're left to ponder what some of these secondary goals might have been for the 2007 Giants.
Eight true shrines that still survive in American sport. We've seeded them and everything, so for your office-pool convenience, here they are: 1. Yankee Stadium; 2. Lambeau Field; 3. Wrigley Field; 4. Fenway Park; 5. Notre Dame Stadium; 6. Rose Bowl; 7. Churchill Downs; 8. The Palestra.

The Big Blue backers were among the fortunate few on the high-end chartered trip for the team's first NFC title tilt in seven years. The group paid between $1,500 and $2,000 a person for the privilege of flying to Green Bay and spending three hours in near-zero temperatures at Lambeau Field.
They've followed every second of the Giants' games, but many season-ticket holders already are being told they won't get a seat to the Super Bowl if Big Blue wins the NFC Championship Sunday.

Jan 19 Packers' game plan simple: Pressure Eli. We have to get to him. It's no secret," Packers cornerback Charles Woodson said of the team's thoughts heading into Sunday's NFC Championsip Game against the Giants. Woodson stopped short of pulling a Ronde Barber and suggesting that Manning can "be had." But after listening to him and the rest of the Packers' secondary, it's clear that they believe Manning still is inexperienced enough to be taken out of his game plan by early pressure.
Eli Manning's famous father, Archie, and his older brother, Peyton, who does the commercials, made the Giants think the Manning gene pool was capable of producing one more great right arm. It didn't happen right away, but maybe, just maybe, the kid brother is ready to keep playing the kind of games expected of him. The last three weeks, he's been the Giants' bright and shining star: lost to the perfect Patriots by three points, outplayed Tampa's Jeff Garcia, a known Giants killer, in the first round of the playoffs. A week later, Eli put away the Cowboys and their exciting quarterback, Tony (the Romeo) Romo.
To combat the arctic temperatures expected in Green Bay, Eli Manning will wear a glove on his left (non-throwing) hand tomorrow night. The Giants quarterback has practiced with the glove all week and said he felt comfortable with it. "I think really the main purpose of that is just securing the snap," Manning said. "If it does get cold, if those balls get slick and whatnot, just having that little extra grip on your left hand just so you don't drop any snaps or drop any balls." Manning has had issues controlling the football in cold weather. In a Week 16 victory over the Bills, played in a swirl of rain and snow, Manning fumbled five times -- losing three.

Phil Simms, lead analyst for CBS, was MVP of the Giants' Super Bowl victory against the Broncos in 1987, completing 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards, numbers longtime Giants fans can recite by heart. That was his eighth season. Drafted in the first round in 1979, Simms didn't establish himself and begin winning over the fans until 1984, when he led the Giants to the playoffs. In 1986, he completed a fourth-and-17 pass to Bobby Johnson to keep a winning drive alive in Minnesota, and in the playoffs, where the Giants defense dominated, Simms threw little in victories over the 49ers and Redskins, but completed all the big ones, mastering the 9-yard pass on third-and-8.

When it comes to talent, there's no comparison between Peyton Manning and Jessica Simpson. But their impact on their favorite quarterbacks is eerily similar - they are both jinxes. The last time Simpson showed up at Texas Stadium, Dallas' Tony Romo had his worst game of the season. The only time Peyton came to Giants Stadium in 2007, little brother Eli had the worst game of his career. That might not be the only reason Peyton will be a no-show in Green Bay for tomorrow NFC's Championship Game, but their dad, Archie, certainly indicated yesterday it was a factor.

They took off at 1 in the afternoon on their United charter. Destination: Super Bowl, with a stopover in Green Bay. And yesterday, 48 hours from Brett Favre and the ghosts of Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr and Paul Hornung and Ray Nitschke and all the others, 60 minutes from the Super Bowl, there was an unmistakable "bring it on" look in the eyes of every defiant Giant, a "bring it on" sound in every voice. Big Blue Ghostbusters. With each passing hour, they warm to the challenge of a frigid football Ground Zero, or below, vowing a fight to the finish that will do all the old Giants greats proud, burning to bring it home, bring that precious chance for a third Super Bowl championship, home to New York.

The Giants' turnaround from a horrid start has been remarkable. From the depths of despair, the Giants pulled a 10-6 season out of their helmets, followed by the first two playoff wins of the Tom Coughlin/Eli Manning era. Now here they are, in a place nobody expected - at Lambeau Field tomorrow night playing for an NFC title. Down in the raucous winning locker room at Texas Stadium last Sunday, a giddy Mara was asked if he was surprised. "To be honest with you," he said, "I am a little bit." But the turnaround didn't catch everyone off guard. "I told John and Tom at that time, there's no way we're that bad and all we needed is to get one win to build our confidence," Reese said. "And that's what happened. A lot of this game starts between your ears."

Steve Smith fractured a shoulder blade in the second game of the season and pulled a hamstring while preparing to return, forcing him to the inactive list for 11 straight games. "Guys have been on me tough about me redshirting this season and whatever," he said. He knows it's just joking among teammates. "But I always took that kind of hard inside," he said. Rather than shut him down, the Giants stuck with their sidelined second-rounder - and Smith has turned into a valuable asset in this playoff run. After catching only eight balls for 63 yards in the regular season, Smith has seven catches for 77 yards in two postseason appearances.

This is the game that Tom Coughlin has never won, and he looked eager to win it Friday when he stepped to the microphones for a press conference simulcast on the NFL Network. He was pretty snazzy for an old curmudgeon, sporting a neatly knotted purple tie and an American flag pin stuck in his lapel. Not a gray hair was out of place. He smiled and bantered with the press. He didn't want to talk about Eli Manning's left-hand glove, he said. He didn't want to talk about the weather in Green Bay. He didn't want to talk about the Patriots. He wanted to talk about the challenge of the Packers, and about his own team.
Coughlin's made-over image has garnered him control of his locker room. Notoriously combative with his players because of the militaristic precision in which he runs meetings and sets dress codes, Coughlin now has a legion of supporters who sing his praises. "He's become more -- what is the word -- approachable," said safety James Butler. "You can talk to him now. You can talk about football, X's and O's, really about anything." And that's where Coughlin now excels.
"You work awfully hard to get into position to do something special with a season," Coughlin said early yesterday morning in his Giants Stadium office, 60 hours shy of the NFC Championship showdown between his Giants and the Packers. "You prepare for every possibility, and then you have to hope that preparation is meaningful when you need it most. Like Sunday." Those are Coughlin's words, told in Coughlin's football voice, but they are rooted in another coach, a basketball coach, a man Coughlin has spoken to but never met, a man who helped alter so much of what Coughlin thought he knew about the business of coaching. And he continues to shape the version we see on the sidelines each Sunday.
Coughlin altered his demeanor somewhat under direct orders from headquarters. When team president John Mara and vice president Jonathan Tisch handed him a one-year extension after a disappointing 8-8 season, part of the conditions included a change in demeanor toward his players and a calmer presence on the sidelines. In essence, he had to become a more approachable coach. Coughlin did that, and it led not only to a calmer locker-room situation, but a unified team as well. "From a player's perspective, me being one of the older guys on the team and being with him for four years now, I've seen some things he's done for the better," 41-year-old punter Jeff Feagles said. "He's done a great job."

When Jeff Feagles steps on the field to punt, as he has done for 1,632 times in his NFL career, his success is hitched to one main factor: angles. One of the few remaining coffin-corner punters in the NFL, Feagles slants the ball's trajectory, aiming for the 10-yard line at one of the sidelines to pin the ball deep in enemy territory. The art is a precise one, but Feagles promises he's no math whiz. Make mention of the Pythagorean theorem, and the Giants punter just laughs. "I'm sure my son would (know)," Feagles said. "I feel the angle."

Former linebacker Harry Carson will be one of the Giants' honorary captains, but Coughlin did not say if Carson will speak. At times, players currently on the roster are chosen, and one who certainly could get the call is Michael Strahan, who at 38 years old is second only to punter Jeff Feagles (41) in terms of age and, in his 15th season, is the longest-tenured Giants player.

One day, Brett Favre will finally retire, hang up his green No.4 jersey for good and walk out of Lambeau Field into the sunset and toward his farm in Mississippi. And when that happens, the world will come to an end in Wisconsin and Green Bay will "shut down," as Donald Driver jokes. Cheeseheads, though, should have nothing to fear since that day doesn't appear to be close. Favre has hinted that he will return for an 18th season.

The Favre-to-Jennings connection will pose a tremendous challenge to the Giants in tomorrow night's NFC Championship Game. Jennings, a second-year player, has 14 touchdowns in 14 regular-season and playoff games this season and was named a Pro Bowl alternate. Even though Driver is headed to the Pro Bowl, Jennings has usurped him as the Packers' main big-play threat and one of football's brightest young stars. "I knew right away the guy could play," Favre said of Jennings. "You can tell when guys have talent and their character and stuff like that. I thought highly of him right from the start."

From the weight room to the trainer's room to the locker room to the head coach's office, the Green Bay Packers have made injury prevention just about their highest priority over the last two years. The fact they've been wildly successful in this initiative under coach Mike McCarthy might well be as big a reason as any to explain why a team that was 4-12 in 2005 is now 14-3 and one victory away from the Super Bowl.

Jan 18 Ticket prices for Sunday's Giants-Packers NFC title tilt soared yesterday, along with hotel costs, as Titletown turned into a profiteer's paradise. The $148 face value seats were going for anywhere from $495 to upward of $2,000 on eBay and StubHub. A prime room in the Regency Suites in downtown was at $529 a night - more than a Saturday night stay at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Ave. Come back next weekend, and the same Green Bay room is available for under $100.
NFC Championship Game Tickets   -  Buy or Sell

The transformation of Eli Manning into a mistake-free quarterback is the biggest story of the Giants' season. After tying for the league lead with 20 INTs, Manning has yet to throw a pick in the postseason and has thrown eight TDs vs. one INT the last three games. Growing in confidence and aided by a less-complex game plan, Manning has engineered drives with more poise and vision than he has ever shown in his entire career. Now he must do it in adverse weather and against a balanced, physical defense.

The nasty general manager of the Fox affiliate in Green Bay said he's yanking Eli Manning's favorite TV show, "Seinfeld," while the Giants are in town. But have no fear - the funnyman (Jerry Seinfeld) told The Post yesterday he'll equip the quarterback with all the shows he needs. "I'm going to send Eli a complete collection of 'Seinfeld' DVDs," the consummate New Yorker said, "and a partial collection of 'Hogan's Heroes' for inspiration!"

How to beat the Packers - The temperature will be about zero by kickoff Sunday night in Green Bay. The opposing quarterback is going to the Hall of Fame. The running back has emerged as an overnight star. The defense has one of the best pass rushers in the league and arguably the best set of bookend corners. You bet the Packers will be a formidable opponent. But certainly not an unbeatable one.

In just his second season as the Packers quarterback, Brett Favre played his first game in freezing Lambeau conditions on Dec. 26, 1993 and led the Packers to a 28-0 rout over the then-Los Angeles Raiders. And he hated almost every second of it. "I don't want to say it was unbearable; I guess unbearable is you can't be in it," Favre said. "But it was as close to it as it could possibly be. And I just remember thinking it's hard to play in this." This weekend is slated to be the most bone-chilling weekend of the winter in Green Bay.
The National Football League and its TV partners are gaga over anything that will jack up the ratings - even bad weather. Last Saturday, when he saw snow falling in Green Bay before Seahawks-Packers, Fox Sports prez Ed Goren had one question for Roger Goodell. "Can we get the special effects to continue during the game?" Goren asked the commissioner. Goren believes snow has a "positive" effect on the ratings. "I've always gone into these things rooting for snow," he said without a trace of compunction.

The forecast is still calling for a deep freeze on Sunday night in Green Bay, but the Giants and Packers have turned up the heat leading up to the NFC Championship Game. It all boiled over Thursday when the Giants heard that the Packers had accused them of being cheap-shot artists. The Giants' response was a mix of shock and amusement. They also warned the Packers to be ready for even more. "We just go out there and we play football, and if some people play through the whistle? Oh well," said right tackle Kareem McKenzie. "We're just dedicated to our jobs."
Late in the Week 2 loss to the Packers, Shaun O'Hara allegedly gave DE Aaron Kampman a forearm to the back of the head after a play. The two then got into a wrestling match and Kampman griped to the media afterward, saying, "I had a player that did something real dirty to me. This was stuff that he shouldn't be doing and he won't do it again." All of this ill-will resurfaced yesterday when the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published a story quoting several Packers players talking about the Giants' dirty tactics. O'Hara, who rarely engages in after-the-whistle shoves, tried to play dumb on the issue of Kampman's claims against him. "I'm not really sure off the top of my head what the reference is," he said, "but if there's no flag, there's no foul."

Well, we can officially begin our countdown to kickoff now, because the Giants New York Giants have officially been dissed by another dastardly foe. We can count that as part of the regular weekly checklist by now: 1. Learn the game plan. 2. Pack a suitcase (include the earmuffs this week). 3. Listen to the lament du jour emanating from the opposing locker room.
When these two teams last met in Week 2, the Packers were whistled for two defensive personal fouls. Green Bay had six defensive personal fouls all season long. Packers coach Mike McCarthy has warned his team to keep its cool against the Giants on Sunday in the NFC Championship Game. Careful not to pull a Patrick Crayton, the Packers repeatedly praised the Giants for being smart and physical. But the Packers believe Giants center Shaun O'Hara took some questionable shots at Jenkins and defensive end Aaron Kampman during Green Bay's 35-13 victory over the Giants at the Meadowlands on Sept.16.

Hall of Famer Harry Carson is wild about the Giants. "I feel very confident this team can win this game," Carson told The Post, "and they will win." He never wore longjohns, or thermals, or even a T-shirt beneath his No. 53, no matter how cold it got, just vaseline on his massive arms and a scowl that instilled fear in lesser men. "Some guys would look at me and they thought I was crazy," Carson said. "For me, it was mind over matter."
Amid all the hullabaloo this week over how the Giants will stay warm at Lambeau Field Sunday, one thing is certain: none of the offensive linemen will be wearing long sleeves. "It's one of those unspoken things," said lineman Grey Ruegamer. "Water is wet, linemen don't wear sleeves. Same thing." The players said breaking that creed would incur an O-line-imposed fine of a couple hundred dollars -- seriously -- so the best bet is to lotion up and brave the elements.

One year ago, Steve Smith was getting ready for the NFL combine, hopeful he someday might join former USC teammates like Reggie Bush in the pro ranks. He took time off on championship Sunday to watch Bush and his new teammates from New Orleans play Chicago for the NFC title. "I was just hoping I'd get the chance to play in the NFL at the time," he recalled. "Me and [Dwayne] Jarrett and some other guys got together to watch Reggie. But it never crossed my mind that I might be playing in that game this season." Yet Smith is preparing to help the Giants try to do what Bush could not help the Saints achieve last season, clear the final NFC hurdle and reach the Super Bowl.
More on - The Giants: How their class of 2007 draft picks fared.

In a nutshell, what would Phil Simms tell Giant fans about their team's chances Sunday night in Green Bay? "You're big and you're physical and you can run the football and you can rush the passer probably better than anybody in the NFL," Simms said. "What is there to complain about? You gotta like your chances."
Former Giants coach Jim Fassel will be a color analyst for the game for Westwood One radio. "After two games, you could have put a fork in the Giants, but they came back, and you have to give them credit. This is an entirely different defense. They got one sack [against the Packers in September], and [Brett] Favre threw three touchdown passes. Right now the Giants can put more pressure on the quarterback than anyone in the league." Good thing for them, too - since Favre was sacked just 19 times in the regular season, third-fewest in the league. Then there's Eli Manning's transformation. "Eli has been up and down, but he has played extremely well the last three games,'' Fassel said of the Giants QB. "But their defense has been extraordinary since the first two games. They went from porous to average to good to great."

Steve Spagnuolo has changed everything about this Giants defense from the day he took over as coordinator last January. When it turned from a confused group that allowed 80 points in the first two games into a relentless, attacking bunch that allowed only 46 points in a 5 1/2-game stretch, the biggest credit Spagnuolo got was for not giving up on his plan. Now that the defense has been the driving force behind the Giants' trip to the NFC Championship Game, Spagnuolo's biggest achievement as a first-year coordinator might be his willingness to listen.
Late in the Giants' Week 2 loss to the Packers, a Fox camera panned the bench, showing a demoralized, dispirited defense. But it was sideline reporter Pam Oliver's voiceover that really hit home. She disgustedly noted the unit's lack of emotion and leadership, adding, "These guys have just been dead all day." The Giants were unamused, notably Antonio Pierce and Michael Strahan, who later that week had this to say when asked about Oliver's observations: "That's crap." Four months later ... all is forgiven. Oliver was at Giants Stadium Thursday interviewing some of her old pals, including Strahan, and even has become a lucky charm of sorts. Some Giants wanted to be sure she would be on their sideline Sunday as she was for the victory over the Cowboys. She will be.

Despite Strahan's tendency to be high maintenance, he still hasn't lost a smidgen of respect from his teammates. And the nightmarish talents he brings to the defensive line -- especially while collecting a team-high 16 postseason tackles as the Giants have reached the NFC Championship Game -- have galvanized a unit that has had to use spare parts in the secondary. "This year, he's been a joy to be around," linemate Justin Tuck said yesterday. "He's not only improved my game, but when he gets out on that football field, he's still a different guy. He brings the best out of people."
After all these years, Strahan's brute hands are as impressive as Brett Favre's quick release. In Week 2, when Strahan was hardly in top game shape and Favre was working without running back Ryan Grant, the Packers broke it open in the fourth quarter, against a Giant defense still working out kinks. The ties that bind Strahan and Favre are complex. Both still bristle when people suggest they conspired together in a 2001 game between the Giants and the Packers, with Favre purposely falling so Strahan could record sack No. 22.5, a single-season NFL record.
"I look at all the stories and everything that's been written that is like, 'This is Brett's last swan song,' or his [last] chance to go the Super Bowl and all that stuff, and I look at it as the same way for me," Strahan said. Strahan doesn't understand why America should be pulling for Favre in Sunday's NFC Championship game at Lambeau Field - especially considering Favre already has a Super Bowl ring. Strahan, on the other hand, has an empty Super Bowl trophy case to show for his 15-year pro career. The same goes for Giants wideout Amani Toomer (12 years) and punter Jeff Feagles (an amazing 20 years).

The Giants have maintained over the past few years that "you can never have too many pass-rushers." And in Justin Tuck, they have that and more. They have a bullish, run-stopping player who is best suited to be Strahan's successor on the left side. That's where the end who's more adept at stopping the run plays because most offenses call most of their power runs to their right side. The Giants and defensive end Justin Tuck have agreed to terms on a five-year, $30-million contract that includes $16 million in guaranteed money, according to two people with knowledge of the contract details. The people requested anonymity because the deal isn't expected to be finalized and signed until today -- two days before the Giants face the Packers in the NFC Championship Game.

R.W. McQuarters, who had zero interceptions in the regular season, ended Tampa Bay's final scoring chance in the Giants' 24-14 win with an interception with 2:10 left. Then came last week's game-clinching play when he stepped in front of Tony Romo's fourth-and-11 pass intended for Terry Glenn, sending Cowboys fans to the exits. McQuarters has been part of a makeshift secondary the last two weeks that on Sunday faces at least as stiff a challenge as last week's. Dallas brought Romo and the league's second-highest-scoring offense; this week it's Brett Favre and the league's second-ranked passing offense (270.9 yards per game), which dissected the Giants in a 35-13 Week 2 victory.

Lawrence Tynes was walking toward the exit in the Giants' locker room Thursday, his long line of questions about kicking in frigid weather finally over, when he turned back with one final thought. "Just don't go talk to Jay," Tynes requested. The Giants placekicker was talking about Jay Alford, the rookie who handles the snaps for Tynes' kicks. Unlike many of his peers, Tynes is not superstitious. At least not for himself. But when it comes to Alford or fellow rookie Zak DeOssie, the team's punt snapper, Tynes doesn't want thoughts of the cold heating up in their heads. "Jay doesn't know any better," Tynes said. "Let's keep it that way."

Tom Coughlin does not want to be the story. "This is not about me," the Giants' coach said Wednesday. "It is about our team, it is about the New York Giants, it is about our players and coaches, and the challenges that you get each week in the National Football League and the attempt to lead your team successfully each time out. This is what this is all about. It is not about me." But in the NFL, the coach is always the story, whether it is at the start of a tenure -- when expectations and optimism often are at their peak -- or the inevitable point when every coach finds himself with vultures circling overhead.

Dear loyal Packers fans, So a Wisconsin father gets arrested this week for forcing his 7-year-old son to wear a Packers jersey - by taping it to him - and I'm thinking these Green Bay folks sure have lightened up. What happened to the time when fathers taped cheese to their son's heads, as well? In all honesty, I have great respect for you people of Green Bay, despite the actions of this Packer-crazed father. The deep love you display for your football team is so obvious every Sunday when you show up at Lambeau Field oblivious to the fact that the windchill effect makes it feel like it's 10 below. You're a crazy bunch.
The Frozen Tundra actually never freezes. Not on the watch of Allen Johnson, Fields Manager at the new-fangled old Lambeau Field, who promises an entirely playable field in near-zero temperatures for the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. "You have to remember that we reconstructed the entire field this off-season," said Johnson. "That included the heat system, although it is very similar to the one of the past nine years. "We're confident it has enough capacity to keep the ground unfrozen." More than 30 miles of pipe that can fry the turf up to 50 degrees, although Johnson won't disclose how high he'll crank it Sunday.

It doesn't take but five minutes to get from Lambeau Field to this city's second-biggest tourist destination. A stadium security guard quickly ticks off the directions, as if it's something he believes everyone should already know. "Take Lombardi Avenue to Holmgren Way," he says. "Make a right, then a left on Brett Favre Pass. Can't miss it." He isn't kidding. Brett Favre's Steakhouse really should be called Brett Favre's Steak Hangar, with its almost 20,000 square feet of space devoted to all things Favre.
One fan's jinx is another fan's treasure. Just ask the several hundred Green Bay Packer fans queued up yesterday outside Bosse's News Stand and Smoke Shop, waiting in a soft morning snowfall to grab copies of the new Sports Illustrated - with cover boy Brett Favre. The future Hall of Famer's photo raised questions about the infamous SI jinx, long (and somewhat inaccurately) said to submarine any athlete or team featured on the cover. In downtown Green Bay, nobody was buying that - and everybody was snapping up copies of the magazine, at $4.50 a pop.

This season the Packers have arguably the best cornerback tandem in football. In the NFC Championship Game on Sunday, Giants receivers Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer will try their luck against Harris and Woodson. And that matchup will go a long way toward determining who represents the NFC in Super Bowl XLII. "For my money, they're the best pair in football," Packers cornerbacks coach Lionel Washington said. "There's no other pair I'd rather have." It's easy to see why. The Packers' scheme is predicated on their corners being able to excel in bump-and-run coverage that disrupts the timing of passing games. Each player is extremely physical at the line of scrimmage and uses every inch of the 5 yards where contact is legal. Neither has great speed, but both still run well enough to frustrate opponents all over the field.
When Charles Woodson was a free agent two seasons ago, the cornerback's agent kept receiving phone calls from the Packers. Each time, Woodson would just ignore those calls and pretend they never happened. "I was trying my best to either get to Jacksonville or Tampa Bay," Woodson said after leaving Oakland in 2006. Woodson was avoiding Green Bay at all costs. And it wasn't just because of the arctic climate. The 31-year-old had heard that Green Bay could be a frosty place to African-Americans. But with nobody else calling his agent, Woodson signed with the Packers and now finds himself playing in the NFC Championship Game against the Giants on Sunday.
For $10 million up front, $18 million for the first four years of a seven-year deal, Woodson in 2005 signed himself off to Siberia, host of Sunday's NFC Championship game against the Giants New York Giants. At starting corner for Green Bay, and now in the corner of its Chamber of Commerce, is Woodson. "It started off kind of slow," he said. "The organization, nightlife, just being in Green Bay, the whole thing. Woodson is not going to retire here. He's not picking out furniture with Coach Mike McCarthy, either. "Charles and I had some big growing pains in his initial stages here," said McCarthy, who could finance another total refurbishment of Lambeau Field with all the fines he collected from Woodson.

Jan 17 Sunday, Steve Spagnuolo once again made all the right in-game adjustments, as the Giants held the Cowboys offense to 141 yards and three points in the second half. With the offense gaining a mere 57 yards in the final two quarters, Spagnuolo's adjustments proved to be the difference between the Giants vacationing on a tropical island this weekend and heading to Green Bay for an icy matchup with the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. It wasn't the first time Spagnuolo tweaked his scheme in the middle of the game. And it won't be the last, either.

Steve Smith missed 11 consecutive games in the heart of the Giants' season with the scapula and hamstring injuries, but has come back the past three weeks with clutch receptions in the season's most crucial games. And with tight end Jeremy Shockey on injured reserve and Plaxico Burress continuing to play hurt, there is no better time than the playoffs for Smith to step in as the tertiary receiving threat the team wanted when it drafted him in the second round out of USC.

On the flight back from Dallas late Sunday night, Amani Toomer sat across the aisle from Michael Strahan, reliving the moment they had just shared. A few hours earlier, they had been hugging in the locker room. On the plane, they were two old men, feeling like kids, sharing one more improbable ride. It's a ride that the 33-year-old Toomer once wondered if he'd ever get to experience again. Now that he is, with the Giants in the NFC Championship Game for just the second time in his 12-year career, he's intent on making the most of this opportunity. He's also determined to enjoy it more than he did the last time, too.

Giants guard Rich Seubert grew up in Marshfield, Wis., about an hour-and-a-half west of Green Bay. His parents still live there and will be at Lambeau Field on Sunday when the Giants meet the Packers for the NFC championship. "If your son plays for the New York Giants, then you root for the New York Giants," Seubert said when asked which way his folks will be leaning. "If not, I won't be your son anymore."

The Giants mix-and-match secondary will have a bull's-eye on its back Sunday. Beset by injuries that continue to mount, the Big Blue defensive backs now have to face certain Hall-of-Famer Brett Favre and the Packers in the NFC Championship game Sunday. As if that wasn't intimidating enough, the Giants might have to stop Favre with one cornerback who was benched for ineffectiveness early in the season (Corey Webster) and another cut in September by the lowly Dolphins (Geoff Pope). Big Blue's response: Bring it on.
Aaron Ross insisted his twice-dislocated shoulder is fine -- really. But at practice yesterday, the rookie cornerback had issues even lifting his right arm. During an individual drill in which the cornerbacks bat down passes, Ross reached across his body with his healthy arm to make plays on the floaters. Nevertheless, he expects to be ready for Sunday's NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. Ross will wear a brace to prevent his shoulder from popping out of the socket, something less bulky than the leather model he wore during practice yesterday.

The Giants know the cauldron of chaos they are stepping into, know the Cheesehead-wearing collection of Packers lunatics will seek to intimidate them from the moment they step onto the frozen field. A 9-1 road record and an NFL single-season record of nine consecutive road victories has hardened a bunch that did not crack in Texas Stadium and will have to hold together once again.
The Giants have decided how they will deal with the frigid elements of Lambeau Field in Sunday's NFC Championship Game. They're going to ignore them. That includes Eli Manning, who must go up against the greatest cold-weather quarterback of all time in Brett Favre. Manning, by the way, has played in one game in which the temperature dipped below 30 degrees, while his two performances in severe conditions this year, at home against the Redskins and at Buffalo, would hardly inspire confidence. So what, say the Giants.

During his nine-year career, mostly as a backup center and guard, Grey Ruegamer has been around some of the very best, having been a teammate of Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Brett Favre and, for the past two years, Eli Manning. As you may have suspected, Favre is a trip. "Just the energy after the game," said Ruegamer, who has played a big part in the Giants playoff success, starting at center in place of injured Shaun O'Hara in the 24-14 wild card victory in Tampa. "He would always have a joke for something, he'd always have fun, you knew you could always count on him, he was one of those guys who would always come through.

Logic tells us this isn't supposed to be Eli Manning vs. Brett Favre, this is about the Giants and the Packers, offense vs. defense, so on and so forth. But logic has no place in this equation. Logic has no place in the visceral approach we're going to have walking into this game, and walking out of it. All we know is this: Eli Manning can make his bones for good this Sunday. All he has to do is beat the Green Bay Packers. All he has to do is outplay Brett Favre. All he has to do is keep this Big Blue magical mystery tour motoring on toward Phoenix. Sometimes, you can simplify a game's essence to one sentence, here is that sentence: Eli can make his career on Sunday.
When Eli Manning was a youngster in New Orleans, he spent a lot of time watching Brett Favre play quarterback and pulling for the guy from up the road in Mississippi. "Brett has his own way about him and his own way of playing that I don't know if anyone can exactly top him," the Giants' quarterback said of his opposite number in Sunday's NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. "He does it and gets away with it and looks like he's having fun out there. "He's always been a fun player to watch."
Brett Favre likes to joke about how old he is, but the mere sight of Eli Manning playing against him on Sunday will make the 38-year-old feel as ancient as Lambeau Field. Favre has known the Manning family for years. He first met Eli when the youngest Manning was in high school. "We grew up in pretty much the same area, and I think the first time I saw Eli I was at my then-uncle's bar a long, long time ago," the Mississippi product said Wednesday at Lambeau. "I can't remember if I helped him get in or what. But that's a different story." On Sunday, Favre won't try to help Manning get into another place he has never been before - the Super Bowl.

For 16 winters, he has been the ultimate cold-weather warrior. We've seen image after image of the pink-faced Brett Favre working his magic in the middle of a snowstorm. We've seen him rub his raw-looking hands together, reach for the snap and then deliver it through a strong Wisconsin wind like he was playing catch on a beach somewhere. Yet, as he faces what will be one of the coldest and most important games of his Hall of Fame career, Favre let the media in on a little secret yesterday: He doesn't particularly like the cold.
The ice water in Brett Favre's veins that made his reputation as the greatest cold-weather quarterback there ever was, strictly was an accident of birth. "I grew up in South Mississippi, never seeing the snow or, rarely, freezing weather," said the Packers quarterback yesterday. "But someone has to do it, if not, they'll play somebody else. "I consider it a huge challenge. But I don't know if you ever get used it. I do remember the first really cold day that sticks out in my mind. We (defeated) the Raiders here (28-0 at zero degrees at kickoff on Dec. 26, 1993).

It's possible to get lost in a city of several million, especially if you weren't named to the Pro Bowl, or led the NFL in rushing, or never bothered to choreograph a funny end zone dance, or were declared dead in September. Such is the plight of the Giants, who might get to the Super Bowl faster than they'll get respect. It's quite possible that no New York team has ever gone this far on less pub, unless it was one of the hockey teams, and in which case, who'd know?
If any of the younger Giants need a reminder of how precious playoff advancement is, they need only confer with punter Jeff Feagles. This is his first trip to a championship game in his 20-year career. "It's very special for me," the 41-year-old Feagles said. "I've been on some bad teams, but I kept persevering. I always said, maybe it'll happen someday. "I tell all the rookies, 'Look how lucky you are. Just look at myself.' I haven't ever felt like how I felt after that game in Dallas." Feagles, who has played in an NFL-record 323 consecutive games, toiled with New England, Philadelphia, Arizona and Seattle before coming to the Giants in 2003. Before this season he had played in just six playoff games, two of which came with the Giants.

The challenge the Giants are facing seems as impossible now as it did to Pittsburgh two years ago. But the coach who guided those Steelers to the Super Bowl by winning three straight playoff games on the road believes the Giants are up to the task. Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach, said he sees a lot of similarities between these Giants and his 2005 Steelers team. And he said his team got to the Super Bowl by riding the same wave of momentum and emotion he sees the Giants riding now. "They're playing with as high a level of confidence as any team I've ever seen," Cowher told the Daily News yesterday. "If you keep counting them out, they're going to feed on that."
Eli Manning has operated much more efficiently the past three games, and there's a theory floating around that part of the reason is because of the absence of TE Jeremy Shockey, who on Dec. 16 went down with a fractured fibula and ankle. "I think it's helped them from the standpoint of, yeah, there's times when you see Eli Manning try to force the ball to Jeremy Shockey and Kevin Boss, the new guy in there, seems to be fitting in perfectly for them," Dan Marino said on this week's edition of HBO's Inside the NFL. "I think it has helped to a certain point because Shockey's not actually the greatest route runner at times."
Asked if the Giants were built to win this game, Aikman said: "I think in a lot of ways they are. I think from an offensive standpoint, they are a team that wants to run the football - they've always been that. It's not like you're taking the 2000 St. Louis Rams and asking: 'Can you play in these conditions?' It's not like the Giants are a dome team either. They've maybe practiced outside more in recent weeks than the Packers have. They've got a big, punishing back in Brandon Jacobs. Now they've got Ahmad Bradshaw, who I've been thoroughly impressed with."

It'd be nice to know the real truth behind the biggest NFL heist of 2007. That would be the acquisition of running back Ryan Grant, the Nyack native who comes off a 201-yard, three-touchdown playoff game against Seattle. The Packers got the Giants' former undrafted practice-squadder for - get this - a sixth-round pick.
Ryan Grant could barely contain his smile on Wednesday, on the verge of the NFC Championship Game. Not because the Giants traded him to the Packers before the season but because Grant knows he's fortunate just to be standing after he nearly bled to death following a freak accident at a Manhattan nightclub. Grant was with a few of his Giants teammates, including Osi Umenyiora, when somebody bumped into him. Grant lost his footing and braced his fall with his left hand, hitting a table full of champagne glasses and slicing open his arm, severing an artery, a nerve and a tendon.
"I don't have a grudge," the emergent rookie Green Bay running back, a Rockland County product, said yesterday. "I am excited for them and excited for myself. "It was shocking because I didn't think I would be leaving. I was told that I had made the team, that I wasn't going anywhere, but I don't take anything personal. No hard feelings toward the organization. There are a lot of things I learned from them. If I didn't learn that, I probably wouldn't be in the situation I am today."

On his first three NFL playoff carries, Ryan Grant fumbled twice and had allowed the Seahawks to build a quick 14-0 lead. "I said, 'Oh, boy, this is the exact game I did not want to be in,' " Brett Favre said. But some funny things happened surrounding Grant. As teammates approached him to give him words of encouragement, they found him approaching them, especially the offensive linemen, shaking their hands, promising them that he'd hold on to the ball the rest of the way, and that they should just keep on doing what they were doing. And they were saying the same things to him. Especially Favre, the ancient legend on what is the youngest team in the NFL. Favre told Grant, "Believe me ... if there's one person to know what it's like to be in (your) shoes, it's me. Forget about it. You're going to have plenty of opportunities. Go down swinging, man."
John Allegretta is a Giants season-ticket holder, a lifelong fan born and raised in the shadow of the Meadowlands. This is something for which he begins every season dreaming about: His team is one win away from the Super Bowl, one of only four teams left standing. Of course, there's one catch about the NFC Championship Game against the Green Bay Packers three days from now: Allegretta won't be rooting for his Giants. "I was brought up to bleed Giant blue," said Allegretta, 23. "But I've got my Notre Dame Ryan Grant jersey, No. 4, all ready to go. I love the Giants, but I'll be rooting for Ryan Grant over them any day of the week." He isn't the only one in North Jersey with divided loyalty this week when it comes to Grant, whose out-of-nowhere rise to prominence as the featured running back in Green Bay's offense has received tremendous national attention.

In Green Bay they think their story is better than the Giants' story because of Brett Favre, who wasn't supposed to ever get near another game like this. In Green Bay they think their team is the team of destiny in pro football, because Favre now gets one more game like this at Lambeau Field. He only fits the place the way DiMaggio fit the Stadium and Jackie Robinson fit Ebbets Field and the old Knicks fit the Garden.

It is with mixed emotions that Archie Manning and his wife, Olivia, will travel to Green Bay this weekend to watch the Giants face the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. Not that they aren't happy for Eli; they're delighted. It's just that they'd hoped to split up for the weekend's games, with one going to New England to see Peyton's Colts playing the unbeaten Patriots. No go. The Colts were upset by the Chargers last Sunday at home.

Tom Coughlin has been The Heartbreak Kid of head coaches, 60 minutes from the Super Bowl in 1997 and again in 2000, and here he comes again, with a team just like him, a team that never stops coming at you. Coughlin got himself a Super Bowl ring when Scott Norwood went wide right, but Bill Parcells was the one who took those Giants to Super Bowl XXV. Coughlin, the wide receivers coach, toiled in the shadows..

John Mara cherished the walk last Sunday from the press box at Texas Stadium to the elevator and down to the noisy and euphoric winning locker room where there was a lot of hugging going on. But there was still a touch of sadness in his heart as he thought about how much his father would have enjoyed making that trek with him. "He would have loved that walk down and listening to the coach talk to the team," John Mara said Wednesday. "It was something he lived for." For it to happen in Dallas would have been extra special.

Jan 16 One day after Super Bowl XLI, Las Vegas Sports Consultants put out odds on winning Super Bowl XLII. Leading the way in the NFC were Chicago (6-1), New Orleans (12-1), Seattle (15-1), Dallas (18-1), Philadelphia (20-1) and Carolina (25-1). Seventh in the NFC were the Giants at 30-1. One of three NFC teams at 75-1 were the Packers. A pair of 8-8 teams from a year ago will settle the NFC championship Sunday night at Lambeau Field. The Packers (14-3) have been established as a 7-point favorite to defeat the Giants (12-6). That made perfect sense to three assistant coaches and two executives in personnel, all of whom played at least one of the two teams this season and all of whom picked the Packers.
The Green Bay Packers almost never lose at Lambeau Field in January, and Brett Favre has hardly ever lost there when the temperature has dipped below freezing. It is about the most inhospitable place on Earth as far as the rest of the NFL is concerned. But the location and the beyond frigid forecast won't be the only things sending a chill up the Giants' spines. There is the strong and speedy Packers defense, which one scout says is as physical a unit as there is in the league. There is a young, powerful offensive line; a fleet-footed receiving corps that goes five deep; a running back that would love to beat the team that cut him. And then there is Favre, looking to complete one last storybook Super Bowl run.
No chance in Hell. The Giants don't win this game. Is this an honest opinion? Doesn't matter. It's what the Giants need to hear. You think Packers coach Mike McCarthy is going to say it? You think Ambassador Favre is going to denigrate anyone? Even Ryan Grant, traded away back in the summer by the Giants - inadvertently depositing a running game on the Packers - will have nothing venomous to contribute. How does that help? The best way to jump-start the Giants is to disrespect them, tell them, “No you can't" when they think “Yes we can." It's for their own good.

Ernie Accorsi has an invitation to attend Sunday's NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. He'll stick with his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan instead. "This way, if things go badly, I can just turn the TV off," he said. "It hasn't gotten any easier to watch the games." Accorsi is only a year into his retirement, so he bears plenty of responsibility for the team that will play for a trip to the Super Bowl. Especially a certain quarterback who has gone from national whipping boy to last Manning standing.
When the Giants play the Packers on Sunday at Lambeau Field in the NFC Championship Game, Manning, Accorsi's big gamble on draft day in 2004, will face off against Favre, the 38-year-old graybeard Wolf stuck his neck out for 16 years ago. Favre long ago justified the first-round pick Wolf traded to the Falcons to acquire him in 1992, but it has taken a while for Manning to take the Giants far enough for Accorsi to gloat a bit. Worth the wait? You bet. "I always thought he had 'it,'" Accorsi said Monday from his Manhattan apartment. "It's so great to see what he's doing. ... He's emerging. You can see it in his eyes."
David Cutcliffe saw Eli Manning on top of his game during the years he coached him at Ole Miss, but he admits he's rarely seen him at his best in the NFL. Until now. "It looks like Eli, finally, to me," Manning's former college coach told the Daily News yesterday. "And I'm just tickled to death. I was watching the game (Sunday) and I was just smiling from ear to ear. It just looked exactly like Eli looks. And I hadn't seen that in awhile." Cutcliffe, who is now the head coach at Duke, said he's not surprised by the sudden emergence of Manning. In the Giants' 21-17 win in Dallas on Sunday, Manning was as good as he's ever been in his career - 12-for-18, 163 yards and two touchdowns.
Here's some good news and some bad news for Eli Manning as he gets set to play in his coldest game ever Sunday in Green Bay. The good news is that two of the most effective NFL quarterbacks with 25 or more regular-season starts in December and January come from Mississippi. That's got to be a warming thought for the young man from Louisiana. The bad news is one of those two is Brett Favre, who will be his opposite number Sunday at Lambeau Field. Favre is 53-19 in late-season starts, third behind Joe Montana and Tom Brady in that category. Fellow Mississippian Steve McNair is fifth, behind former Bengal Kenny Anderson.

Not exactly the deepest of secondaries to begin with, the Giants defensive backfield has survived a string of injuries. And now they have one more to worry about, because rookie cornerback Aaron Ross suffered a dislocated shoulder in Dallas. Ross is hopeful he'll be available for Sunday's NFC Championship Game against the Packers, according to two people familiar with Ross' injury who requested anonymity because all injury information is supposed to come from coach Tom Coughlin. Still, it's unclear if he'll be able to play a full game because the shoulder kept popping out of the socket during Sunday's game. "He's sore, but we'll see," Coughlin said during a conference call with reporters on Monday. "Day-to-day what's going to happen with that."

A year ago today, Jerry Reese was introduced as the Giants' general manager. His performance in that job, along with his scouting and pro personnel departments, his predecessor, Ernie Accorsi, and Tom Coughlin and his coaching staff, have helped bring the Giants to the brink of a Super Bowl berth. Hardly anyone believed a first-year GM and a coach with the ax poised to fall could produce a winning team, but here they are. Reese was in charge of the previous four drafts, but Accorsi had final say. With the 2007 draft, Reese made his mark, not just with the first two picks, cornerback Aaron Ross and wide receiver Steve Smith, but all the way down to the last two, seventh-rounders Michael Johnson and Ahmad Bradshaw.

Ryan Grant wasn't drafted, but the Giants liked him, and in 2005, he spent the season on the practice squad. Grant never got the shot to make the roster in 2006, as he seriously lacerated his left arm while falling through a glass table in a nightclub, causing extensive damage to his artery, nerves and tendon. He nearly bled to death. The Giants put him on non-football injured reserve and by this summer, he had bulked up to a muscular 224 pounds and clearly looked as if he belonged, rushing for 90 yards and one touchdown on only 18 carries in the preseason. But there was no room for him. There was no need for a fifth running back but Grant was so useful that he made the team. But then on Sept. 1, as the Giants pared their roster to get to the 53-player limit, they traded Grant to the Packers for a sixth-round draft pick. “The trade was a win-win situation for both teams," Giants general manager Jerry Reese said in an e-mail message. There's no doubt it was a knockout for the Packers.

Vince Lombardi captured five NFL titles, including the first two Super Bowls. He was rumpled and dignified at the same time, somehow. He became the personification of the American professional football coach, the first icon of his kind. He was more than a man. He became the embodiment of an entire profession. "It's just a small gravestone, but we get a lot of people coming here, looking for it," said JoAnn Christopher, an office worker at the cemetery. "A lot of high school football coaches come to touch it. I don't know if it really helps, but they think it does." The great Lombardi quite literally rests not far from the Garden State Parkway and is a rest stop on the Turnpike.
Inside a 2 1/2-story brick house on Griggs Avenue in Teaneck, the Packers poached a dynasty from the Giants' unsuspecting hands. Vince Lombardi was in the living room of Charlie Bollinger to deliver the news that Green Bay had offered him a chance to run its team. "Do you think I should take it?" the Giants' assistant asked his friend. Lombardi wasn't getting any younger, and the Giants weren't about to show Jim Lee Howell the door. "My father told him it would be a good idea to go," Charlie Jr. said Tuesday. "The Mara family is very loyal, but I think the biggest mistake they ever made was not moving out Howell and giving Lombardi a chance."
Jimmy Robinson, who caught the first touchdown pass ever at Giants Stadium, from Craig Morton in 1976 against the Cowboys, smiles wistfully when reminded that, after next season, the stadium is coming down. “Bigger and more fan friendly is the world we live in," said the Packers' receiving coach. “We forget about the old pretty quickly." Except in rare, mystical, places where they don't. In the Packers' Hall of Fame at Lambeau Field, where they remodeled the stadium earlier this decade but never have to refurbish its memories, is a recreation of Vince Lombardi's office with his real desk, naugahyde chairs, portable Zenith radio, projector, screen and pen holder.

No domes. No climate control. No coaches in short sleeves or sweater vests. Save all that stuff for the Super Bowl, because this Sunday, old-fashioned playoff football will decide who winds up in Glendale, Ariz,. on Feb. 3. The forecast for Foxboro, Mass., on Sunday for the San Diego-New England AFC title game is for partly cloudy skies and a high of 22 degrees. But it will be windy, so it will feel colder. Still, that will seem tropical compared to Green Bay, Wis., where the Packers and Giants will play for the NFC championship. The forecast calls for a high of 10 degrees under partly cloudy skies, and that game won't kick off until 5:30 p.m. CST, so the temperature will be dropping by then toward an eventual low of 3 degrees.
The Giants can overcome the cold and make it to the Super Bowl. If they fail, shame on them if they blame it on the zero-degree temperatures. That's the message today from thawed-out gladiators who played in The Ice Bowl, The Freezer Bowl and the 1961 and '62 NFL Championship games in Green Bay and at Yankee Stadium. Jerry Kramer, the legendary guard who led Bart Starr into the end zone to beat the Cowboys with 13 seconds left, scoffs at the notion that the Packers will have an advantage over the Giants in Sunday's NFC Championship game. “Most of these kids have grown up all over the country; I don't see that as being much of an advantage one way or another," Kramer said.

At last, the Giants are a feel-good story in sports. After all the bad news we have had in sports lately, after three whole long months of being the bad-news capital of sports, we needed a team around here. For these few weeks, ever since that night at Giants Stadium when they gave the Patriots all they wanted, the Giants have felt like everybody's team. They have made people care about them in a way they haven't in years, made the rest of the country watch in record television numbers. Every once in a while it happens like this and you get blindsided by good news for a change.

For $1,200 you could fly to the Caribbean, stay in a luxury hotel and relax on a sunny beach for a week with all your meals included. Or you could pay $2,000 to jet off to Green Bay for a weekend where the temperature will fall into the single digits without wind chill. The price includes airfare, hotel - and the promise of a great matchup between the Giants and Packers. The destination of choice is clear for Giants fans - and seats for the NFC Championship game are available for a price. More than 1,400 tickets were available Tuesday on Stubhub.com with prices topping out at $3,500 a seat. The average price was $616 Tuesday night. While some experts predicted the price would fall with Green Bay fans attempting to cash out before Sunday's big game, a quirky Lambeau Field could drive prices up higher for Giants fans. | NFC Championship Game Tickets   -  Buy or Sell

Jan 15 The Giants are going to take a Lambeau Leap right into the Super Bowl. They will overcome the ghost of Vince Lombardi, the presence of the legendary Brett Favre, the mystique of Titletown, USA, and the bone-chilling weather that will have them all wanting to head off to Cabo, even without Jessica Simpson. Out of nowhere, this has become a special Giants team, one with character and heart and pride, a bunch of All-Joes trying to prove you don't have to be All-Pros to get to the Super Bowl. They have an old-school coach who reinvented himself on the run in a public display of self-preservation that transformed him into a players coach, of all things. What does it mean Sunday for Ice Bowl II? Giants 20, Packers 17.
Underdog status. Check. Road game. Check. Biggest star on other sideline. Check. Additional injury depletions. Check. The list is nearly complete. The lone missing ingredient to be unearthed this week, as long as the Packers comply and perhaps even if they don't, is at least one salvo disparaging the Giants. If not, a harmless comment able to be twisted into a slight will do. After that, it's once again time for the Giants to do battle, this time taking on a historic venue (Lambeau Field) and a historic player (Brett Favre) and some prehistoric conditions (think Ice Age) Sunday night in an NFC Championship Game they undeniably earned their way into.

Three times in the Super Bowl era, the Giants have gotten within 60 minutes of the Super Bowl, and three times they were not denied. There was January of 1987, when Bill Parcells and a wild-eyed punt returner named Phil McConkey ignored gale-force winds to beat the Redskins 17-0 on their way to Pasadena. There was January of 1991, when Parcells and Lawrence Taylor and a clutch field-goal kicker named Matt Bahr beat Joe Montana 15-13 in San Francisco on their way to Tampa. There was January of 2001, when Jim Fassel and a hot quarterback named Kerry Collins and coordinators named Sean Payton and John Fox buried the Randy Moss Vikings 41-0 on their way to Super Bowl XXXV. Come down from Cloud Nine because you haven't won a damn thing yet.
Cornerback clinic - Three cornerbacks will be on the Giants' injury report this week, not a good thing for a team with just six corners that has to face Brett Favre and the Green Bay passing attack Sunday. Sam Madison (abdominal strain) and Kevin Dockery (hip flexor plus) missed the win over Dallas during which rookie Aaron Ross' right shoulder popped out twice. "I know Aaron is sore, but that kind of an injury is being controlled by a young man on our team right now," said coach Tom Coughlin, referring to TE Mike Matthews. "Hopefully we can get [Ross'] strength back where it belongs and do some things to make sure it doesn't happen again. "Aaron wants to play and has talked about it, and hopefully we can get him right back on the practice field." Coughlin said Madison and Dockery are making progress, but he wants to see how they are when practice resumes Wednesday before making any comment on their conditions.

Consider the four teams who carry Super Bowl hopes into the coming weekend, not to mention their parkas. Six months ago, conventional wisdom would never have believed what they've been up to. One of the last four quarterbacks left standing was supposed to be named Manning. His first name was not supposed to be Eli. Brett Favre was supposed to be a 38-year-old quarterback getting retirement questions again after a farewell tour. He was not supposed to be playing as if he were 30, throwing both touchdowns and snowballs to his receivers, on the brink of a Super Bowl. Favre last played in a Super Bowl 10 years ago. Brandon Jackson, one of Packers who caught a touchdown Saturday, was 12 years old then. Eli Manning was 17. The coach of the New England Patriots was Pete Carroll. "Ten years ago," Favre mentioned Saturday, "I thought I'd be around forever." So he's going to appreciate this moment because he won't be. Or will he?
Brett Favre threw for 285 yards in the Packers' 35-13 rout of the Giants at the Meadowlands in Week 2 and might just do it again on what is forecast to be a bitterly cold but not windy or slippery day. Regardless of the conditions, the Giants must be able to run the ball to limit Favre's touches. Eli Manning, who had hurt his left shoulder in the opening game loss in Dallas, played well against the Packers the first time (16-for-29, 211 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT). But Favre played better (29-for-38, 286 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT). The Giants played the Packers with Brandon Jacobs on the shelf, with Ahmad Bradshaw just a gleam in Tom Coughlin's eye and Derrick Ward as their only ball carrier (15 for 90 yards). Now they are a two-headed offensive backfield monster.

At the end of every game they lost this season, the Giants were left with the same empty feeling. They were sure they were the better team, and they craved another chance to prove it. "It's unbelievable," Amani Toomer said. "When you walk off the field, you always think, ‘Man, I wish we could play these guys again.' And we got two opportunities." It was rare enough that they got the chance to turn the tables on the Cowboys on Sunday afternoon. But as soon as they did, the Giants' Revenge Tour turned its attention to the Green Bay Packers, who spanked the Giants, 35-13, in Week 2. They'll get a second shot at the Packers on Sunday night at frigid Lambeau Field, when they play in the NFC Championship Game.
For two straight weeks, Fox's "NFL Sunday" crew tried willing the Giants out of the postseason. Now they are not only "stuck" with Big Blue in the NFC title game, but face the prospect of having them as a participant in their Super Bowl telecast. Yeah, that's right. One week ago, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmy Johnson all picked Tampa Bay to beat the Giants. On Sunday, they all put their mouths on Dallas. So, you might be saying these guys were just as wrong as many others who picked the Cowboys.

Man is essentially a tropical animal. Mannings, too. Which is why the Giants should be concerned about the six-day weather forecast for a stretch of tundra in the upper Midwest section of America known to the bundled locals as Green Bay - a place where there is so much snow and ice that city Ordinance 9.30 fines residents up to $500 for depositing any extra frozen water into streets or alleys. It appears a Canadian high-pressure weather system will dip and perch over northern Wisconsin Sunday. Game-time temperatures should fall through the single digits while the NFC championship heads into the night. As any physician will tell you, nerve cells in our bodies do not operate as quickly under such conditions. Manual dexterity (i.e., passing and catching) begins to deteriorate below about 45 degrees.

Eli Manning, much maligned over the past season, has worked himself into the NFC championship game at Green Bay. In the Giants' 21-17 semifinal win over Dallas, he proved the more composed, the more efficient quarterback than his Hall of Fame-bound big brother did in the Colts' loss to the Chargers earlier in the day. "Everybody wants to judge the guy," Giants center Shaun O'Hara said right after Sunday's game. "I'm just happy he's on our team. I know he gets a lot of criticism just because of his last name. But Eli's a great quarterback, and I'm glad to see him get the recognition he deserves." While his brother and the glitziest quarterback of the postseason, the Cowboys' Tony Romo, will be sitting at home or figuring out his next celebrity getaway, Manning once again will be trying to overcome what is perceived as a superior opponent.
In the rarefied world of NFL quarterbacks, Eli Manning is often defined by what he's not. He's not a swaggerer like Brett Favre, whose Green Bay Packers the Giants face Sunday. He's not a dater of supermodels, like Tom Brady of the still unbeaten New England Patriots. He does not own a Super Bowl ring like his fiery older brother Peyton, whose Indianapolis Colts were eliminated from the playoffs two days ago. Still, after leading the Giants to two stunning playoff victories, he's the last Manning standing - and Big Blue's hopes of going all the way to the Super Bowl are riding on the right arm of their quiet quarterback. "I'm not the guy who runs down the field with his finger up in the air like I just saved the world," Manning once said in an interview. Nor is the 27-year-old quarterback likely to draw attention to himself off the field..

At the time, the transaction barely made a ripple in the news cycle: Last Sept. 1, a few hours before the opening day roster was completed, the Giants traded running back Ryan Grant to the Packers for a sixth-round pick in the 2008 draft. No big deal, right? After all, the guy hadn't played football in three years. As it turns out, the trade might mean the difference between the Giants going to the Super Bowl or seeing their unlikely playoff run end in Green Bay in Sunday's NFC Championship Game.
It has been more than four months since the Giants, overstocked with five legitimate running backs, traded Ryan Grant to the Packers for a sixth-round draft pick. If they hadn't, they might have had to cut one of their backs and certainly didn't want to part with Jacobs, Derrick Ward, Reuben Droughns or Ahmad Bradshaw. If they had only known how it might come back to bite them. Fresh off a regular season in which he rushed for 956 yards and eight touchdowns, Grant took it up another notch in the playoffs by shaking off two early fumbles to run for 201 yards and three touchdowns in the Packers' snow-covered 42-20 blowout of the Seahawks.

This time last year, a vote for Tom Coughlin was a vote for mean-spirited mediocrity. The Giants should have fired him, and yet they are one game away from the Super Bowl because they did not. Coughlin had compiled records of 7-9, 6-10, 6-10, 6-10, 11-5 and 8-8 since he'd claimed his last playoff victory in Jacksonville. I just didn't think any guy eight games under .500 and 0-for-2 in the playoffs over a six-season period was worth the trouble, never mind a charisma-free guy with little apparent use for the human condition. John Mara almost agreed.

Jan 14 Giants take it to the next level with a 21-17 win over Dallas

---

On The Game: Game 18 Recap Gamegirl... "....The Giants have heard all season that they cleaned up on weak teams and lost to the good ones. Now they showed they could beat one of the so called 'powerhouse' teams. In this game, the Giants got off to a fast start, scoring on their first possession. Dallas took the field, but when Tony Romo came off the field without any points, he wasn't smiling. Right then the Cowboy fans should have realized that they were in trouble......." Mikefan.... ".... These Giants defy all the odds and the odds makers and continue to win. Right now they are in the process of righting the wrongs of the season, and that started with correcting a loss to the Cowboys in game one and in their second matchup. Mission accomplished! Now's time for the Giants to avenge the second game loss to the Packers when they play next week in the NFC Championship game, and then with some luck, bring on the Patriots and end their perfect season in the Super Bowl......."

---

ESPN - Cowboys fall short on last effort as Giants move on to face Packers.
Giants.com - Giants defeat Cowboys 21-17.
Dallasnews.com - Another Dallas Cowboys season ends on sour note.
Dallasnews.com - Dallas Cowboys exit playoffs with 21-17 loss.
StarLedger - Giants finally sack Cowboys to send their road show to Green Bay for NFC title.
StarLedger - Giants' defense has Romo on run in second half.
StarLedger - Vets have Super goal yet again.
StarLedger - Manning quiets critics, team sings his praises.
Newsday - Owens tears up after loss to Giants.
Newsday - Strange but true: Giants one win from Super Bowl.
Newsday - Webster helped corner keep its edge.
Newsday - Pope, McQuarters step in and step up.
Newsday - Giants upset Cowboys to reach NFC title game.
Newsday - Eli and Giants offense protect ball again.
Newsday - Toomer spotted a '9' - and knew what to do about it.
NYDailyNews - Giants, Mann bounce 'Boys.
NYDailyNews - Last Manning standing tall.
NYDailyNews - Pierce & Co. make it count.
NYDailyNews - Giants kick sand in Tony's face.
NYDailyNews - Big Blue 'D' never rests against Romo.
NYDailyNews - Crayton drops lift Big Blue.
NYDailyNews - Owens turns into a tear jerk.
NYDailyNews - How 'bout dem Giants!
NYDailyNews - Ryan Granted shot to send old team Packin'.
NYDailyNews - Blue ticketed off.
NYPost - 'Boys buried by Big Blue!
NYPost - True secondary concern.
NYPost - Amani Splendored thing.
NYPost - Little brother Eli comes up big.
NYPost - Owens defends QB after defeat.
NYPost - Giants hope revenge is served cold.
TheRecord - Eli brings joy to family.
TheRecord - Giants to get shot at NFC title.
TheRecord - Giants vs. Cowboys: J.P. Pelzman's quarter-by-quarter analysis.
LoHud - Giants' road continues after win over Dallas.
LoHud - Toomer provides boost for Giants.
LoHud - McQuarters comes up big for Giants in clutch.

Special Report - They weren't exactly the Twelve Angry Men, but the dozen Pro Bowl nominees on the Dallas Cowboys stood on the sidelines dumbfounded as the final seconds ticked away Sunday night, as they watched the Giants cavort on their field, in their house.
Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, stood frozen on the sidelines, staring off into some personal wilderness where nothing comes out right and where justice is never realized.
The Cowboys, those self-aggrandized members of America's Team, had just been mugged by the tough kids from the New York area, the ones who managed to get just a single player onto the Pro Bowl roster, the team that wasn't even good enough to win the NFC East championship.
Want more? - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!"

Game Preview Giants (11-6) vs Dallas (13-3).
Last week Tampa Bay put everything they had into stopping the Giants in the first quarter. Then the Giants took over for the rest of the game. They left town with a 24-14 win. There were some mixed feelings about head coach Jon Gruden resting seven of his starters in their game before playing the Giants. They lost the game and that strategy looks shaky. So will the Cowboys be at a disadvantage? The Cowboys, being division champs and all, were on an NFL 'forced' rest having been granted their playoff bye week.
Terrell Owens - In or out? He has a high ankle sprain which usually requires several weeks for recovery, and obviously, the Giants would prefer him out. Owens has had a mere 9 catches against them this season in the two games, but they amounted to 212 yards and 4 touchdowns. It's just dangerous to allow Owens to catch the ball. The Cowboys haven't scored a touchdown in the six quarters since he was injured, but to be fair, Tony Romo and some other starters sat out the last two. Terrell Owens looks likely play as he did in Super Bowl XXXIX. The big question is can he be effective and will he require double coverage from the Giants?
Jessica Simpson - In or out? The Giants would prefer her in, but it looks like that's not going to happen. The Dallas fans (and maybe some of the players) believe she is some kind of super jinx. It doesn't matter if she is or not, because it has become an enormous distraction. The belief is that quarterback Tony Romo becomes dreamy-eyed when looking up into the stands at his girlfriend de jour, and then cross-eyed when he tries to focus back on the field at his receivers.

Best pictures of the day

LoHud.com	NYDailyNews.com	NYDailyNews.com	NYPost.com
Newsday.com - Tampa Bay		Newsday.com - New England

---