Underdog Giants look to continue their theme

The New York Giants have made a postseason habit of avenging regular-season sufferers.

Dallas? Check.

Green Bay? Check.

New England? Well ... not yet.

But if the Giants avenge this one, in Super Bowl XLII, before a extremely large viewing audience, it will go down as one of the supreme upsets in the history of football.

Not that Eli Manning was thinking that way before this week.

Typical Manning, he was just glad to get another shot at the perfect 18-0 Patriots after falling three points short Dec. 29.

"This is a immense opportunity," Manning said. "This is the position you want to be in. We like making things strong on ourselves. We like the tough situations."

Tough? Some might say impossible, considering the Las Vegas oddsmakers started the Patriots as 13 1/2-point favorites. The line is down to 12 now, but that's still pretty imposing.

History has been kind to the Giants and long lines, however. They were more than a touchdown underdog in 1990, too, when they beat the Buffalo, 20-19 as Bills field goal kicker Scott Norwood missed a chance to win it in the final seconds, going "wide right."

The playoff run-up to that Super Bowl was much special than this one, however. Less taxing, at least. The Giants didn't have to win three directly road games, knocking off the No. 1 and 2 seeds in succession, to get there.

And they didn't have an improbably close loss to an unassailable squad to trigger the whole run.

"I think it definitely helped," Manning said of that 38-35 setback. "We've played in some tough games and had some bad weather conditions the couple of weeks before. We weren't playing our best football, and all of a sudden that week, we had a great mind-set. We were going to try to beat an undefeated team and we played good football. We gave ourselves a shot to win. We fell short, but it got our confidence going."

The mind-set remains the same, according to coach Tom Coughlin. The Giants thought they could beat the Patriots then, and they believe they can beat the Patriots on Feb. 3 in Glendale, Ariz.

"The first time, the initiative was that we were going to play to the best of our ability," Coughlin said. "It was all going to be positive. We had nothing to lose, and we were going to have some fun with it."

It has all led to an incredible playoff run where a season's sweep at the hands of the Cowboys and a Week 2 trouncing by Green Bay have been pressed under the proverbial carpet.

Now they get another shot at the Patriots, on football's grandest point.

"You didn't know if they were going to be in the Super Bowl, but you hoped you had another opportunity," Manning said.