Career Joins Downs From Put

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"I think we had a lot of ups and downs throughout the season," Cruz said after that win. "When our team needed us the most, we responded. We've done some good things. We were able to keep a level head going on a four-game skid. We were able to keep our composure and not get crazy or not start a spatting board with each other."

 

The Giants went into the playoffs having already been in elimination mode, and hardly blinked over the first two rounds.

 

"Well, considering where we came from, it means everything," defensive end Osi Umenyiora said after the Green Bay win. "Everybody wrote us off. They always do that. So we're just going to keep on fighting and keep on playing hard and hopefully we'll keep things going."

 

That they did, thanks to another gutsy effort from Manning, whose accomplishments this season have helped him once and for all step out of the shadow of big brother Peyton. The younger Manning shook off six sacks to help rally the Giants for a 20-17 overtime win over the 49ers, and erased a late four-point deficit with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham with 8:34 left in the fourth quarter.

 

"Some of the questions that have come to me about Eli -- we have such great trust in him," said Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. "He stands in there and he'll take the blows. He'll get right back up, he gets right back in the huddle. He's the same positive influence on everybody around him.

 

With eight touchdown passes in the playoffs, Manning looks nothing like the quarterback that was picked off five times over New York's four-game skid, or three times in the late loss to Washington. He looks like a true leader, one who can once again have his team standing tall at season's end.

 

Coughlin agrees that his team's rough and at times seemingly impossible road to the Super Bowl has toughened it up.

 

If the Giants look in the mirror, they may very well see a lot of 2007 staring back at them. And that's fine as long as this campaign ends the same: with New York having triumphed over New England in the season's biggest game.

 

Super Bowl XLII featured "The Helmet Catch," a pass from Manning to David Tyree that the wide receiver cradled against his headgear after Manning escaped pressure to give the Giants a first down and lead to the game-winning touchdown in a 17-14 New York victory.

 

And by the way, the Giants had to knock off the NFC's top-two seeds in the 2007-08 playoffs before besting the then-undefeated Patriots that year. While New England doesn't bring a perfect record into this rematch, New York once again triumphed over the best the conference had to offer to reach this Super Bowl.

comments

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•    Real f-ck-ng hot, put it in park,Take a shot, higher than a tube sock You a bop, give me top top, as I load the guap

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•    50cent put 1million$ on the giants against Birdman and his patriots... That's fly right there.

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•    "Mystic Falls and I are on a bit of a break." - Damon Salvatore, Season 3, The Vampire Diaries

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•    Stampede Halt Skid with 2-0 Victory in Chicago

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•    I hear the patriots support sex trafficing and run numerous crackhouses in the greater new england area...i hope they lose #superbowlXLVI

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•    So y'all got bread on the Giants for the Superbowl?

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•    Speaking of threes...Hokies hit a huge one for the game-winner. Virginia Tech snaps its four-game skid with a 47-45 victory at #17 Virginia.

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•    "A RUBBER meet the ROAD at a skid mask aptly named OBEDIENCE" -Visadklline

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•    I skid the railway... lizbeth shocked...

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