If it hasn’t hit them yet it will soon, surely before tomorrow afternoon’s kickoff at Giants Stadium.
“Guys have been pretty good so far, but we will see come [tonight] when we have our meetings,” Michael Strahan said.
In those meetings at the team hotel, the Giants will look themselves in the eyes and undoubtedly know what they all are thinking as they ready themselves for an NFC wild-card playoff game against the Panthers, a pair of 11-5 teams coming hard at each other knowing only one will get up and move on.
“You can probably see guys get a little antsy at that point,” Strahan said, speaking from experience. “You just have to let them know, hey, relax, just relax. It’s coming around. Don’t get tired after two plays. You have a whole game to go through.”
There’s little clear-cut about this encounter. What could turn the tide is which team out in the cold better handles the heat. This is Eli Manning’s first playoff game; Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme two years ago took his team on a joyride to the Super Bowl. For Tom Coughlin, it’s his ninth playoff game, his first since 1999.
“Sometimes, you do have to calm guys down because you can be a little bit overzealous and you can hurt yourself,” said right tackle Kareem McKenzie, a veteran of four playoff games from his days with the Jets.
The Panthers have 28 Players, including 15 Starters, on their roster who made Carolina’s unexpected Super Bowl run in 2003.
The Giants have 28 active players with playoff experience, but it’s a diverse and wide-ranging group. Terrell Buckley, a reserve cornerback who joined the team Dec. 7, played in the Super Bowl for the Patriots following the 2001 season.
Jeff Feagles, the 39-year-old punter, just completed his 18th NFL season and Sunday will play for the fifth time in the postseason. Plaxico Burress, in six years, has played in six playoff games and caught 23 passes and three touchdowns, all with the Steelers. Center Shaun O’Hara? One and done in 2002 with the Browns.
Three players – Strahan, Tiki Barber and Amani Toomer – remain from the 1997 playoff nightmare, when the Giants watched in horror as a nine-point lead disappeared in the final two minutes amid a civil war on the sideline in a 23-22 loss to the Vikings.
That was difficult to top, but the Giants did it five years later in the worst collapse in playoff history, when a 38-14 lead with 4:27 left in the third quarter unraveled into a contemptible and controversial 39-38 loss in San Francisco. There are 10 Giants from that debacle still with the team.
“The finality of this game is going to be very evident from the first snap,” Toomer said. “We know it’s not like if we lose and another team wins, we still got a chance. If we lose, we know we’re out.”
In between those two historically bad first-round losses was the run to Super Bowl XXXV following the 2000 season.
Barber and Strahan are able to take the emotional temperature of the Giants better than anyone else. In fact, there are key moments when Strahan will confer with Barber, telling him to take charge of his side of the ball while Strahan deals with the defense. You handle your end, I’ll handle mine, and together we’ll find a way.
“The key for the younger guys is not to get burnt out too early from the excitement, the tension that you are going to feel,” Strahan said.
“That is a hard thing to explain. We played in the Super Bowl and I felt like, when did we play it? the next morning when I woke up, because you get so wrapped up in everything.
“I definitely think experience helps and we have enough of the guys with it to pass it on to the other guys.”
PANTHERS (11-5)
AT
GIANTS (11-5)
Tomorrow, 1 p.m.
Ch.5, WFAN (660)
The Line:
Giants 2½
O/U 43½
Weather
43 degrees
partly cloudy
INJURIES:
Panthers: Probable: S Thomas Davis (illness); RB DeShaun Foster (toe); RB Brad Hoover (ankle); LB Dan Morgan (shoulder); G Tutan Reyes (toe); LB Brandon Short (knee).
Giants: Out: DE Eric Moore (hamstring); LB Antonio Pierce (ankle); DT Fred Robbins (hamstring). Questionable: WR Tim Carter (hip); LB Reggie Torbor (hamstring). Probable: DT William Joseph (ankle); TE Jeremy Shockey (ankle).
EXPERT PICK
“I like Carolina. I love what the Giants have done this year, but I think there is a huge premium, especially in early playoff games, on people who have been there before and know how to do it. I think Carolina is hitting the playoffs in the right frame of mind. I think it will be 24-17 or 24-20, something like that.”
– CBS’ Randy Cross