Winner take all: Super memories forever

INDIANAPOLIS -- There are legacies at stake in this game.

Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning are looking for a second Super Bowl ring, an achievement that would vault them into a different status of coach and quarterback. A Hall of Fame status, perhaps.

Meanwhile, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady already have won three Super Bowls, but they haven't added to their jewelry box since 2006 and are in danger of becoming known more for losing twice to the Giants -- and losing twice since Spygate -- than for what they accomplished in a four-year span that began a decade ago.

But those are the barstool names. The ones people will debate for years to come. The ones who will, however this game turns out, be back to many future Super Bowls -- if not as participants, then as part of the cloud of past heroes who descend on the game each year and weave through Radio Row telling the tales of their victories and defeats.

Most of the people who will play in Super Bowl XLVI will never be back. They will never be associated with the game. They will not achieve highlight-reel immortality. No one will ever debate their place in the history of the sport.

But that does not mean they won't have a legacy.

"I've told the team that this is the stuff of legends," Coughlin said. "That they have a chance 30 years from now to be sitting at the fireplace with their own grandchildren talking about this type of an event, this Super Bowl."

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That the Giants are even here may be a more incredible story than actually winning the game. "Five weeks ago, there wasn't even a bus," Coughlin said of the support the team received, "and now there's no seats on anything."

When they lost four straight games and their record fell to 6-6, the Giants seemed destined for yet another second-half collapse. Justin Tuck was even bracing for a "historical" one. They then beat the Cowboys but promptly lost to the Redskins for the second time. That left them at 7-7 and in second place in the NFC East with two games to play.

It was 49 days ago.

"Following that game, I simply walked into our team and said, 'Look, we have two games to go. We have to win two games. If we do that, we get into the playoffs and we can be the champions of the NFC East,' " Coughlin said. "From there, it's been one elimination game after another . . . We've had our backs to the wall. The players have performed very well under that circumstance."

First they won the city with a victory over the Jets. Then they won the division with a victory over the Cowboys. And now they are on the verge of winning a Lombardi Trophy with a victory over the Patriots.

It's hard to imagine a path with three bigger rivals, two of which already have been dispatched.

So what will the legacy of these Giants be? Coughlin and Manning will be remembered and appreciated in team history no matter the outcome Sunday night. But the team, what will they be known for?

A loudmouth bunch that got lucky for a few weeks but whose mediocrity was exposed in the Super Bowl? A brash squad that overcame a litany of early-season injuries and won a championship? Perhaps they'll even be remembered as the start of a dynasty, the second of however-many championships Manning wins.

Around that fireplace 30 years from now, with grandchildren at their feet and perhaps the flames flickering off the diamonds in a championship ring, many of these men will be able to recall their legacies. Even if the rest of us do not.

"No one can ever take it away from us," Coughlin said. "But winning the game is really the only thing that matters."