Should Giants be talking as much as they are?

INDIANAPOLIS

For a team that likes to consider itself the underdog heading into Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants sure are sounding and acting a lot like the favorites. Back-page quotes and all.

It's usually the New York team in green and white that makes bold pronouncements before games, but it's not the Jets doing the yapping this week. It's a Giants team that usually exudes a quiet confidence borne of the mantra drummed into the players' psyche by Tom Coughlin: Talk is cheap. Play the game.

Coughlin resurrected that phrase Thursday when asked about the quotes pouring forth from several players, although he suggested that he didn't consider any of the Giants' comments cause for concern.

"The players have a pretty good idea of what we expect of them," Coughlin said. "We try to frown on anything that becomes bulletin-board material."

Well, either Coughlin's definition of bulletin-board material has been stretched way beyond his standards, or he's blissfully unaware that safety Antrel Rolle said Tuesday that "we're going to win this thing." And that defensive tackle Chris Canty said Wednesday that Giants fans should plan on a parade down the "Canyon of Heroes" in lower Manhattan. And that running back Brandon Jacobs agreed with Canty's assessment Thursday, adding that he doesn't care if people think the Giants are "a bunch of thugs."

Or maybe Coughlin agrees with his players but isn't willing to say so publicly.

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"It's still us against the world, and that's how we play that, period,'' he said. "We're still underdogs and we still have an awful lot to prove."

But at least one man with a strong rooting interest in the Giants who was a part of their unlikely Super Bowl championship four years ago -- a run in which the players abided by their coach's request to let their play do the talking -- is concerned by all the pregame chatter.

"It scares me," Michael Strahan said Thursday at a promotional appearance at a Subway restaurant. "I'm not really going to talk. I just want to beat you up on the field. The more you talk, the more pressure you put on yourself."

Just ask the Jets and coach Rex Ryan, who talked plenty this past season and couldn't deliver. After a disappointing 8-8 season, LaDainian Tomlinson said Ryan's continual boasts put a target on the players. And even Ryan, who never met a guarantee he didn't like, suggested he might tone it down moving forward.

But these Giants have a swagger that they insist is genuine, and they are convinced that their play won't suffer as a result. And they're not worried that the Patriots will elevate their own play as a way of answering the Giants' big talk.

While it's mostly defensive players doing the talking, at least one player on offense thinks the message is just fine.

"If anybody who plays defense feels that way, I feel that way," Jacobs said. "Those guys are the ones who have to go out and deal with Tom Brady. If they're confident about things that are going to happen, I'm with them, too. Expect a parade on Tuesday."

Jacobs doesn't care if the Giants are getting a reputation for being too cocky in the days leading up to the game.

"I have my belief in this football team, because if there's not, there's no point in getting on the plane," he said. "All this means nothing if you don't feel you're going to win the game. They feel the same way. When we say something like that, it's predictions and guarantees and we're a bunch of thugs, like people call us . . . We won't change the way we feel at all."

You'd better believe the Patriots are aware of the chatter. Bill Belichick's team doesn't say a lot, but they generally get the last laugh. "The game is never won in the papers or through the media," defensive tackle Vince Wilfork said. "We'll do all our talking on Sunday.'

Strahan worries that his former team might be too caught up in the pregame talk, and he knows from experience that the stakes get even higher when the bluster level rises.

"As long as you back it up," Strahan said, "you talk all you want. But you better show up to back it up."

If not, then they go down as a bunch of big mouths whose play couldn't live up to their words when it counted most.