Now, Giants have to build off comeback win

A team is on the verge of locking up the NFC East title at home, leading by multiple possessions in the final minutes. Suddenly the visiting team starts to climb back. The home team appears powerless to stop it. Incompletions by inches. Penalties that negate opportunities to seal the win. An improbable three-and-out. Then, finally, the game is decided with a dramatic special-teams play against a rookie kicker.

Sound familiar? It should, especially to the Giants. They've been involved in that story line twice in the last year, and played on both sides of it, too. Last season it was the defining loss to the Eagles, the collapse that happened a year ago this Monday. It didn't eliminate them mathematically from the playoffs, but they were a shell of themselves for the remaining two games.

But now the Giants have come full circle from that devastating loss. It just took them about 357 days to get over it.

They were the ones to crush the Cowboys' chances -- and perhaps a little bit of their star-studded soul -- by stealing a 37-34 win from them in the final five minutes of Sunday night's game after trailing by 12 points midway through the fourth quarter. They were the ones who looked like a team of playoff destiny, soaring out of Cowboys Stadium with the same kind of moxie and confidence that the Eagles left New Jersey with last year.

There is, however, a lesson to be learned from last year. After that victory, the Eagles did not win another game and were bounced from the playoffs in the first round. Did the win over the Cowboys save the Giants' season? Not yet. All it did was save the relevance of the final three weeks of the schedule. What it did do, though, is put the Cowboys in the same bewildered, moribund state of mind the Giants were facing for their last two games of 2010. Those kinds of losses are tough to get over, especially in a short week with Dallas having to play at Tampa Bay on Saturday night.

The Giants left the Cowboys having to answer questions about their history of late-season collapses, their inability to win the important game, and their dismal playoff prospects. Those are all questions the Giants faced ad nauseam after the Eagles collapse last year. They are questions they would have faced this week were it not for Eli Manning's two late touchdown drives and Jason Pierre-Paul's freakishly long left arm.

The Giants and Cowboys are both 7-6. They face each other again on Jan. 1. But Dallas is a shell of the team it was when it took a 34-22 lead on Dez Bryant's 50-yard touchdown reception Sunday night. They might not know it yet. The Giants certainly do. They've been there before.

All that is left for them is to deliver the final shots. The final three shots.

"We have to win out," Antrel Rolle said in his weekly spot on WFAN Tuesday. "There's no easier way to put it. Point blank. We have to win out. Bar none. That's it."

There are other scenarios, but they involve other teams beating the Cowboys (the Eagles in particular on Dec. 24). The Giants aren't interested in that. That's the way the Eagles backed in to clinching the title last year. They want to win the division by winning.

"We know that we are going to have to finish," defensive tackle Chris Canty said this week. "Coach Coughlin started it in training camp with the motto of "Finish' and that is the mentality. That is the mentality of our football team for the next few weeks."

That idea of finishing was born last year, a reflection from the loss to the Eagles. The Giants may have finally overcome the haunting mental anguish of that dark day in franchise history with Sunday's win in Dallas. But their finishing is not finished yet.

Rolle shares coach’s concern

Tom Coughlin said he has “tremendous, grave concern” about the big plays the Giants defense is giving up, particularly the ones that come from breakdowns in communication. Safety Antrel Rolle agreed. “That’s called inconsistency,” Rolle said Tuesday on his weekly WFAN radio appearance. “You can’t have that as a defense. Our season will be shut short if we continue to play like that.”

Rolle said the attitude and heart of the team is fine the last few weeks. It’s the actual Xs and Os that need fine-tuning. Of course, that only applies to Rolle’s side of the ball. “Our offense has been outstanding,” he said. “They’ve been saving us.”

No votes for JPP, Cruz

Jason Pierre-Paul, the NFC Defensive Player of the Week, and Victor Cruz are having Pro Bowl-type seasons. Too bad fans can’t vote for them. Teams are only allowed to nominate two players at the defensive end and wide receiver position for the NFL’s online Pro Bowl balloting, and they must do so in October. The Giants nominated Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora at end, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham at receiver. That left their two emerging stars off the ballot. However, fan voting only counts for one-third of the overall process; players and coaches account for the remaining two-thirds.

Comeback for the ages

So how big was Sunday’s comeback win? Well, it was the first time in over 40 years that a Giants team trailed by at least 12 points with less than five minutes to play in the fourth quarter and won. Fran Tarkenton threw two late touchdowns to Don Herrmann in the final 4:48 for a 24-23 win over the Vikings on Sept. 21, 1969. But this was the first time in franchise history that the Giants ever accomplished a comeback like that on the road.