Giants enjoy being the underdog

The whole world is against the Giants again this week, and it would be a boring matchup if not for the Giants' pretty remarkable record in those kinds of games.

Yes, the Giants are facing the 49ers, princes of the NFC, with their glittering 5-1 record, ostentatious offensive stats and smothering defense. And they're facing them in San Francisco, a continent away from the Giants' home base in New Jersey. Naturally, most of the football-watching world is expecting the 49ers to roll over the Giants with ruthless vindictiveness and cool Silicon Valley precision.

That's just the way the Giants want it to be.

"Nobody gives us a chance to win," Tom Coughlin said. "We'll see."

He'll reiterate that thought to his players throughout the week. Nobody gives us a chance. Nobody. It's the same kind of disrespect that the defending Super Bowl champs have been drawing from since they hoisted the Lombardi Trophy last February. Carlos Rogers said during the preseason that the 49ers gave that game to the Giants. Even this week, Kyle Williams, who fumbled away the 49ers' chance to advance to the Super Bowl in overtime, said he felt like the Giants took something away from his team last January.

Said Coughlin: "We earned everything we got last year."

And now they've earned this role as an underdog because of some sloppy play, two losses in the division and an early 14-0 deficit against the Browns that likely would have been much too deep against a more formidable opponent. It's the position where the Giants seem to always play their best from, be it in 2007 when they underdogged their way to the Super Bowl, or last season when they were on the brink of missing the playoffs completely and turned it around.

So the world is rooting against the Giants? Again?

"I just sense it," Coughlin said before adding, with a smile, "I'm hoping that way."