Like 2010 Pack, Giants have overcome injuries

When the Packers were in Dallas for the Super Bowl last year, they nearly had a team mutiny when some of the players on injured reserve were not allowed to pose for the official team photograph. The Packers said the "sheer number" of injured players prevented them from squeezing everyone into one frame.

The Giants hope they have the same issue. And if they get past the Packers and on to Indianapolis for this year's Super Bowl, they might.

While there have been many apt comparisons between this Giants team and the 2007 championship squad and even the team that played the Packers on Dec. 4, perhaps the most glaring parallel is between the 2011 Giants and the 2010 Packers . . . assuming the Giants can win a Super Bowl, as that team did.

When they hoisted the Lombardi Trophy last February, the Packers had 15 players on injured reserve. As the Giants head to Green Bay to face the Packers -- their role models for patched-up performances -- in a divisional playoff game Sunday, they have 13 on injured reserve. That doesn't include players who were cut from injured reserve such as Sage Rosenfels and Brandon Stokley.

Many of those losses came early in the season, just as they did for the Packers. And like that team last year, the Giants took the hits and regrouped just in time for a playoff run. The Packers won their last two games of the regular season in 2010 and sprinted to the title. That's what the Giants are trying to do.

And to whom did the Giants turn for inspiration when their roster was being shredded by injuries? The Packers, of course.

"Everybody was aware of what the Packers did last year," said Kevin Boothe, a starting guard who stepped into the lineup at two different positions this season because of -- you guessed it -- injuries. "It was essentially the second team out there for them and they were still able to get it done."

Before the first snap of the season, the Giants already had lost two starting defensive players, Terrell Thomas and Jonathan Goff, as well as their second-round draft pick, Marvin Austin.

The wide range of injuries to hit the Giants this season has been as impressive as the quantity. There were the standard knee ligament tears that befell Thomas and Goff and even the broken wrist suffered by Justin Tryon that he played through. Beyond that, though, was a mosaic of medical oddities.

Rosenfels' season ended with a bad case of strep throat that developed into a blood infection. Will Beatty suffered a detached retina. Stacy Andrews nearly died from pulmonary embolisms in both lungs.

Some of the players they brought in as reinforcements -- Michael Clayton for Domenik Hixon, for example, and Tryon for Brian Williams -- wound up on IR themselves.

And yet here the Giants are, one of eight teams left in the NFL playoffs, facing the team they were able to draw inspiration from when their numbers were dwindling.

"They just set in stone that no matter how many key guys you lose, once you stick together, anything can be done," Antrel Rolle said of the 2010 Packers. "We noticed that. We've kind of been going through the same thing this year.''

The Giants are the only team left in the NFC playoffs that needed a Week 17 win to get in.

"You think about the quality of the football players and athletes we lost this year, you just don't know how the guys stepping up are going to step up," Justin Tuck said. "You don't know how that will make a difference in the entire team's play.

"It takes time to get that trust, that belief in some of the guys who had to step in. But right now we have a high level of belief in each other and I think it's showing on the football field."