Kiwanuka happy to be on field for this run

There was a point when Mathias Kiwanuka had serious doubts that he ever would play in an NFC Championship Game.

In fact, there were two points. One for each of his season-ending injuries.

The first was during the 2007 season, when he broke a leg in Week 10 and had to stand off to the side while his team won a Super Bowl.

He was in Las Vegas watching while his teammates were in frigid Green Bay beating Brett Favre and the Packers in overtime and punching their ticket to Arizona.

He made it on the field for the Super Bowl -- they tried to get him to a luxury box upstairs but he refused to go -- and celebrated the championship with his fellow Giants. But all the while, one thought was going through his mind:

What if this is it?

"When you're on IR and you are hurt, it feels like there's no way things are going to get better for a long, long time," Kiwanuka said. "That was tough and that was definitely a part of it. What if this chance doesn't come back again?"

The second time was last season. The Giants didn't make the playoffs in the 2010 season, but it was the second time Kiwanuka had his season cut short by injury. But this wasn't a leg that could be patched together and heal on schedule. It was a bulging disc in his neck that sidelined him, and Kiwanuka had to consider whether his career was coming to an end. Or worse.

"What if this is not just a career-threatening injury but a life-threatening injury?" he asked Thursday.

It wasn't. Kiwanuka came back in 2011, having signed a two-year deal as a free agent, and became a linebacker for the Giants. And now, after watching one of his teams play in and win a conference championship and staring down the possibility of never being able to play football again, he is getting ready for the biggest game of his life.

"This entire season has been up and down," he said, although he could have substituted his career for the season, "but there's no place I'd rather be than right here right now with these guys."

Kiwanuka was a first-round pick for the Giants at defensive end, a position at which the team already was stacked. He struggled to break through the depth chart, which included Osi Umenyiora, Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck, and eventually was moved to linebacker in his second season. He was just starting to catch on to that job when he broke his leg in Detroit and missed out on the Super Bowl run.

He came back as a linebacker, was moved back to defensive end, then back to linebacker, then into a sort of hybrid role. This season, he has played linebacker almost exclusively. There are times, though, when Kiwanuka lines up as an end for pass- rushing plays.

What does he consider himself?

"I'm a football player, man," he said. "I always say, just put me on the field and I'll make plays."

He has been, although last week against the spread-out Packers and their passing offense, he was on the sideline more than usual. That figures not to be the case Sunday against the run-reliant 49ers, against whom Kiwanuka will play an important role in trying to stop Frank Gore.

That'll be a challenge, but he'd much rather be doing that than sitting in a desert casino watching his team, as he was the last time the Giants played for a conference title.

"It's emotional because you want to be out there so bad," he said of watching those important games in January and February 2008. "There's not a whole lot that you can do or say. It's just a tough situation to be in."