Memories of title game at Lambeau warm Giants
Giants kicker Larwence Tynes sprints off the field after kicking the game-winning field goal in overtime to win the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Jan. 20, 2008. The Giants defeated the Packers, 23-20. Credit: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / MCT
The Giants are heading back to the scene of one of their great triumphs, hoping the memories can help erase the still-stinging effects of one of their worst losses.
For the first time since Jan. 20, 2008, when they won the NFC Championship Game on a 47-yard overtime field goal by Lawrence Tynes, the Giants will be back at Lambeau Field. Temperatures Sunday are not expected to be as brutal as they were for that last visit - minus-1, with a wind chill of minus-23 - but that's not the only difference.
When the Giants played there on the way to Super Bowl XLII, they had just won two road playoff games, including a thriller over a Cowboys team that beat them twice in the regular season.
"We felt like we could beat anybody at that point," defensive tackle Barry Cofield said. "We had a lot of confidence and we were playing well."
Now? Well, the Giants are coming off the low point in not only their season but perhaps their decade: a 38-31 loss to the Eagles in which they led 31-10 with 7:28 to play. As they try to reassemble their confidence in a hurry, they're hopeful that recalling the championship game will help glue the pieces back together.
"We'll take the result and the way the game was played and the emotions involved, you'll take all the positive of it," Tom Coughlin said of using the championship experience to bolster these Giants. But he also noted he has to be careful not to overplay it. Thirty-two of the 53 players on the Giants' active roster this week either weren't with the team or in the NFL when that game was played.
"There are a lot of people sitting in the audience that were watching it at home," Coughlin said.
Those who were there don't require much prodding to head down memory lane. Tynes has a large photograph of the winning kick hanging in his basement, right above the ball that went through the uprights and sent the Giants to the Super Bowl.
Eli Manning has called it the most memorable game of his career. Brandon Jacobs said the first thing he thinks of when he reflects on it is that it was "as cold as hell." Coughlin's face was never as red as it was on that frigid Wisconsin night, although it might have approached that level when he confronted Matt Dodge last week.
Jacobs also pointed out that the Packers have their own memories of that game from which to draw inspiration. "You think they want to taste that again?" he said.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was on the sideline as Brett Favre's backup, said he remembers seeing Jeff Feagles crying after the game because he was so emotional about reaching his first Super Bowl.
"I remember the joy on his face and thinking about how badly I wished we had been the ones to come up with a victory that day," Rodgers said.
There are plenty of similarities to draw this time, from the hallowed location to the stakes. The current psyche of the Giants may be the biggest difference, though.
"It's a completely different team, but it's a must-win," Cofield said. "That's the way we're looking at it. The playoffs have started . . . We just have to play 60 minutes instead of 52 and I think we can win."
Fifty-two minutes? The Giants certainly weren't thinking about that the last time.
