Packers edge Giants to stay unbeaten

Antrel Rolle was happy and smiling. Chris Canty was upset. Justin Tuck was somewhere in between.

There were many ways for the Giants to feel about Sunday's 38-35 loss to the Packers at MetLife Stadium, and if you went around the postgame locker room, you could find just about all of them.

Rolle represented the camp of thought that progress had been made and that the Giants proved they are legitimate playoff contenders.

"I learned a lot about this team," the safety said with a knowing grin. "Everybody as a whole, the coaching staff, players, we have faith in each other. We went out there and we fought and we gave the Super Bowl champs a run for their money. And we will see them again. We will see them again."

On the other side of the room, Canty summed up the disappointment of a fourth straight loss. "We didn't make enough plays to be successful, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters," he said. "We have to get a win. This football team just needs to win a game."

And then there was Tuck. At one point, he said the four-game slide that has dropped the Giants from 6-2 to 6-6 makes him "sick to my stomach," but he also said he hopes the team can continue to play the way it did Sunday.

"I'm hoping this is something that wakes us back up," the defensive captain said. "We still have a great shot to get to where we want to get. Come out with that intensity and passion and play like that every game. We can win a lot of games."

They just didn't win this one, although they very nearly had a chance to push it to overtime. Eli Manning completed a 2-yard touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks and D.J. Ware ran in a two-point conversion to tie the score at 35 with 58 seconds left, but that was enough time for Aaron Rodgers to complete four straight passes and set up Mason Crosby's game-winning 31-yard field goal as time expired.

"That was probably the fastest 58 seconds I've ever seen in my life," said linebacker Jacquian Williams, whose gamble on a short pass to Jermichael Finley early in the drive allowed him to turn it up for a 24-yard gain.

The Packers (12-0) have won 18 straight games, a streak that began against the Giants at Lambeau Field last December. The Giants, meanwhile, got some help as Arizona beat Dallas in overtime. They'll go into the final four-game stretch one game behind the Cowboys and facing them twice in that span.

"We have to regroup," Tom Coughlin said, quickly reflecting the dichotomy between the disappointing result and the improved psyche of the team. "I think this brings us together even tighter than we have ever been before as a team."

Rodgers wasn't flawless -- he threw his fifth interception of the year and had a few drops to impugn his final stats -- but on the last drive, he was pretty darn close. After the pass to Finley, he hit Jordy Nelson for a 27-yard gain. A short pass to Brandon Saine was bottled up for a 1-yard loss, but then he hit Greg Jennings for 18 yards to get to the 12 and set up the winning field goal.

With the Giants down 28-17, Manning threw a 4-yard fade pass into the corner of the end zone, where Nicks made a one-handed grab that was so impressive that Charles Woodson, covering him on the play, gave him a fist-bump. Lawrence Tynes' 50-yard field goal cut the deficit to 28-27 with 10:53 remaining.

The Packers drove 57 yards to go up 35-27 with 3:34 left. Nelson's acrobatic sideline catch picked up 21 yards and Rodgers stood in the pocket for close to five seconds before finding Donald Driver for a 7-yard TD.

"What do you want to say, 'Oh, we can compete well with the good teams'?" Dave Tollefson said. "Competing doesn't get you wins." After a month of losing, though, there were plenty of Giants who were willing to take a moral victory when an actual one could not be attained. There might never have been a team with so many players basking in the glow of a fourth straight loss.

"We came in prepared to shock the world," Tuck said.

They didn't. But they certainly showed some important signs that they are capable of it.