I said prior to the start of the playoffs that the Giants were playing with house money and that I wouldn’t be upset with whatever happened during the playoffs since no one expected them to get this far anyway. I lied.

Sunday night I took a time machine and went back to January of senior year of college. All the way back to the year 2008 (Conan O’Brien “In the year 2000” voice). It felt like four years ago as I watched the Giants go on the road and win another playoff game and another NFC Championship Game in overtime that would send them on their way to play the Patriots, who won earlier in the day (just like they did four years ago).

I watched the NFC Championship with my three roommates: Red and Dave, who are both Giants fans, and Matt, who is an Eagles fan who would spend the night trying to will the 49ers to victory from the couch. Here is how the night unfolded starting just after 6:30 p.m. and not ending until 10:35 p.m. Four hours of physical and mental exhaustion that left me feeling like I ran the New York marathon twice in the same day.

6:41 – I get a text message from Red from the other side of the apartment. It reads: “Biggest game of the effing year.”

6:58 – On their first possession of the game the Giants dodge a bullet when Eli is sacked and fumbles, but Kareem McKenzie falls on it to keep the 49ers from having incredible field position. Nothing like a good scare from the Giants to open the NFC Championship!

6:59 – Alex Smith throws the ball into the line on first-and-10 from his own 27. There’s the Alex Smith we all remember from before the win over the Saints.

7:00 – Vernon Davis goes 73 yards for a touchdown and then auditions for the Saturday Night Fever remake in the end zone before jumping up on a camera stand to fold his arms and stare at the field. Flags start flying everywhere. Ed Hochuli tells us that there’s a 15-yard penalty for the celebration, but that they are reviewing the play to see if he went out of bounds. If he did go out of bounds then the penalty is enforced from where he went out. If it’s a touchdown, the penalty is enforced on the kickoff. My question is how is the penalty enforced where he went out if he did? If the touchdown technically didn’t happen then didn’t the penalty technically not happen? The NFL really needs to review some odd rules in their book over the summer. But don’t get me wrong, I’m happy it’s going to be enforced no matter what.

It looks clear to me that he stepped out, but I have a feeling it doesn’t look clear on the TV under the hood.

7:04 – Ed Hochuli can’t even explain what happened on the review to see if Davis went out of bounds. He sounds like Boston’s Mayor Menino reciting the “Pledge of Allegiance” as he fumbles around for the right words to tell us that there wasn’t conclusive evidence because conclusive evidence doesn’t exist when it comes to the Giants. I’m glad I just got my first beer of the game. It looks like we have a Bill Leavy situation on our hands again.

The one guy who can’t beat you is Vernon Davis and he just did for 73 yards as the call on the field stands despite what looked like conclusive evidence that he did step out of bounds. The Giants need to make the 49ers put together an actual drive down the field. They can’t allow the one big play to kill them.

Joe Buck tells us that Mike Pereira told him that the Lambeau Leap is grandfathered into the league.

7:08 – Is there any team in the league with worse kick and punt returners than the Giants? I have the answer for you. No, there’s not. (That sequence would be a lot funnier for you if you listened to Rex Ryan talk about Terrell Suggs with Mike Francesa on WFAN on Friday.)

The Giants should be using Victor Cruz or Hakeem Nicks on kickoffs and punts in the playoffs. This is the playoffs! This isn’t Candy Land.

7:10 – Hakeem Nicks falls awkwardly on his shoulder and runs off the field and is now headed to the locker room. Anyone need a beer? To make things better though, Troy Aikman, M.D. is telling us his diagnosis of Nicks without any information.

7:11 – A first down on second-and-5 via the run for the Giants. The good news is it’s a first down. The bad news is this means Kevin Gilbride will think it’s OK to keep running the ball into 49ers line.

Gilbride verifies my thought as Bradshaw gets the ball again on the next play and might have gained one yard if he’s lucky.

7:13 – Brandon Jacobs is worthless. He’s worthless. Fourth-and-1 on the 49 and he can’t get three feet.

Earlier in the day my roommates and I were watching Super Bowl XLII highlights from the final drive when Jacobs converted the huge fourth-and-1. I said if we needed that play in 2011, he wouldn’t get it. Sure enough he doesn’t just hours later. The Giants turn the ball over on downs.

7:15 – The apartment is dead silent. I don’t think Dave has said a word so far and just looks extremely worried like he’s waiting for a phone call from his girlfriend on the results of a pregnancy test. Matt has been quiet the entire game though I know he’s desperately rooting against the Giants in his head. Red has been the most talkative of the three, but it’s usually to go on an expletive-filled rant after the Giants run the ball. The last words said in the apartment were from Red when he said, “Good start” after Jacobs was stopped. Giants fans!

7:16 – Osi Umenyiora just had a chance to turn the game around, but couldn’t handle the fumble in the rain. Wet or dry, isn’t it amazing how many guys have trouble trying to recover a fumble that’s in their hands? Everything is going wrong for the Giants early on. Red just broke the silence with one of his rants.

7:17 – Here’s a scary thought: This game feels a lot like the Giants-Dolphins game in the rain in London in 2007. Sure, the Giants won that game 13-10, but the entire game was sloppy.

7:20 – Here’s a fun fact: Jacobs is 8-for-16 in his career on fourth-and-1.

7:21 – The first quarter ends and it was as bad of a first quarter as you could ask for. The Giants recovered a fumble of their own, missed the chance to recover a 49ers’ fumble and failed on a fourth-and-1. On top of that, I only had one beer in the quarter. The Giants aren’t the only ones that need to pick it up.

Everyone is still quiet in the apartment. Dave is speaking softly and giving off the vibes of an inevitable loss. I can see the steam and fire coming out of Red’s ears and head. Matt is sitting back and relaxing since his football season ended a long time ago. Fly Eagles Fly!

7:24 – The Giants start the second quarter off with a 36-yard pass to Victor Cruuuuuuuuuuuuz. Turning point of the game?

(I hope it rains for the next week in San Francisco and that this rain isn’t just bad luck on the one day the Giants have to play there. I can’t stop thinking about the midge game from the 2007 ALDS.)

7:27 – Eli is 5-for-6 on third-down conversions. Hakeem Nicks catches a pass at the 49ers’ 8-yard line. The camera shows a close-up of Jim Harbaugh huffing and puffing his cheeks the way Mark Teixeira does when he’s running down the first-base line. We get it. Somehow Brandon Jacobs just picked up a first down.

7:28 – The Giants are still in the huddle with six seconds left on the play clock. Now they’re forced to burn a timeout because of either miscommunication or confusion. If this happens in the second half I will lose it. (No, I haven’t lost it already.)

Commercial break: Reese Witherspoon is an absolute smokeshow in the trailer for This Means War.

7:32 – TOUCHDOWN, GIANTS! Eli finds Bear Pascoe (how many people in the world just asked, “Who the hell is Bear Pascoe?” the way Verne Lundquist asked, “Who the hell is Happy Gilmore?” High fives and applause and celebratory expletives fill the apartment.

7:36 – Alex Smith tries to rebut Eli’s touchdown pass with a bomb to Kyle Williams, but overthrows him by about 15 yards. Joe Buck got a little too excited for the attempt. I hope Buck isn’t beginning to judge long pass attempts the way that Michael Kay and John Sterling judge long fly balls and home runs.

7:38 – A third-down penalty on Aaron Ross gives the 49ers an automatic first down. What would a Giants game be without a terrible play or decision from Aaron Ross? I’m not sure since it’s never happened.

7:40 – A mini fight breaks out and a flag flies. A Giants player was on the ground and getting taunted/hit, but I’m sure there will be a 15-yarder on the Giants somehow.

Nevermind. The flag is on Vernon Davis for pushing Michael Boley for really no reason at all. Where’s Mike Singletary to bench Davis and send him to the locker room when you need him? Oh, right. He was fired because his franchise quarterback couldn’t win games for him.

7:43 – Alex Smith is doing nothing and I mean nothing in the way that Tom Brady did nothing today. Luckily he has Frank Gore on his team who can’t be stopped right now. I have a great feeling every time the 49ers drop back to pass.

Chase Blackburn makes a huge play on Gore. It’s insane that Blackburn was sitting on his couch prior to the Giants-Packers regular season game and then re-signed with the team only to intercept Aaron Rodgers in that game and then start every game the rest of the way. I can only imagine how much better the team would have been if he had been on the team from the start of the year.

7:49 – How about Candlestick Park? It’s 2012. How is this stadium still hosting major sporting events?

7:52 – Third-and-2 for the Giants at their own 48. I say, “Don’t get sacked.” Eli gets sacked.

7:59 – The Giants stop the 49ers on third-and-7 and use their last timeout of the half. Eli will have the ball with 1:36 left and no timeouts. If the Giants can score here and then score to open the second half I can finally relax. Eli Manning in the two-minute drill is the closest thing to No. 42 in the ninth inning when it comes to New York sports.

8:04 – Cruz has three catches (and been the intended target four times) on this drive for 43 yards. He looks like he is breathing heavy and could use a Gatorade. The same goes me.

8:06 – Eli has a brainfart and calls timeout, but the Giants don’t have any timeouts left. Ed Hochuli is here to explain more rules by definition to us.

An unbelievable pass and catch from Eli and Cruuuuuuz to get the ball to the 49ers’ 13. Eli spikes it on third-and-2 and here comes Lawrence Tynes. Maybe he doesn’t need a Gatorade.

8:07 – Six seconds left in the half and Tynes is in for the field goal. He already almost missed an extra point. Please don’t miss this.

8:08 – Tynes drills it and the Giants take a 10-7 lead into halftime. Eli always gets points at the end of a half.

8:24 – Joe Buck opens the second half by telling us the Packers are already in the Super Bowl, which is what he had wished for. But hey, Packers … Patriots … same thing.

8:25 – Ahmad Bradshaw stops and tries to cut back in the rain once again. He has now done this on every carry today and has been stopped as he soon as he tries to cut back on every cut back. I’m not sure if he is aware of the effects of rain and mud.

8:27 – Run, run, incomplete pass. Well, having the ball to start the second half didn’t matter as the Giants punt right away.

8:30 – Alex Smith just got sacked by three Giants simultaneously, but it looked and probably felt like eight Giants. I wish Jay Alford were one of them.

8:33 – You have to love NFL rules sometimes. A five-yard penalty for the Giants on third-and-14 for the 49ers gives the 49ers an automatic first down. Why is Ed Hochuli reading the definition of every penalty on every call? Is this now mandatory after the officiating job that Bill Leavy did last week in Green Bay?

8:36 – It’s third down for the 49ers and Joe Buck is saying that Osi Umenyiora isn’t lined up in the neutral zone as he is just praying for a penalty. No penalty is called. Sorry, Joe.

8:37 – Whenever the 49ers have to punt, I just pray that it goes out of bounds or that Will Blackmon just goes down immediately once he catches it. The word “fumble” follows Blackmon around like a stench.

8:40 – Victor Cruz with back-to-back catches. He now has 10 catches for 142 yards. I would like to take this time to thank Steve Smith for not re-signing with the Giants.

8:41 – Eli is forced to throw it away because of the blitz, as the offensive line is doing nothing to protect him. There isn’t a Patriots fan who isn’t praying the 49ers win this game.

8:43 – Kyle Williams almost breaks free for a touchdown on the punt return. Hey, the 49ers have a wide receiver returning punts, why can’t we? Will Blackmon is the luckiest man in the world when it comes to being employed. (Well, outside of Boone Logan.)

8:45 – Frank Gore breaks free for 24 yards after the catch. On the following play, Smith finds Davis for a 28-yard touchdown. The one that can’t beat you has beaten you twice in the same game. Inexcusable. Is this Miguel Cabrera in the 2011 ALDS?

8:52 – The apartment is dead quiet. It might be time to ask anyone if they want to order a pizza. Pizza always makes people happy.

8:56 – The Giants punt again. If I entered the game with a 10-out of-10 on the Confidence Scale, I’m at a steady 3 right now.

Troy Aikman says the Giants have played a good defensive game aside from the two big plays they gave up for touchdowns. That’s like a pitcher saying he had a great game except for the two mistake pitches that resulted in a pair of two-run home runs.

8:58 – The 49ers go three-and-out. I’m done drinking. I need to be completely focused on this game. I’m already starting to think about Red’s confidence heading into the game and his guarantee that the Giants will win and the inevitable jinx he might have caused.

8:59 – There’s no urgency with the Giants the way there wasn’t for most of the regular season. It’s the team’s biggest problem and has been in the Tom Coughlin Era.

9:03 – The Giants are forced to punt again. Dave ordered a pepperoni roll from the store downstairs because he wanted a tin of Skoal, but didn’t want to miss the game, so he had to order the roll to meet the $10 minimum for the guy to walk upstairs and deliver him the tin. Dave just knocked the pizza roll off the coffee table before having a single bite (he knocked an entire beer off the table during the Patriots-Ravens game) and the side cup of sauce is everywhere and the entire roll is on the ground. He looks at the Giants’ situation on TV and looks at his roll on the ground and exclaims, “I can’t catch an effing break.” Red is covering his mouth to hold back laughter. I might just go to sleep right now. Dave puts the roll back on the plate and starts cutting it up to eat it anyway. I think this might be the turning point of the game.

9:08 – Here come the officials since everyone in America tuned in to watch them. A 15-yard penalty is called on Chris Canty for a push after the whistle. This is the NFC Championship Game, right? This is the second half of the game that decides who goes to the Super Bowl, right? So, now we’re not going to let athletes near the end of an emotional game decide the game themselves? Oh, OK. I was ready for the season to be over with 5:41 left in Dallas in Week 14. I’m beginning to think I would have been better off if it was.

9:12 – Gore opens the fourth quarter by turning what would have been a loss of one yard into a game of six yards.

9:15 – I wasn’t worried for really any of the Packers game. That game was against the 15-1 defending champions in Lambeau Field where they had lost in years. But in the fourth quarter, I’m sweating out a Giants-49ers game worried about Alex Smith making one more pass to dagger the Giants’ season. Is this real life?

9:16 – The 49ers punt and during the commercial break, Red begins to give Knute Rockne-like speech to the apartment. “THIS IS IT RIGHT HERE! WE HAVE ONE QUARTER! ONE QUARTER!” I feel like Les Miles is sitting on the other couch yelling at me. Either Red should be getting called for an interview for the Colts’ head coach opening or he might want to stop drinking tonight.

9:17 – Is Ahmad Bradshaw wearing dress shoes? Why is he so slow? Eli gets sacked again.

9:25 – Devin Thomas might have just saved the season by picking up the ball on what looked to an innocent play, but the replay shows the Giants’ punt went off the knee of Kyle Williams and after reviewing the play, the ball should belong to the Giants. (I say should because we all watched the Giants-Packers game).

Giants ball!

9:28 – Ed Hochuli apparently hasn’t gotten to use his microphone enough, so he turns it on to call an untimely holding penalty on the Giants. It’s third-and-15 for the Giants now from the 49ers’ 17.

TOUCHDOWN!!! Eli to Manningham on third-and-15 and the Giants take a 17-14 lead! High fives and hugs and screams all around.

9:31 – Is Lawrence Tynes the only kicker in the NFL that can’t reach the end zone on kickoffs with the new kickoff rules? 8:34 left in the game.

9:38 – Kendall Hunter follows Smith with an 18-yard run of his own down to the Giants’ 15. The 49ers have 149 rushing yards. The Giants have 57.

9:39 – Joe Buck tells us that the 49ers were 30th in the league in scoring in the red zone during the regular season. If this isn’t a Michael Kay moment, I don’t know what is. I’m expecting a 49ers touchdown now. The 49ers run a bizarre play that Aikman says he saw them run earlier in the week in practice, but he thought Smith was just “goofing around” in practice when he ran it.

9:41 – The Giants hold the 49ers to a field goal as David Akers blasts a 25-yard field goal. Akers would never miss against the Giants. Never. Who do you think we are? The Patriots? The Giants don’t get breaks like that. 5:39 left. Tie game. I can’t breathe.

9:46 – An amazing three-and-out for the Giants. I need an inhaler and I don’t have asthma.

9:48 – Alex Smith is sacked on third-and-7 at the 49ers’ 28 by Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora on the biggest play of the season to date.

9:49 – Aaron Ross is now returning punts? Umm, WHAT?!?!?!?!

9:51 – You know the silly NFL rules I hate? I take it back. “Forward progress” saves the Giants’ season as the officials blow an early whistle prior to a Bradshaw fumble, and the Giants are still alive.

10:01 – Eli is getting lit up. His jersey is complete brown from the mud and he looks like a mess. If you just turned on FOX you would think they’re airing Saving Private Ryan starring Eli Manning. Is anyone going to protect him? Anyone?

10:03 – The Giants are forced to punt with under a minute left. Punt it out of the end zone! Don’t give Williams a chance to return it. I have lived through this story once before and I don’t want to again.

Weatherford gets a low snap (timely!) and only gets it to the 49er’s 22. Williams brings it up to the 49ers’ 36. The 49ers are essentially two solid passes away from David Akers’ range. Please kneel the ball, San Francisco! PLEASE!

10:08 – Thankfully nothing happens. I have been standing up and rocking back and forth mixed with jumping up and down for the last 20 minutes, and now we’re going to overtime. Things are only going to get worse.

10:11 – Hochuli explains the overtime rules in 22 minutes with an intermission halfway through. The Giants call “tails” and it’s tails! Tails never fails! (Except when it’s heads.)

10:12 – I asked Red if he would sleep outside tonight on the street to have the Giants win this game. He says, “100 percent. I would just bundle up.”

10:13 – Here we go!

10:16 – A pass intended for Jerrel Jernigan on third down with the season the line? No big deal. Jernigan only had zero catches during the regular season. The Giants punt right away. So much for winning the toss.

10:18 – JPP with a huge tackle on Gore for a loss of two yards on second-and-10, and I immediately go into my own version of JPP’s celebration.

10:20 – It only took Tom Coughlin … well it took Tom Coughlin a long time to realize that Will Blackmon is a waste of a return man. The problem is that Aaron Ross is now the return man. You never want a guy as a return man who doesn’t touch the ball throughout the game. It’s a recipe for disaster. And you also never want to start changing your return man in the NFC Championship Game. All of this coupled with the fact that Aaron Ross is Aaron Ross makes me think something very, very bad is going to happen in overtime.

10:23 – A 49ers’ timeout allows for me to catch my breath and compose myself during the commercial break.

10:26 – Third-and-3 at the 49ers’ 46 and Eli is sacked for a loss of 10 yards. Devastating. Just devastating.

10:27 – AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! KYLE WILLIAMS FUMBLES THE PUNT! DEVIN THOMAS! DEVIN THOMAS! DEVIN THOMAS!

I just did a combination of the Jeter fist pump with the Joba 360-fist pump with the Cervelli fist pump with the Posada hand clap with the Anisimov snipe and I finished it with Theo Fleury’s goal celebration from Game 6 of the 1991 playoffs by rolling around on the hardwood floor to celebrate the 49ers’ turnover. Monster.com has at least two new accounts being created tonight between Kyle Williams and Billy Cundiff.

10:31 – Please don’t fumble, Ahmad Bradshaw. Please don’t fumble.

10:32 – FOX shows the graphic for the Giants’ field goal unit to show you who is to blame if the Giants can’t make this 26-yard chip shot. Either FOX is trying to conjure up memories of the 2002 playoff game here with Trey Junkin or they watched the Patriots-Ravens game and know that a lot of people are googling the Ravens’ kicker’s name and they don’t want to give Google more traffic if the same thing happens here.

10:33 – The Giants just let the play clock run out and a delay of game penalty is called on them. How is this possible? No Giants’ win can ever be easy. Not one. FOX shows a replay of Eli pointing out the clock to Coughlin and telling him to call a timeout and Coughlin just stands there in a daze and allows it to happen. The 26-yard attempt is now a 31-yard attempt.

The 49ers call a timeout to ice the kicker after Coughlin just basically iced his own kicker. My heart can’t take this.

10:35 – HE DID IT! HE DID IT! HE DID IT! (Gary Thorne voice.) Tynes drills the field goal and then takes off the other way running like he did at Lambeau Field fours years ago.

Now this “four years ago” thing just needs to continue two weeks from tonight.

“Noooooooooooooooo!” That’s what I yelled as Jason Babin chased down Eli Manning from behind on Sunday night. Eli had no idea that Babin was coming. He had just completed a 47-yard pass on third-and-3 and a 17-yard pass before that on second-and-20. He had the ball on the Eagles’ 21-yard line and he could smell overtime.

That’s why I yelled, “Noooooooooooooooo!” as the game slowed down to almost a standstill. Images of DeSean Jackson’s punt return and Jon Kitna’s three touchdowns and Eli’s dive and fumble from 2010, and the 45 points the Eagles put up, and the 26-6 loss on Thanksgiving and the last-minute loss to the Chargers from 2009 flashed through my mind in the time it took for the ball to leave Eli’s hands and hit the ground. I watched the loosely protected ball fall out of Manning’s arm like the bottle of Goldschlager getting knocked out of the homeless man’s hand by Seth on the bus in Superbad. Game over.

I sat there hoping for that rectangle on the NBC Sunday Night Football score bar to turn yellow and for “FLAG” to appear. It never came. Then I waited for the bottom of my TV screen to turn into a scrolling ticker that read: This is a test of the Second-Half Collapse Emergency System. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions.” It never came either because it wasn’t a test … it was an emergency. This is an emergency.

I’m scared, but there’s no one to tell me everything is going to be OK because most people don’t think it’s going to be OK, and no one wants to sugarcoat this thing or lie about it. The Giants are 0-2 in the second half of the season. They have had chances to go to overtime on their final drives in the last two games and haven’t, and now the Superdome awaits and the defending champions and undefeated Packers will follow six days after that. This is a full-fledged collapse. It doesn’t mean it can’t be stopped, it just means that it has started. And once something like this starts it’s hard to stop. And with the Giants’ schedule it’s nearly impossible to stop.

I have become a historian when it comes to collapses. It’s not something you want to be familiar with or an expert about, but I think it’s safe to say that if the NFL Network, NFL Films, HBO Sports or ESPN ever decide to make a documentary on the Tom Coughlin era, I would be a front-runner for a cameo to talk about this near decade of Giants football. I even have a title for the documentary: “Is This Real Life?: The Tom Coughlin Giants”. Maybe I should just film this thing myself?

There are certain signs of a collapse I have grown familiar with during the Tom Coughlin era and especially over the last two years. Those signs came out on Sunday night at MetLife Stadium just as the Second-Half Collapse siren went off in my head when the Eagles recovered the fumble on Babin’s sack of Eli with 1:17 left in the game.

1. Losing Games You’re Supposed To Win
The Giants never make anything easy. It’s not what they’re about. If the Giants had beaten the Redskins in Week 1 at home or the Seahawks in Week 5 at home, of if they had completed the comeback against the 49ers or not lost to the Vick-less Eagles at home, then they wouldn’t be sitting here wondering where four or five more wins are going to come from. They wouldn’t need to steal a game against the Saints or Packers, or sweep the season series from the Cowboys. I’m not saying they should have won all of those games to be sitting at 10-0 right now, but is it too much to ask for them to win one or maybe even two of those?

I have said it before and I will say it again: This is New York Giants football. This is who the Giants are. Erase that four-game playoff run in January and February of 2008 from your memory. Yes, it happened and it was glorious, but that’s not who the Giants are, and that’s certainly not who the Giants are under Tom Coughlin. They happened to have a few consecutive weekends of picking up girls out of their league, and it took them some time for them and the public to accept that their amazing hot streak had come to an end.

Losing games against inferior opponents and backup quarterbacks, and allowing special teams touchdowns and committing special teams penalties and throwing interceptions in the red zone and fumbling to lose games is who the Giants are. I have come to accept it. It shouldn’t be like that and it doesn’t have to be like that, but under Tom Coughlin that’s the organization’s identity.

2. Negative Thoughts In the Players’ Minds
With Joe and Evan on Tuesday on WFAN, Antrel Rolle said, “We’re too calm, man. We’re too relaxed come Sunday. We’re too poised.”

Justin Tuck used the words “historical second-half collapse” with reporters.

Michael Boley spoke out against Tom Coughlin’s assessment of the team by saying, “I’ve always said, coaches coach, players play. We (are) in the trenches. We really know what goes on out there. For someone on the side to say this doesn’t happen, it doesn’t mean nothing to me.”

Brandon Jacobs took out his frustration on the fans by saying, “That’s the best thing that they do here is to boo. I’m not worried about that. I’ve been hearing that for seven years.”

On Twitter, Jake Ballard showed that he is still thinking about his costly drops by tweeting, “Thanks for the love on here. I feel terrible about the drops. Letting my team and fans down, I can’t stop thinking bout it. I will overcome.”

So we have a safety who thinks the team wasn’t ready, a defensive lineman who has been a part of the last two collapses and is already thinking about the possibility of another one, a linebacker who disagreed with his coach to the media, a running back who decided to challenge the fan base and a tight end who can’t stop thinking about his terrible performance against the Eagles. All we need is some fourth-quarter rally beers and a few orders of Popeye’s and we have quite the reenactment of another collapse.

I still believe in this Giants team. I don’t know why since they haven’t done anything to make me believe in them, but I do. Maybe it’s because I don’t have another choice if I want to see Giants football past Week 17 for the first time in three years. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of these endings and afraid of seeing another year of Eli Manning’s prime be wasted. Maybe it’s because I don’t want another image of Tom Coughlin etched into my mind of his hands on his hips and head his tilted to the side like he’s trying to read Chinese or decipher one of those Ticketmaster security codes you have to type in.

3. Playing Without Urgency
This Giants team shouldn’t be playing for a postseason berth. They should be playing for a No. 1 or No. 2 seed and a first-round bye. They were 6-2!

The problem with the Giants is urgency, and it always has been. They don’t know the meaning of it and don’t seem to care to want to play with it. How do I know this? Well, five of their six wins have come in the fourth quarter. They haven’t had a lead at halftime since Week 4 against Arizona (Oct. 2), and they have been shut out in the third quarter in six of their 10 games. But they don’t have trouble finding the scoreboard in the fourth quarter. Hmm…

The Giants play to the level of their opponent, and they don’t play at the level we expect them to play at until the fourth quarter when it’s nearly too late and when one mistake will end the game. They consistently leave themselves no margin for error, and sometimes it pays off (lucky call for Cruz against Arizona, Webster interception against Buffalo, Cruz touchdown against Miami, Ballard catch and touchdown against New England), and sometimes it doesn’t (Eli interception against Seattle, deflected ball against San Francisco, sack and fumble against Philadelphia).

What is this team doing in the first three quarters? Why does it take a deficit heading into halftime and no life from the offense for the Giants to get motivated to want to win?

4. Sloppy Play
Eli Manning completed 18 of his 35 pass attempts on Sunday night, and that’s with seven drops. If say, three of those drops aren’t dropped, we might not be sitting here talking about a loss, but rather admiring a first-place team and celebrating the end of the Eagles’ season.

Against the Eagles, Jake Ballard had three drops, Hakeem Nicks had two, and Victor Cruz and D.J. Ware each had one. Last year it seemed like every time the Giants receivers “dropped” a pass they actually tipped it into a defender’s hands for an interception. This year they are still dropping passes at an amazing rate, but they are fortunately hitting the ground. Eli’s receivers weren’t helping him and the Giants didn’t have a running game to turn to. It’s a miracle that the Giants even had a chance to tie the game on their final drive.

And what exactly went on with the running game? 17 carries for 29 yards from a trio of running backs? That type of production seems almost impossible, and Coughlin calling it “pathetic” wasn’t enough.

Brandon Jacobs carried the ball 12 times for 21 yards (1.8 yards per carry). On one of those 12 carries, Jacobs ran for nine yards. So, on the other 11 carries, he ran for 12 yards (1.1 yards per carry). Unfathomable.

Jacobs is 6-foot-4, which is 2.1 yards. This means that if Jacobs took the handoff from Eli and got back to the line of scrimmage and just fell forward, he would have gained more yards per carry than he did actually trying to gain yards by “running.” Unbelievable. Actually with Jacobs it is sort of believable. How is Jacobs still blaming others for his lack of production? Now the fans are wrong for booing him? Jacobs has entered the A.J. Burnett Zone and there’s no turning back now.

He hasn’t rushed for 100 yards since he ran for 113 against the Vikings … last December. He has become worthless to the offense and the Giants have resorted to using D.J. Ware and Da’Rel Scott in situations over him with Ahmad Bradshaw still out. If Bradshaw doesn’t come back soon there is no chance of this season ending well because the Giants have proven that they will keep running the ball no matter what with their…

5. Unusual Playcalling
There’s a reason Brian Schottenheimer has the training wheels on Mark Sanchez, and there’s a reason he calls the plays he calls. There’s no reason why Kevin Gilbride calls the plays he calls with the Giants offense.

Against the 49ers, Kevin Gilbride (and his no undershirt) called for a shotgun draw to his No. 3 running back on third-and-2 run from the San Francisco 10 with 1:10 left and the game on the line against the No. 1 run defense in the league. Against the Eagles, multiple times he decided to give the ball to Brandon Jacobs on back-to-back running plays to begin drives. And I remember an awesome draw play with Jacobs on second-and-10 that went for no gain. Is that really putting your team and your players in the best possible situations to succeed?

How do the Giants not adjust to what they’re seeing on the field? How do they keep giving the ball to Jacobs time after time unsuccessfully? With Bradshaw out, their best offensive weapons are all wide receivers and not running backs. Doesn’t anyone notice this?

The Giants have the most predictable offense in the NFL. There are no surprises. They put themselves in unmanageable third downs and then call for plays that leave them one yard short of a new set of downs. It’s not like this happened a few times for the first time on Sunday. It happens every Sunday. Every single Sunday.

6. No Defense At Inopportune Times
It seems like yesterday the Giants defense held Tom Brady scoreless for the entire first in Foxboro. But that was a few weeks ago. What really feels like yesterday even though it was now three days ago is the Giants defense letting Vince Young orchestrate an 18-play game-winning drive against them. 18 plays! How was this possible? Let’s look.

Third-and-3: Ronnie Brown runs for six yards.

Third-and-10: Pass to Riley Cooper for 18 yards.

Third-and-3: Pass to Clay Harbor for six yards.

Third-and-1: Vince Young runs for one yard.

Third-and 4: Pass to DeSean Jackson for 10 yards.

Third-and-Goal: Eight-yard touchdown pass to Riley Cooper.

That’s six successful third-down conversions on one drive with the game on the line. An embarrassment.

If you own a company that’s looking for a lot of marketing, advertising or promoting, why wouldn’t you want to sponsor “converted third downs against the Giants?”

“It’s third-and-22 for the Eagles on the Giants’ 10. Young drops back … he looks left … scrambles to the right … and he finds Jackson wide open up the middle for a 34-year gain. It’s another Modell’s Sporting Goods third-down conversion against the New York Giants.”

7. Bad Coaching
Antrel Rolle told Joe and Evan on Tuesday that the Giants weren’t ready to play against the Eagles. (Rolle also used the phrase “at the end of the day” 20 times in a 13-minute interview. Yes, I counted.) How could you play 16 regular season games a year and not be ready for one of them at the end of the day? How could you be playing for a postseason berth for the first time since 2008 and playing against the Eagles, your chief rivals and the team that has ended your season the last three years and not be ready at the end of the day? How is this possible at the end of the day?

(I loved when Rolle said, “Are they [the Eagles] better than us? Not at all.” Oh, OK. I must have been watching a different Giants-Eagles game on NBC on Sunday night.)

If the Giants weren’t ready then there is a clearly problem with this team and this coaching staff. Tom Coughlin, who prides himself on being old-school and a disciplinarian, has watched his team collapse in six of his seven years here, and now they are 0-2 in the second half as he goes for a seventh collapse in eight years.

Coughlin is coaching for his career here. If the Giants don’t make the playoffs, he’s gone. That year left on his contract after this season is meaningless. It’s just there so he isn’t a lame-duck coach this season and doesn’t have to answer questions about next season to distract the team. But if the Giants don’t make the playoffs then he’s gone.

Coughlin is 65 years old and in his eighth year with the team. No other team is going to be hiring a 65-year-old to come into a new organization, and the Giants aren’t going to bring back a guy who has missed the playoffs three years in a row and hasn’t won a playoff game in seven of the eight years he’s been with the team, even with Super Bowl XLII to his name.

So knowing all of this, how does Coughlin allow David Akers and the 49ers to successfully recover an onside kick against his team? The same David Akers that did it to him in the Eagles’ epic comeback last year. And how does Coughlin’s team, a week later, punt the ball to DeSean Jackson, who ended the Giants’ season last year? How? No. I want to know. Howwwwww?!?!

The Giants are 6-4. The Cowboys are 6-4. They still have to play each other twice, which will most likely decide who wins the NFC East. But aside from those two meetings, the Giants play the Saints (7-3), Packers (10-0), Redskins (3-7) and Jets (5-5). The Cowboys play the Dolphins (3-7), Cardinals (3-7), Buccaneers (4-6) and Eagles (4-6).

The Giants and Cowboys meet on Dec. 11 in Week 11 and again on Jan. 1 in Week 17. If that Week 17 game is essentially a one-game playoff for a postseason spot it will be like the Yankees and Red Sox meeting for one-game playoff. I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle something of that magnitude.

Two weeks ago New York City was the focal point of the football world. Now it’s home to two second-place teams battling for their postseason lives and scoreboard watching along the way. But the NFL is a week-to-week league, and that’s why the Giants going into New Orleans as seven-point underdogs and winning isn’t improbable.

The Giants can beat the Saints and temporarily postpone what seems inevitable, or they continue their annual meltdown. I won’t be surprised either way. That’s Giants football.

***

Here are my picks for the three Thanksgiving games. The rest of the Week 12 Picks will be posted on Friday.

DETROIT +6.5 over Green Bay
I will be rooting as hard as possible for the Packers the same way that Lions fans will be two Sundays from now. I think this will be a close game, and I can only hope the Packers win. It’s all about watching other NFC teams lose now to keep the Giants’ wild-card chances alive if the division fades away.

Miami +7 over DALLAS
Everyone is chalking this up as a win for the Cowboys much like they chalked up the Giants-Eagles game on Sunday Night Football as a win for the Giants. The Dolphins aren’t good because beating the Chiefs, Redskins and Bills doesn’t make you good. But now that they are completely out of the Andrew Luck sweepstakes and Tony Sparano is trying to whatever he can do either try and stick around Miami next year (1-percent chance) or audition for other jobs in the league. The Dolphins are going to fight until the clock reads 0:00 in Week 17. I can only hope that mentality mixed with their three-game wining streak is enough to beat the Cowboys, who are always vulnerable to a devastating loss of their own.

BALTIMORE -3 over San Francisco
The Brothers Harbaugh Game. I could care less about this game. Jets fans, however, aren’t thinking the same way. Alex Smith is going to turn back into a pumpkin at some point this season, and what better night than on Thanksgiving in Baltimore?

Last Week: 7-5-2
Season: 72-79-9

The Giants lost a game on Sunday that they could have won. I wanted to wait an extra day to write about the 27-20 loss to the 49ers because I wanted to wait for reactions from the Giants on a loss to start the second half of their schedule. While immediate postgame reaction is usually substantial, you knew the media would have even more questions about second-half collapses on Monday, and that the Giants would have even more to talk about a day after the loss. And they both did.

Sunday’s loss was a loss that hurts, but not one that will cause Rambo-like flashbacks to 2009 and 2010. It’s a loss that will go away with a Giants win over the Eagles in Week 11. To analyze the loss to the 49ers and preview the importance of the game against the Eagles this week, I thought it would be a good idea to get some help from quotes from the Giants from Sunday and Monday.

Tom Coughlin on the loss: “Yeah, I’m very disappointed.”

I’m disappointed too.

Eli Manning on the loss: “We felt confident. We were right there. Very close.”

I felt confident too.

Osi Umenyiora on the loss: “I’m not shocked. We shouldn’t keep letting it get like that.”

That’s the answer I was looking for. This is what I’m talking about. Osi Umenyiora gets it. Why doesn’t everyone else?

Sure, the Giants lose to another first-place team on the road (not only the road, but the West Coast and 3,000 miles away from East Rutherford), but they had their chances to win. They had more than enough chances to win.

When you get an onside kick recovered against you, throw an interception because the play before the interception your wide receiver dropped a first down, throw another interception because a different wide receiver stops his route, allow Alex Smith to throw for 242 yards (when he had thrown for more than 201 yards just once in previous eight games) and you take penalties on special teams, you’re going to lose. It’s pretty ridiculous that the Giants were just 10 yards from tying the game and sending it to overtime. I can only pray that the Giants make the playoffs, win in the wild card round and then face the 49ers again. But to do all that they have to do that first thing: make the playoffs.

Like Osi said, “We shouldn’t keep letting it get like that.” It’s great that Eli is the best two-minute drill quarterback in the NFL (that’s right, Tom Brady fans, I said it), but you don’t want to keep going to the well and needing him to bail you out. It’s the same situation with the Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist. Sure, Henrik’s going to bail the offense out more times than not, but you can’t expect him to only give up one or two goals every game. And you can’t expect Eli to go down the field with under two minutes left and a pair of timeouts every Sunday of the season and live to tell about it come January. The defense has to do something too.

Tom Coughlin on the onside kick: “[David Akers] is exceptional at it. What is he – nine of 19 in his career with surprise onsides? You talk all week about it. You do the best you can with that. We let our guard down just a little bit, didn’t attack the ball and that was the consequence. So I take responsibility for that.”

I’m glad Tom Coughlin decided to take responsibility for the onside kick. Who else was going to take responsibility for it? Not me. I was 3,000 miles away from San Francisco when it happened.

The No. 1 thing everyone looks at when the Giants start the second half of their schedule is Tom Coughlin. It’s why his face where he looks like he is trying to solve the equation on the hallway chalkboard in Good Will Hunting has become synonymous with collapses. He represents everything that is the 2009 and 2010 collapses, and it’s his coaching and disciplinary styles that get questioned and critiqued when the Giants lose. So, you would think after what has happened the last two years at this same point in the season that Coughlin would make sure if the Giants lose games they are at least losing because the other team is better. You would think that no team would be attempting an onside kick and successfully recovering it against the Giants in the second quarter of a tie game at this point in the season. You would think that the Giants wouldn’t let the same kicker who had a successful onside kick against them in the game in which they blew a 21-point lead with 7:18 a year ago to knock them out of the playoffs, successfully kick another onside kick against them in a big game. You would think so. But it happened. It all happened.

I’m glad Tom Coughlin takes responsibility for it.

Coughlin, who is the King of Challenges, challenged that a 49er touched the ball first on a Giants punt at the beginning of the second half. FOX went to commercial twice without showing the best possible views of the play (probably so Joe Buck could touch up his red and white face paint), so viewers had no idea what was going on, but when we finally saw the play, it was puzzling as to why Coughlin challenged it. So, Coughlin allowed an onside kick in the first half and started the second half by wasting a challenge and a timeout. He was certainly in second-half form on Sunday.

Victor Cruz on Carlos Rogers doing Cruz’s salsa dance after an interception: “Yeah, I wasn’t too fond of that. But whatever. I got best of him throughout the game, so I wasn’t worried.”

Victor Cruz isn’t worried that the Giants lost because he got the best of Carlos Rogers. Oh OK, well I’m glad playoff berths are given out based on which receivers got the best of which cornerbacks and not based on which teams have the best win-loss record.

If you’re going to salsa dance on defenses then defenses are going to salsa dance on you. It’s part of the art of celebrating. If you don’t want someone imitating or mocking your signature celebration or impersonating you in a negative way then maybe you shouldn’t give them the chance to.

Yes, Cruz led the Giants with six catches for 84 yards, but it was his drop that was one of the crucial plays and turning points of the game.

At the time, the Giants had the ball with 1:49 to play in the first half (Eli’s time) and were trailing 9-6. Cruz drops a wide-open pass for a first down and a huge gain. The Giants go back to Cruz on the very next play and the 49ers pick it off and take over at the Giants’ 43. Luckily, Alex Smith was picked off four plays later and the Giants went to halftime trailing by just three, but they could have tied the game or taken the lead heading into the locker room. So, salsa dance all you want, Carlos Rogers.

Justin Tuck on Michael Boley’s hamstring injury: “It’s actually kind of funny. We were talking about who on this defense would it hurt to lose and unanimously we talked about [Michael] Boley.”

That’s “kind of funny?” Are you insane? Who talks about things like this? “Hey guys, wouldn’t it really suck if Michael Boley got hurt and our linebackers were even worse than they already are with him playing?” Why stop there? “Hey guys, wouldn’t it be terrible if Eli got hurt and was out for the season and David Carr had to finish out the year?” Or “Wouldn’t it be funny if we lost Corey Webster, who’s our only reliable player in the secondary? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

Seriously, who talks about things like this? It’s one thing to say “no-hitter” or “perfect game” while either of those two things are happening, but you entered the season without cornerback Terrell Thomas (knee), linebacker Clint Sintim (knee), defensive tackle Marvin Austin (pec), cornerback Bruce Johnson (Achilles), cornerback Brian Witherspoon (knee) and Jonathan Goff (knee) for the season, and Prince Amukamara (foot) is still out, and you’re wondering who’s going to get hit next by the injury bug? That’s so funny that Michael Boley might not be able to play against the Eagles! I’m just glad it was unanimous!

Eli Manning on his pass intended for Mario Manningham in the fourth quarter: “It was close. He’s trying to catch it on the move. It was probably like two inches overthrown. It wasn’t a poor throw, but they always say ‘Football is a game of inches.’ It was so close.”

And when Eli says, “It wasn’t a poor throw,” here’s what he really means: “It was a great ball that was perfectly timed and in the perfect place for him to catch it. It hit his hands, didn’t it? If he dives, he catches it and either scores a touchdown or we have the ball on the goal line.”

Mario Manningham on not catching that pass: “I have to come down with that.”

Yes, yes you do. If the ball hits your hands, you need to catch it. And if the balls hits your hands, and you don’t catch it, and you didn’t dive to try and catch it, then you probably should have.

D.J. Ware on his performance and his inability to get the first down: “I think I played well overall. That last yard, you want to always get that.”

I don’t fault Ware for not getting the first down. I fault Kevin Gilbride for calling that play. (And can someone get Kevin Gilbride an undershirt to wear under his Giants polo?)

It’s third-and-2 on the San Francisco 10 with 1:10 left. The Giants either have to get a first down or have to score a touchdown. The 49ers have the No. 1 run defense in the NFL. I said, “THE 49ERS HAVE THE NO. 1 RUN DEFENSE IN THE NFL!” But you know what 49ers have the 25^th-best of in the NFL? That’s right. They have the 25^th-best passing defense in the NFL. (Do you like my textbook example of foreshadowing here? My fourth grade teacher, Miss Ryan, would be proud.)

Eli has already completed 26 of his 39 pass attempts in the game (that’s 66.7 percent for you non-math majors), and he’s 6-for-8 on the drive for 56 yards. With Ahmad Bradshaw inactive, the Giants’ best offensive weapons are NOT backup running back Brandon Jacobs or No. 3 running back D.J. Ware. Once again it’s third-and-2 with the game on the line and possibly a first-round bye in the playoffs too. What play would you call? I’ll give you a minute to think about it.

(Letting you think about it…)

Did you decide on a shotgun draw to the No. 3 running back? Well, then you and Coughlin and Gilbride are all on the same page.

Ware gets the ball and gets stuffed by the BEST RUN DEFENSE IN THE NFL for no gain. Shocking. Eli’s fourth-and-2 pass gets knocked down at the line and the Giants lose.

Tom Coughlin on being asked about the Giants’ recent second-half collapses: “I can’t imagine why this question keeps coming up in terms of you have to take each year one at a time.”

You can’t imagine why this question keeps coming up? Really? You can’t imagine it? It’s unimaginable?

I can’t imagine A.J. Burnett winning 24 games in 2012 with a 2.19 ERA. I can’t imagine my girlfriend telling me it’s OK to miss her birthday, so I can watch a Giants game (luckily they are playing the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football on her birthday and it’s at 8:20 p.m., so I will be able to watch it). I can’t imagine Eddie Vedder pulling me up on stage at the Garden and giving me Mike McCready’s guitar and letting me play the solo on “State of Love and Trust” (mainly because I don’t even know how to play guitar).

But I can imagine why Tom Coughlin is getting asked questions about losing the first game of the second half of the season. Do you want to know why I can imagine that? Well, let’s look at what Coughlin’s son-in-law Chris Snee had to say to figure out what I can imagine this type of questioning.

Chris Snee on the Giants’ second-half collapses: “We are not analyzing previous years here. As far as I can remember, we’ve had bad years and we had a good year and won the Super Bowl, so I think that is finishing strong.”

Snee’s right. The Giants have had “bad” years. Snee’s rookie year with the Giants was 2004, which is the first year Coughlin became the coach of the Giants and also Eli Manning’s first year in the NFL. So, Snee has been on the Giants for the entirety of the most recent era of Giants football (along with Coughlin and Manning). This is important because here is how all seven seasons have played out for the Giants since 2004, entering this season.

2004: The Giants start the year 5-2 with Kurt Warner starting and showing Eli the ropes. They lose back-to-back games to fall to 5-4 and start planning for the future by letting Eli start, which causes unrest and division in the locker room. Eli goes 1-6 in his first seven starts in the league, but wins the final game of the year against the Cowboys. The Giants finish the year at 6-10 and don’t make the playoffs. Bad finish.

2005: It’s Eli’s first full year. The Giants go 6-2 in the first half of the season then go 5-3 in the second half of the season. They make the playoffs for the first time since blowing a 24-point lead against the 49ers in the 2002 playoffs. The Giants lose 23-0 at home in the first round of the playoffs, as Eli goes 10-for-18 for 113 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions. The Giants finish with just 132 total yards in the game. Bad finish.

2006: The Giants start the year 6-2, but are now 7-7, and entering Week 16, for them to clinch a playoff berth, they need one of two scenarios to happen.

1. Win + Minnesota loss or tie + Atlanta loss + Philadelphia win or tie + Seattle win or tie.

OR

2. Win + Minnesota loss or tie + Atlanta loss + Philadelphia win or tie + San Francisco loss or tie.

The Giants lose 30-7 to the Saints, but the Vikings, Falcons, Seahawks and 49ers all lose too, and the Giants basically hit the biggest parlay ever. Only the Eagles win, so the Giants just need to win in Week 17 against the Redskins and they make the playoffs at 8-8.

The Giants beat the Redskins to get into the playoffs at 8-8 thanks to a Giants single-game rushing record of 234 yards (on just 23 carries) from Tiki Barber. The Giants are just the ninth team in history to reach the postseason without a winning record. After starting the year 6-2, they finish the year 2-6. Then they lose 23-20 to the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs on a David Akers 38-yard field goal with no time remaining. Bad finish.

2007: They tart the year 0-2, but win six in a row after that. After their bye in Week 9, they finish the year 4-4, and with a 10-6 record, they are the No. 5 seed in the playoffs. They run the table on the road in the NFC playoffs, beating the Buccaneers, Cowboys and Packers and then beat the 18-0 Patriots in the Super Bowl. Best finish ever.

2008: They’re 11-1, but are now without Plaxico Burress for the rest of the year. The Giants finish the regular season 1-3 (they would have finished 0-4 if John Kasay doesn’t miss a field goal for the Panthers in Week 16), but still get the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. They lose in the divisional round at home to the Eagles 23-11. Bad finish.

2009: They start the year 5-0, and then lose four games in a row. They come off their bye week to beat the Falcons in Week 11, but lose four of their last six games in embarrassing fashion to finish the year at 8-8, and miss the playoffs. Bad finish.

2010: They’re 6-2 after Week 9, but then they lose to Jon Kitna and the 2-6 Cowboys at home, and then they lose in Philadelphia the following week thanks to five turnovers and an Eli dive that turns into a fumble with the Giants down by 7 and 2:51 left in the game. At 6-4, the Giants win three in a row, and have a chance to lock up the NFC East in Week 15 at home against the Eagles. They blow a 21-point lead with 7:18 left and lose. They have a chance to rebound the following week and still make the playoffs, but they lose 45-17 in Green Bay. In Week 17, they need a win against the Redskins and a Bears win over the Packers. They beat the Redskins 17-14 on the road, but the Bears lose to the Packers. Bad finish.

(Hey Tom, now can you imagine why you might have to answer questions about second-half collapses now?)

By my count, that’s seven years, four playoff appearances and only one good finish (and an all-time finish at that) to the season. Now does 2007 cancel out all of the other bad years? I actually think it does. It definitely cancels out 2004, 2005 and 2006, but you could make a case that it doesn’t 2008, 2009 or 2010 since those happened after.

Tom Coughlin on the loss to the 49ers to open the second half of the season: “Does it have anything to do with the second half [of the season]? No. It has to do with the ninth game of the year, which I felt we had a great chance to win.”

Sunday’s loss wasn’t a sign of a second-half collapse. Not yet. However, if the Giants don’t make the playoffs, we will look at that onside kick as the turning point in another failed season the way Francisco Cervelli’s home run in Atlanta in 2009 and Brian Cashman traveling with the Yankees on that same road trip are viewed as the turning point for the 2009 World Series champions. As of right now, that loss is just a loss, and let’s hope it stays that way when all is said and done, but it did set up this Sunday night’s game against the Eagles to make it more than that at the end of the season.

The Eagles are in an unthinkable spot. They are 3-6. They are three games off of the division lead with seven games to play, and they don’t have the 2011 Red Sox in their division or on their schedule. They basically need to run the table to make the playoffs and even then that might not do it since the Giants and Buccaneers both missed the playoffs at 10-6 last year. Their coach is on the hot seat, and after 13 years these seven games might be his last seven games in Philadelphia. Their starting quarterback has two broken ribs and missed part of Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals, and his status is unknown for this Sunday. Their backup quarterback (the one who dubbed them this team the “Dream Team”) hasn’t started a game since Nov. 21, 2010 and hasn’t won a game he started since Oct. 10, 2010. Their star wide receiver was inactive on Sunday for “missing a special teams meeting,” which was code for basically mailing it in for most of the year. In other words, the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles are a certified gongshow.

The Eagles have a 7 percent chance of making the playoffs and have very little to play for at this point other than to play the role of spoiler and to ruin the Giants’ season, which I’m sure they would love to do. The Eagles knocked the Giants out of the 2006 playoffs in the wild card round and knocked them out of the 2008 playoffs in the divisional round, and they are the reason the Giants missed the playoffs in 2009 and 2010. The Eagles live for the opportunity to ruin and absolutely devastate the Giants and if the Eagles are going down, you can be sure they are going to try to take the Giants down with them. That’s why even though this matchup on Sunday night heavily favors the Giants, it’s why I’m more to scared to watch this game than I am to watch Jack and Jill.

Chris Snee on the Philadelphia game: “With this team, we are not worried about second halves, like everyone else is. We are worried about Philadelphia this week. We are not looking ahead.”

And you should be worried about Philadelphia. I am.