Barton Silverman/The New York Times
Hakeem Nicks making a leaping 37-yard touchdown catch in the end zone as time ran out in the first half, as the Giants took a 20-10 lead. It was Nicks's second touchdown reception of the game.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — In the back of the end zone, Mario Manningham danced and shimmied. On the sideline, Tom Coughlin pumped his fist. In the middle of the field, Eli Manning raised his hands.
Doug Mills
Eli Manning, changing a play, threw for 330 yards and 3 touchdowns in leading the Giants' win.
There were still just under seven minutes remaining Sunday, but the Giants knew. So did Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who looked nauseated near the Green Bay bench. The Packers’ fans at Lambeau Field, so many of them wearing down hunting jackets in the icy air, knew too: they had just seen the kill shot. Again.
Four years after the Giants beat the Packers here in the N.F.C. championship game on their way to a Super Bowltitle, they did it again Sunday in a divisional game in far more convincing fashion. Manning’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Manningham was his third scoring toss of the day as the Giants upset top-seeded Green Bay, 37-20.
The Giants will travel to San Francisco to play the 49ers next Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern needing one more victory to reach the Super Bowl yet again.
For the Giants, Sunday’s victory was a continuation of a run that began Dec. 24, when they beat the Jets to set up a win-and-in matchup with the Dallas Cowboys in the final game of the regular season. They won that, pounding the Cowboys, then beat the Atlanta Falcons in the wild-card round before becoming the first road team in this postseason to win.
There have been some familiar ingredients in the Giants’ surge, most of which showed up again Sunday. The defense was stellar, shutting down Rodgers and one of the league’s most productive passing offenses. Manning, who passed for 330 yards, provided a steady (if spectacular) hand. There was also a big play from a wide receiver, as Hakeem Nicks sprinted for a 66-yard touchdown reception (one of his two scoring catches) that set an early tone.
As the Giants celebrated, the Packers, who beat the Giants at MetLife Stadium in December and finished the regular season 15-1, looked anguished. Green Bay endured a trying week leading up to the game as the offensive coordinator Joe Philbin lost his 21-year-old son in an apparent accidental drowning last weekend. The funeral for Philbin’s son was Friday, though Philbin did coach on Sunday.
He saw a team that appeared unnerved all afternoon. Rodgers completed 26 of 46 passes for 264 yards, and the Packers turned over the ball four times. They had one interception and three fumbles — the costliest of which was Ryan Grant’s fourth-quarter fumble that was forced by Kenny Phillips, recovered by Chase Blackburn and was followed by Manning’s pass to Manningham.
The convincing victory was different than the Giants’ dramatic overtime win here in 2008 — a game they spent much of the buildup to Sunday’s game talking about in interviews and among themselves. Fifteen players who played in that game were active for the Giants on Sunday — seven on offense, six on defense and two specialists — and could speak to the relatively balmy temperatures this time around.
At kickoff, the temperature was 31 degrees with wind chill in the high teens, or roughly 30 degrees warmer than in 2008. Some Giants still made adjustments for the weather, like punter Steve Weatherford, who purchased battery-operated leg warmers on the Internet for the game, but many of the Giants did not even wear long sleeves, including most of the receivers.
Nicks was the initiator of that movement, telling his fellow receivers he sensed they played tentatively in cold weather earlier in the season. Nicks and the receivers have gone sleeveless since the game against the Jets, and Nicks, in particular, has shown his freedom on the field the past two weeks.
Against the Falcons, Nicks ripped off a 72-yard touchdown catch, dodging and weaving past would-be tacklers on his way. He followed it up Sunday with a 66-yard reception for a score in the first quarter and an unlikely — if not outright shocking — catch on a 37-yard desperation pass from Manning on the final play of the first half.
The first catch smacked of his run against Atlanta. As he did against the Falcons, Nicks utilized his speed on the play, catching a pass over the middle and bouncing off a failed tackle attempt, then spinning back the opposite way and sprinting down the Giants’ sideline for the score.
Green Bay safety Charlie Peprah, who missed the tackle, looked shamed, and he no doubt felt even worse as he jogged off the field at halftime. Nicks exploited him again on the last play of the half, running into the corner of the end zone, then boxing out Peprah as he leaped to pull in Manning’s heave — catching the ball against his helmet, à la David Tyree’s memorable reception in Super Bowl XLII.
The Lambeau Field crowd, so loud at the start of the game, was silent as the Giants kicked the extra point. The fans then roused themselves enough to boo loudly as the Packers headed to the tunnel, trailing at home for the first time this season, 20-10.
That the Giants were leading at the intermission seemed, in some ways, unexpected. After all, they hardly played a clean half. They had a 40-yard field-goal attempt blocked, had a kickoff go out of bounds and rushed for just 37 yards on 12 carries.
They also seemed to be on the wrong end of some close officiating decisions. Most notable was a fumble-that-wasn’t by Packers receiver Greg Jennings, who appeared to lose the ball as he was tackled on the Giants’ 32 late in the first quarter. The officials did not whistle the play dead, and the Giants recovered.
But then, after a short conference, the officials reversed their initial decision and ruled that Jennings was down by contact. Coughlin had already lost one potential turnover to a challenge — the Packers successfully appealed for a reversal on a fumble by returner Randall Cobb earlier — and hesitated only a few seconds before challenging the ruling on Jennings. It appeared from several angles that the ball was out of Jennings’s grasp before his knee hit the ground.
Referee Bill Leavy, however, upheld the call. Leavy, a N.F.L. official for 16 years, had a memorably rocky performance in Super Bowl XL, and the Giants appeared outraged after it was announced that the Packers would retain possession.
Rodgers did not hesitate. Four plays later, he found fullback John Kuhn on an 8-yard touchdown pass, prompting a wild celebration from a player who is often serenaded by his home fans — much as Giants receiver Victor Cruz is — with a drawn-out chanting of his name.
Boos replaced the “Kuuuhn!” chants late in the second quarter, however, when Kuhn fumbled on the Green Bay 40. The turnover allowed the Giants to drive for a 23-yard field goal from Tynes to retake the lead and was emblematic of the sloppy opening half played by the Packers.
In addition to Kuhn’s fumble (and the two that nearly were by Jennings and Cobb), Packers receivers also dropped four passes and Coach Mike McCarthy attempted an ill-advised onside kick that the Giants easily recovered.
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