When the dust had finally settled in Tampa and Atlanta on Sunday, the Giants' path to Super Bowl XL began to emerge. They earned the No. 4 seeding in the National Football Conference and will play the Carolina Panthers in the opening round of the playoffs, at Giants Stadium on Sunday.
The Giants clinched the NFC East title and secured a home game by beating the Raiders on Saturday in Oakland, 30-21. But their seeding and wild-card opponent weren't determined until the Tampa Bay Buccaneers topped the New Orleans Saints at home and Carolina beat the Atlanta Falcons on the road.
"All the regular season does is get you to the playoffs," quarterback Eli Manning said after Saturday's victory. "And now you see what you've really got."
If the Giants (11-5) beat the Panthers, they will play at either Seattle or Chicago in the divisional round the following weekend.
The Panthers, who also finished 11-5, were seeded fifth. They had the same record as the Buccaneers, but Tampa Bay won the NFC South with a better record within the division and was seeded third. Had the Buccaneers lost Sunday, the Giants would have secured the No. 3 seeding and opened against the Washington Redskins.
The Giants will make their first postseason appearance since losing a wild-card game to the 49ers in San Francisco during the 2002 playoffs. They haven't played at home during the postseason since beating the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game in the 2000 playoffs. And when coach Tom Coughlin was given a drenching during a sideline celebration at the end of Saturday's game, he flashed a lasting smile for the first time since, well, who knows when.
"I'm very happy for our organization," Coughlin said. "We are the team of record in 2005, honoring the death of our two great owners, Mr. Mara and Mr. Tisch."
So, what can the Giants expect from the Panthers, who reached the Super Bowl two seasons ago? Entering Sunday's games, Carolina had the National Football League's fourth-ranked defense and its 22nd-ranked offense. The defense held its opponents to 14 points or less in eight of its final 10 games. And while the offense was uneven in the second half of the season, Steve Smith, a wide receiver, led the NFL in receiving yards with 1,563, and quarterback Jake Delhomme passed for 3,421 yards and 24 touchdowns.
The Giants and Panthers were 3-2 this season against common opponents (the Saints, Vikings, Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys). Excluding the preseason, they haven't faced each other since the final game of the 2003 season, when the Giants lost, 37-24, at home.
The Giants were 8-1 at Giants Stadium this season, including a game against the Saints that was moved from New Orleans; the Panthers were 6-2 on the road.
Perhaps a more pertinent question is whether the Giants will be close to full strength by Sunday. They had suffered a rash of late-season injuries, which continued against the Raiders. Running back Tiki Barber sprained an ankle but said after the game that it wasn't serious. Defensive end Michael Strahan was poked in the left eye, which became bruised on and just below the lid, but he also said he expected to be fine.
The Raiders' logo features a man with a patch over one eye and an even expression on his face. Strahan had neither as he left McAfee Coliseum, but his sense of humor was intact. "My modeling career will be put on hold for a few weeks," he said.
The Giants' linebacker corps is already thin, and Nick Greisen had managed to avoid the injury bug until Saturday. But Greisen hung around the training room with an ice pack on his shoulder after the game and was among the last players to leave the stadium.
Tight end Jeremy Shockey missed his first game of the season Saturday with a sprained ankle, and linebacker Reggie Torbor (hamstring) also did not play.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB