--Ironically, the Giants find themselves in an almost identical position to the one in which they found themselves on Dec. 13, 1998, when the undefeated Denver Broncos came to Giants Stadium boasting a 13-0 record. The Giants engineered an upset, winning in the final minutes on a TD pass to WR Amani Toomer, 20-16. Toomer is still a member of the Giants' starting offensive unit.

--QB Eli Manning is not considering sitting down for this game. "Right now," he says, "our mindset is starting and playing all game and doing our best to win. I think teams have figured out a little bit of what they're doing, and now it's up to us to find more answers and win the game."

--The Giants lead the NFL in sacks with 52, and the Patriots are second with 46. "That's a strong pass-rushing team," said Manning. "We need to make sure of our blocking schemes."

--WR Amani Toomer, who had five of Manning's seven completions last week for 99 of his 111 yards gained: "We came back and won that game (in Buffalo) because this team will never quit. Now we can win one more before the season is over, and we have every intention of doing so."

--Giants head coach Tom Coughlin and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick spent time together on the Giants staff when Bill Parcells was the head coach (198801990), and actually worked with each other since Coughlin was the WRs coach and Belichick handled the DBs.

BY THE NUMBERS
32 -- The unusually high discrepancy between TDs scored by the Patriots (71) and the Giants (39). In fact, New England WR Randy Moss has caught more TD passes from QB Tom Brady (21) than Giants QB Eli Manning has thrown (19) to his entire team.

QUOTE TO NOTE
"I never questioned it. I know you people (the media) did, but I never did. But thanks for asking." -- Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, on whether he got satisfaction from seeing that his core values still work with respect to coaching a team.

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