LANDOVER, Md. – Lingering is fine over a glass of wine or a splendid meal, but for the Giants, lingering over their playoff fortunes is not healthy. Not today, with the NFC East title there for the taking and the Redskins the lone obstacle standing between the Giants and a mighty celebration.
Allowing the victory party to linger will make for one hellacious week of anxiety, followed by a nervous cross-country trip to Oakland to attempt to secure the division crown. Winning one of their last two games is all the Giants need, but they march into FedEx Field believing they have no safety net.
“I’m almost looking at it like the last game of the season for us,” Michael Strahan said candidly. “I don’t think anybody wants to depend on winning in Oakland to seal our fate. This is gonna be the game that de termines everything for us.
“In my opinion, you don’t have a cushion. First of all, you want to win as many games as you can. Second, it’s a division game against a division rival. It’s the Redskins and Giants; I don’t care if we weren’t playing for anything, we still want to beat them.
“This game I look at as a playoff situation, because we haven’t wrapped the division up, those guys are storming back in the division and if we don’t go out and take care of our business, we breathe new life into their season.”
The Giants can do great harm to the Redskins’ playoff hopes, and in the process secure their first division title since 2000, assuring them at least one home game in the postseason. Even if they clinch this afternoon, the Giants (10-4) will face the Raiders hoping to improve their NFC seeding, but that sort of pressure pales in comparison to playing for first place with no margin for error.
“There’s a prize at the end but you can’t get caught up in the nostalgia of what the game means,” said Amani Toomer, who has been a part of two division titles in his 10 years with the Giants. “You got to take it like another game, but it’s hard to, because it’s not another game.”
This clash has it all. Revenge? That’s on the minds of the Redskins after the Giants whacked them 36-0 back on Oct. 30. Validation? That’s what the Giants get with a victory. Intensity? That’s always the case when these longtime rivals do battle, and when the stakes are this high, look out.
“We made the playoffs a few years ago, but we were kind of on the back end of it,” Tiki Barber said. “Now we can go in strong. To wrap up the season and propel ourselves in the playoffs, we need to make a statement, and that statement could be no more fitting than to go play a division rival on the road and get a win.”
Once again, the Giants are depleted, with linebackers Antonio Pierce and Carlos Emmons and right tackle Kareem McKenzie out with injuries. Once again, they’ll lean heavily on the brilliant running of Barber and hope Eli Manning can reverse a downward performance spiral and get the passing game clicking amid a din of noise and hostility from more than 90,000 rabid Redskins loyalists.
“This is the game you want to play, these are the games that are fun,” Jeremy Shockey said. “These games don’t come very often. The only big game I really played was Philadelphia my rookie year to get into the playoffs. The next year we didn’t do much, last year we didn’t do much. This is really only the second game of my career that really means something.”
What it means is the difference between spending the next week in relative comfort or considerable restlessness.
“It’s what coaches talked about all season,” Strahan said. “Finish. This is our chance to close it, be Mariano Rivera right now.”
paul.schwartz@nypost.com
Weather
49 degrees
Partly cloudy
0 percent
chance of rain
Playoff scenarios
The Giants can clinch the NFC East today with:
* A win or tie against the Redskins.
The Giants can clinch a playoff berth with:
* A Vikings loss or tie against the Ravens.
* A Buccaneers loss to the Falcons AND a Bears win or tie against the Packers.
(Giants clinch strength of victory tiebreaker over Vikings and Buccaneers.)