Little brother comes up big

Giants quarterback Eli Manning stepped out of his big brother’s shadow on Sunday. While Peyton and the Colts were laboring to a 28-24 defeat to San Diego, younger brother Eli was leading his team to the NFC Championship game.

The Giants’ Manning threw for 163 yards and two touchdowns in a 21-17 win over No.1 seed Dallas. He led a game-changing 71-yard drive at the end of the first half, tying the score at 14-14 before the break.

“That's the man who won this game for us," Antonio Pierce  said. Amani Toomer added: “Eli was just outstanding,"

Brandon Jacobs reserved the most praise, saying: “He's the best quarterback I've ever played with. I love the guy to death. I don't give a damn what anyone says about it. I don't know if he silenced the critics. In this game, you're always going to have critics.”

Youthful pack

The Green Bay Packers were the NFL’s youngest team at the start of the season, with an average age of 26 years and 89 days. Heading into Saturday’s playoff game against Seattle, veteran cornerback Al Harris said he thought Green Bay’s inexperience might count against them. Man, was he wrong.

Greg Jennings, 24, caught two touchdown passes and had a total of six receptions for 71 yards. Strong safety Atari Bigby, 26, had seven tackles and forced an important fumble early on. Defensive end Cullen Jenkins, 26, had one and a half sacks and was within inches of sacking Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck on two other occasions.

And probably the most impressive show of character was from 25-year-old tailback Ryan Grant. He had two early fumbles that helped Seattle jump out to a 14-0 lead, but recovered his composure to run for 201 yards.

Of course the team’s veteran leader, Brett Favre, was also impressive. He threw for three touchdowns and 173 yards and his 137.6 passer rating was his best in 21 career postseason games.

Depleted secondary steps up

The Cowboys had about four minutes to rescue their season in the fourth quarter on Sunday, but the Giants’ defense came out on top. The defense’s performance is even more impressive when you consider the secondary was without several starting players because of injury.

Reserve defensive back R.W. McQuarters, along with his fellow reserve cornerbacks Corey Webster and Geoffrey Pope, were pressed into service due to the injury problems. They didn’t disappoint, and McQuarters produced the game-ending interception with nine seconds left on the clock, as Dallas pressed for the victory.

“It was a great win for us,” coach Tom Coughlin told the New York Times. “Our defensive guys were on the field for the majority of the time and had to make some big-time stops. And R. W., two weeks in a row now, played super in the secondary.”

The Giants two main injury concerns in the secondary are starting cornerback Sam Madison and his rookie counterpart Aaron Ross. Madison is struggling with a strained abdominal muscle, while Ross left Sunday’s game in the third quarter with shoulder injury.

Both are listed as doubtful for this week’s contest.

Road warriors

The Giants travel to Lambeau on an NFL-record nine-game road winning streak. With Sunday’s win over Dallas they became only the 10th team in history to win their first two playoff games on the road. Unfortunately for New York, only one of the nine went on to win the Super Bowl.

Green Bay, meanwhile, is an NFC-best 8-1 at home this season. It covered the spread in all but one of those eight wins.

Head to head

These teams have already met once this season, with the Packers coming out 35-12 victors at Giants Stadium on Sept. 16. Overall, Green Bay has won five of its last six against the Giants, covering the spread in three of the last four.

The Packers are 13-3-1 ATS for the season, compared to the Giants 12-6-0 mark.