NEW YORK GIANTS (12-6) at GREEN BAY PACKERS (14-3)
(Sunday, 6:30 PM ET, FOX)    

If anyone exhibits how teams can change during a season, it’s these two.  Back in Week 2 (a 35-13 Green Bay win in New York), the Packers were worried about their running game, and even BRETT FAVRE (who would become the NFL’s winningest QB ever in that game) was saying the Pack needed to be able to mix the run in with the pass.

The Giants?  Their concern – a big one – was their defense, with new packages put in under new coordinator STEVE SPAGNUOLO.  By the end of the Green Bay game, the Giants had surrendered 80 points in the season’s first two games.

Going into the NFC Championship, how things have changed!  It took five more games for Green Bay to find its running game – in RYAN GRANT, who grew up 20 miles from Giants Stadium (Ramsey, NJ), was a practice squad player/injured for the Giants for two years before Green Bay traded for him right before the season.  All Grant did from Week 8, on, was run for 1,130 yards and 11 TDs, including a Packers’ playoff record last Saturday with 201 rush yards.        

Meanwhile, from a gritty goal-line stand against Washington in Week 3, the Giants’ defense began to take form, Spagnuolo’s shifting schemes and player rotation up front began to mesh, and New York has allowed only 18.9 points-per-game through the Divisionals since the Green Bay game.

So how will this all pan out Sunday in what is expected to be sub-freezing temperatures at Lambeau Field?  You have to think the running game will be a big factor.  The Giants can match Grant’s production with their own RBs – BRANDON JACOBS, the 6-4, 264-pound freight train who usually needs a good two-to-three guys to bring him down, and elusive AHMAD BRADSHAW, one of the team’s two seventh-round draft picks this year.

Giants QB ELI MANNING – looking to become the second consecutive Manning to win a Super Bowl after brother PEYTON last season – has a 100.0 passer rating in each of his last three games, along with eight TDs and one interception.  He will go against one of the best corner tandems in the league in AL HARRIS and CHARLES WOODSON, who excel in man-to-man. 

And Favre, who also became the career TD leader this year?  Who knows what he’ll pull this week, from last-ditch shovel passes that set up scores to out-and-out bombs to the Pack’s “Big Five” alignment of five wide receivers and an empty backfield.  Favre has a strong OL in front of him, was sacked the third fewest times in the league (19, tie), but faces a defense that led the NFL in sacks (53) this season.