In a stone-cold playoff classic, fortune again favored the Giants, who prevailed over Green Bay for their third straight January road win. Next up: a karmic clash with New England in Super Bowl XLII

Burress had the game of his life at Lambeau, leaping over and battling through defenders for 11 catches. John Biever/SI

Brett Favre and Eli Manning met for a private moment at midfield before Sunday's NFC Championship Game at the Lambeau Icebox, and the old lion leaned in to get close to the kid. You could only imagine what they were saying to each other -- something about enjoying the moment because you never know when another one will come, perhaps, or how odd it was for two sons of the South to be playing in one of the coldest games in history.

Not exactly.

"Peyton here?" Favre asked.

"Nah," Eli said. "He didn't make it."

The NFL didn't need the elder Manning to stage one of the best playoff games in years. His kid brother did just fine.

For much of the four years since the Giants paid a king's ransom (including fellow 2004 high draft pick Philip Rivers) to acquire him from San Diego, Eli Manning has embodied the term whipping boy, much as Tom Coughlin has been the exemplar for embattled coach during his time in New York. But on a day when a gallant Rivers and his Chargers came up short in the AFC Championship Game in New England, Manning outplayed Favre in New York's thrilling 23-20 overtime victory in Green Bay. The upstart, wild-card Giants -- the first NFC team to win three straight road playoff games to advance to the Super Bowl (underdogs against division champs all three weeks) -- will try to fulfill one more impossible dream on Feb. 3 in Arizona, when they face the 18-0 Patriots.

New York versus Boston in Super Bowl XLII. The towns that gave you Bucky Bleeping Dent and the greatest comeback in baseball playoff history, that repeatedly swapped football coaches (Coughlin spent three years at Boston College, and Bill Parcells went from the Giants to the Patriots to the Jets with Bill Belichick trailing him) and that produced Spygate are now matched for what could be the most-watched Super Bowl in history.

First, though, kudos for Sunday night's spectacle. "What a football game," said Archie Manning, Eli and Peyton's dad. "I don't care who you were rooting for. If you're a football fan in Idaho, you're saying, 'That's one of the best games I've ever seen.' " The lead changed frigid hands four times before the Packers tied the game at 20 in the fourth quarter. After missing field goal tries from 43 yards (high snap) and 36 (inexcusable knuckleball) in the final 6:53 of regulation, New York kicker Lawrence Tynes won it with a 47-yarder in OT. Eli stepped out of Peyton's shadow with a 21-for-40, 254-yard passing performance that moved the chains. Plaxico Burress had the greatest playoff game ever for a Giants wide receiver, catching 11 passes for 154 yards and embarrassing Pro Bowl cornerback Al Harris -- all while playing with a torn ligament in his right ankle.

It was take-your-breath-away drama. Favre pump-faking, play-acting and finally throwing one deep to Donald Driver for a 90-yard touchdown; Giants cornerback R.W. McQuarters picking off Favre but having the ball popped from his arms right into the breadbasket of Packers tackle Mark Tauscher; Favre throwing away the game on an easy interception by corner Corey Webster 47 seconds into overtime. New York sent out its bruising running backs -- mighty mite Ahmad Bradshaw, the 250th of 255 players selected in the 2007 draft, colliding helmet-to-helmet with a Packers defender so violently that the impact stripped much of the paint off Bradshaw's helmet; and 264-pound freighter Brandon Jacobs, plowing first into cornerback Charles Woodson, who was sent sprawling, and then into middle linebacker Nick Barnett, who was driven back five yards.

It was the kind of football you watch and wince at. "Mano a mano," Burress said. "Two great teams, just trying to survive on the coldest day any of us have played on."

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