A day after the Giants wild-card victory over the Falcons, Justin Tuck joined WFAN's Mike Francesa on Monday for his weekly report. The host asked the defensive captain what he told his team after the game.
"It was just saying good job and basically saying we'll celebrate this one now, but we'll come in [Monday] morning, look at the film and get rid of it," Tuck said. "We've got a lot more, bigger fish to fry. And we know the next game starting with the Green Bay Packers, we've got to play our best ball. If we are to move forward from them, it's only going to get tougher from there."
Speaking of the Packers, Francesa said it doesn't get much tougher than facing quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Tuck agreed.
"But the thing about it is you get another chance and you look forward to playing teams, individuals like this," he said. "You like to beat the best. There's a reason why they're a No. 1 seed…So we've got a chance to shock the world. We know what it takes. We did it before. Obviously, it wasn't against him, but we know the formula to get the job done. We just got to go out there and execute and not beat ourselves and give us a chance to beat this team because playing this team in their place, you can't give them any extra opportunities."
On the other side of the ball, called into The Michael Kay Show on ESPN 1050 and was asked to look back to the home loss to Washington in Week 15.
"I knew we still had a shot," Manning said of the playoff hopes. "That was kind of the circumstance. We didn't play great that day, but I knew we'd be getting some guys back healthy and we had to beat the Jets and the Cowboys. So I don't think we ever lost faith in our ability. It was just a matter of putting everything together, and if we kept working, kept learning this offense and learning the players and everybody playing as a team, that we could turn it around and start playing better football."
The Giants did just that and beat the Falcons in MetLife Stadium for Manning's first career home playoff victory.
"It's not something that I thought about or had on my mind," said Manning, who was 0-2 at home in the postseason. "But once you came up to this game and you just realize you never won a playoff game at home and what that would mean for myself and fans and just have that experience. It made that victory that much sweeter, and it was just fun playing a playoff game at home. The crowd was great, and it was a great experience."
The Giants punched their return ticket to Green Bay, home of the NFC Championship victory en route to Super Bowl XLII. Kay mentioned the forecast called for 17 degrees on game day, which is "tropical" compared to their last playoff visit.
"I saw it was going to be something around there, around 20 degrees or so," Manning said. "I said, well, that's going to be 40 degrees warmer than the last time we had a playoff game down there. So the weather is what it is. You can't control it. You can't get concerned with it. I'm not going to look at the weather everyday and see what's going on. It's cold. Hey, it's cold everywhere. We've played in cold games, and it's just going to be a matter of execution."
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