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Things didn't work out exactly the way I planned for the Dallas Cowboys in the ESPN blogger mock draft Monday. Yes, the Eagles traded up to No. 7 to take Fletcher Cox, a player the Cowboys like a lot. But for the Cowboys I decided not to get into such excitement. First of all, they don't have the cushion the Eagles have with two second-round picks. And second of all, they need to add depth all along the roster, so I decided that if they traded they'd come away with more picks rather than fewer.

As the draft wound on into the middle of the first round, I was thinking my top Cowboys target, Alabama safety Mark Barron, would be there at No. 14. So when James Walker of the AFC East blog called on behalf of the Patriots and offered a first-round pick (No. 27 overall) and a second-round pick (No. 48), I said no. James pointed out that each side of the deal added up to exactly 1,100 points on the NFL draft trade value chart, and for a second I thought we should make the deal just based on that coincidence alone. But I held off, thinking Barron would fall to 14.

Little did I know, James was also talking to Mike Sando about the Seahawks' No. 12 overall pick. James offered Mike both of the Patriots' first-round picks (No. 27 and No. 31) for the No. 12 pick and a fourth-rounder (N0. 106). Guess I should have asked James for more, because that's a steal for Sando, who happily gave up the No. 12 and began making plans for what to do with his two first-rounders. James moved up to 12 and took Barron for the Patriots, and I started fielding offers for the No. 14 pick.

No one was interested, though, so when 14 rolled around, I took the player I believed would be the highest on the Cowboys' board at that point -- LSU defensive lineman Michael Brockers. What I like about Brockers for the Cowboys is that he's a more polished, NFL-ready prospect than is Dontari Poe (who would fall all the way to the Steelers at No. 24!) and that he's versatile enough to play any spot on the Cowboys' defensive line. He can play inside as a defensive tackle alongside Jay Ratliff when they line up in 4-3 sets. He can play end in a 3-4 (and allow them to move on from Kenyon Coleman or Marcus Spears if they so choose). He can spell Ratliff at the nose when and if they decide to move Ratliff outside. I just felt as though he'd appeal to Rob Ryan as a guy who could do a lot for him -- and do it right away -- in a defense that relies on constantly changing looks and fronts.

I thought about Poe, and Quenton Coples, and Stephon Gilmore, and Dre Kirkpatrick, and Courtney Upshaw. But in the end, I believe that, of the post-Barron choices, Brockers was the one that fit the Cowboys the best.

(NOTE: Stanford guard David DeCastro was also gone, at 11 to the Chiefs, but as you know I believe the Cowboys should be focused on defense in this round. And probably all of them.)

So what do you think, Cowboys fans? Did I get it right? Did I pick the wrong guy? Was I wrong to turn down the Patriots' offer? I eagerly await your feedback.

INDIANAPOLIS -- In case you were wondering, no, the New York Giants' first choice was not linebacker Chase Blackburn covering Rob Gronkowski all alone 50 yards down the field. But as he'd done for so much of the night, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady checked to a different play when he saw the coverage on the second play of the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLVI, and Blackburn was stuck.

"I had to carry Gronkowski," Blackburn said after the Giants had secured a 21-17 Super Bowl victory. "I heard the crowd go wild a little bit, and I thought we had a sack. But I continued to see Gronk go up the field, and I just tried to stay with him. When I saw him look back, I looked back for the ball, and when I spotted it, I tried to just block out and go up for a rebound like in basketball."

Sure. Basketball. In case you're wondering, Gronkowski's University of Arizona media guide bio says he averaged 18 rebounds per game during the 2006 season at Pittsburgh's Woodland Hills High School. He has three inches and 20 pounds on Blackburn, who as recently as Thanksgiving weekend was hoping to land a gig as a substitute high school math teacher before the Giants called and said hey, how about middle linebacker instead? But Gronkowski also was playing the Super Bowl on a bad ankle, which Blackburn and the rest of the Giants knew. It's why they were, at that point in the game, using their better coverage linebacker, Jacquian Williams, on the Patriots' other tight end, Aaron Hernandez. After the check, Blackburn knew he had the big guy by himself.

"I knew it was a long way," Blackburn said. "He stopped for a second and I stopped with him. I was thinking it was a sack, but then as soon as I saw him go vertical, I knew I had to run and catch up with him."

They both jumped for the ball, but Blackburn came down with it for an interception that was the only turnover of the game. The Patriots led 17-15 at the time, and had Gronkowski caught the ball the momentum might never have swung back the Giants' way. Instead, the Giants secured the kind of big stop they knew they needed to make all fourth quarter to put Eli Manning and the offense in position to win.

"We're confident in our defense," linebacker Michael Boley said. "No matter who the quarterback is, we know our front four is going to get pressure and so we need to give coverage on the back end."

For much of this game, though, they weren't. Brady led easy-peasy touchdown drives at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second to turn a 9-3 Giants lead into a 17-9 New England lead. The Giants, whose game plan had been a man-coverage defense because they believed (correctly) that Brady would try to beat them with "dink and dunk" short passes instead of deep shots, had strayed from the plan. They'd been so focused, defensive coordinator Perry Fewell said, on lining up quickly that they weren't lining up in the right spots. So they pulled back a little on the man-to-man and switched to more zone, only to have Brady find holes in the zone. At one point, Brady completed a Super Bowl-record 16 straight passes.

"We just couldn't get the right people in the right coverage situations," Fewell said. "They created some mismatches, so we had to get our guys together on the sideline and get them to lock in a little bit and get back to the plan, which was man."

In a lot of ways, the defense is the Giants' 2011-12 story in a microcosm. This Giants team was about patience, perseverance and a belief that everything would get better if they just kept working at it. The defense finished 27th in the league in the regular season. Their coverage units were being ridiculed on national television. But they got healthy at the end of the season. They talked their coaches into letting them play man-to-man, and they did it well. Led by that front four and the pass rush, they allowed an average of 14 points per game during their four-game postseason run.

If someone had told you that the touchdown the Patriots scored to open the second half would be their final score of the Super Bowl, you wouldn't have believed them. Not the way the game was going at that point. But the Giants are water torture. They drip and drip and drip until they finally break you. They won the NFC Championship Game by playing smart, sound, physically tough, mistake-free football and waiting for the other team to make a mistake. They won the Super Bowl the same way. Blackburn picked off Brady. Wes Welker dropped a ball he catches every time. The Giants' defense looked lost for long stretches, but bottom line, theirs was a Super Bowl-winning effort. And they were justifiably proud of it.

"At the end of the day, we knew it was going to come down to our defense," Osi Umenyiora said. "We pressured them. We sacked them. We came through victorious."

Doesn't matter what happened along the way. Doesn't matter that a substitute high school math teacher who wasn't on the team until almost December was making plays in coverage against the best tight end in the league. Doesn't matter how it looked or what came before, and it doesn't matter that this was, two months ago, one of the least likely sentences anyone would have been expecting to type on the night of Feb. 5: The Giants' defense helped win them the Super Bowl.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A few thoughts from the New York Giants' 21-17 victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday night in Super Bowl XLVI:

What it means: Legacy. Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin are two-time Super Bowl champions. The Giants have won their fourth Super Bowl and completed one of the most stunning in-season turnarounds in recent sports history. They were 7-7 after losing their second game of the season to the last-place Redskins but won six in a row to claim their second Super Bowl title in five years. It’s a run that at least rivals and may even top their 2007-08 run, which also culminated in a Super Bowl victory over the Patriots.

The quarterbacks: Early on, it looked as though Manning and the Giants might run away with it. The Giants' pass rush forced Patriots quarterback Tom Brady into an intentional grounding penalty in his own end zone on his first throw of the game and were rewarded with a safety and a quick 2-0 lead. Manning got the ball back off the free kick and went down the field in nine plays, hitting Victor Cruz for the touchdown that put the Giants up 9-0. They were being physical with the Patriots, dominating time of possession and more or less doing anything they wanted. Then, the pass rush dried up and Brady got hot, at one point setting a Super Bowl record with 16 consecutive pass completions as he orchestrated a touchdown drive to end the first half and one to begin the second. The quarterback play in this Super Bowl was expected to be stellar, and Manning and Brady lived up to the hype. In the end, though, it was Manning who led his team on the game-winning fourth-quarter comeback drive -- the third time in a row he’s done it to Brady and Bill Belichick. Brady had a shot at the end, but the Hail Mary didn't get answered.

The two tight end thing: The question all week was whether the injured ankle of Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski would limit him in the game, and it clearly did. But it appeared as though the Giants took a while to adjust to that knowledge. They devoted much of their coverage early on to Gronkowski and not enough to the Patriots' other outstanding tight end, Aaron Hernandez, who had five catches for 40 yards in the first half and caught the touchdown pass on the Patriots' opening drive of the second half. The Giants adjusted in coverage and were able to slow down Brady better as the third quarter went along and the fourth quarter opened. Meanwhile, the Giants couldn't keep their own tight ends on the field. Travis Beckum left with a knee injury in the second quarter and Jake Ballard did the same in the fourth.

Turnovers kill: The Giants won the Super Bowl by beating the three best turnover-ratio teams in the NFL -- the Packers, 49ers and Patriots -- and winning the turnover battle in each game. Chase Blackburn's second-half interception of Brady was the only turnover in the game.

What's next: Free agency begins next month, and the Giants will triumphantly pick 32nd in the NFL draft in April. It looks to me as though offensive line might be a good target area, but that’s a discussion for another day.

INDIANAPOLIS — The good news for New York Giants fans is that the Giants probably couldn't have played a better first half. The bad news is that they are losing 10-9.

After dominating the time of possession, the line of scrimmage and the New England Patriots for almost the entire first half, the Giants watched as Tom Brady led his team down the field in the final four minutes of the second quarter on a 15-play touchdown drive that put the Pats in front. It was an eye-opening drive by Brady, who'd begun the game by intentionally grounding the ball from the end zone and awarding the Giants a safety and a 2-0 lead. And with the Patriots set to get the ball back to begin the second half, it could well be a turning point.

The challenge for the Giants is to remind themselves how well they played and stick with what they're doing. Eli Manning is 13-for-17 for 120 yards and a touchdown, having completed passes to seven different receivers. The defense, in spite of its obvious lingering coverage issues, has been hitting and tackling hard, batting down passes and limiting big plays. Punter Steve Weatherford has been a monster field-position weapon.

The Giants are a very mentally tough team that don't get down on themselves or get out of their game plan, so I seriously doubt they're in there listening to Madonna and lamenting their poor fortune. If they can get a stop on New England's opening drive in the second half, there's no reason to think they can't continue to win the physical battles and, ultimately, the game.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The inactive players have been announced for Super Bowl XLVI, and the New York Giants' list is the same one they've been submitting every week during their run. There was some hope that rookie linebacker Mark Herzlich, who's missed the whole postseason with an ankle injury, would be healthy enough to play. But either he's not healthy or they just decided the guys who have been playing were better options.

For the New England Patriots, tight end Rob Gronkowski is active as expected in spite of spraining his ankle in the AFC Championship Game two weeks ago. What remains to be seen is how the ankle injury affects his performance and the ways in which the Patriots can use him.

The full lists of inactives:

GIANTS

• LB Mark Herzlich
• WR Ramses Barden
• RB Da'Rel Scott
• OL Jim Cordle
• DT Jimmy Kennedy
• OL James Brewer
• DE Justin Trattou

PATRIOTS

• QB Ryan Mallet
• RB Kevin Faulk
• RB Shane Vereen
• DL Ron Brace
• LB Gary Guyton
• OL Donald Thomas
• OL Nick McDonald

INDIANAPOLIS -- The New York Giants' confidence heading into Super Bowl XLVI has been well chronicled for the past week, but now it's getting specific. Now they're predicting final scores.

Earlier Sunday, ESPN talent producer Jason Romano (@JasonRomano) asked his Twitter followers to send him their predictions for the game and offered a prize to whichever follower came the closest to picking the final score. Giants defensive lineman Chris Canty (@ChrisCanty99, a verified account) tweeted back "Giants 28, New England 17."

If the Giants lose the Super Bowl tonight, I can safely predict that one of the popular story lines will be their pregame overconfidence and/or the question of whether they gave the Patriots added motivation with all of these quotes. I don't think the Patriots need any more motivation than being in the Super Bowl, but we'll see what they all say. I'm also interested to know whether Jason sends Canty the prize if he nails the pick.

INDIANAPOLIS -- So apparently, after all of that, there's a football game today. I know, right? I couldn't believe it either when they told me.

I'm going, as is the rest of the army ESPN sent out here to cover the week. We'll have updates for you from the stadium starting at some point this afternoon. We'll have a live chat starting at 4 p.m. ET and running right through the end of the game. And we'll have plenty of postgame coverage right here on the NFC East blog and everywhere else on the site.

But for now, one last time, as you get ready for Super Bowl XLVI tonight against the New England Patriots, here's one reason for New York Giants fans to be feeling good and one reason for concern.

Feeling good: If this kind of thing matters, the Giants are by far the more battle-tested team in tonight's game. Their playoff run includes road victories over the Packers and the 49ers, who were the two best teams in the league this year, and they've only played one team since Halloween that finished the season with a losing record (the Redskins, to whom they lost). The Patriots' current 10-game winning streak has come at the expense of quarterbacks Mark Sanchez, Tyler Palko, Vince Young, Dan Orlovsky, Rex Grossman, Tim Tebow, Matt Moore, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tebow again and Joe Flacco. They have not played a team as tough as the Giants or a quarterback as good as Eli Manning since the Giants beat them in Foxborough in Week 9, and as I'm sure you've heard they only beat one team all year that finished with a winning record (the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game). The Patriots went 13-3 in the regular season while the Giants went 9-7, but there appears to have been a stark difference in degree of difficulty between the Giants' current hot streak and that of the Patriots.

Cause for concern: Tom Brady can read, and likely has televisions in his gigantic house, and so he's surely seen and heard everything that's been said about the Giants having his number and having beaten him the last two times they played him -- especially in the Super Bowl four years ago. It's doubtful that Brady's watching and listening to all of this and just sitting there nodding his head and accepting his fate. He's likely as driven and motivated as he's been at any point in his career to exact revenge for the Super Bowl loss that spoiled the Patriots' attempt at a perfect season and to quiet all of the talk about the Giants knowing how to beat him. A player as great as Brady can be pretty scary when he's motivated.

» Super Bowl XLVI Final Word: Patriots | Giants

Five nuggets of knowledge about Super Bowl XLVI:

Home sweet road: The New York Giants have won six straight playoff games on the road or at neutral sites dating to 2007, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Eli Manning has been the quarterback for all six of them, and his six career postseason wins away from home tie him for the record with four other quarterbacks, including the New England Patriots' Tom Brady. (The others are Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach and Joe Montana, so not a bad list.) Manning's ability to remain cool under all kinds of pressure has been well-documented, and his record in hostile or neutral environments in postseason games offers yet another example.

You again? Manning and Brady are the third pair of quarterbacks to face off in multiple Super Bowls. The Cowboys' Troy Aikman and the Bills' Jim Kelly met in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. Aikman won both. The Steelers' Bradshaw faced the Cowboys' Staubach in Super Bowls X and XIII. Bradshaw won both. Brady is hoping to buck history and pull off a split with Manning, who beat him in Super Bowl XLII.

Hot at the right time: The Giants are the third team in history to reach the Super Bowl after failing to win at least 10 games in the regular season (not counting strike-shortened seasons). The previous two were the 2008 Arizona Cardinals and the 1979 Rams. Each of those teams lost its Super Bowl, so a Giants win would make them the first Super Bowl champion to enter the playoffs with fewer than 10 wins. The Giants are already the first team to reach the Super Bowl after being outscored by their opponents in the regular season. They scored 394 points and allowed 400 on their way to a 9-7 regular-season record. Those 2008 Cardinals (plus-1) and 1979 Rams (plus-14) were the teams with the worst point differential in Super Bowl history until this year.

Peyton's place: Eli Manning is playing the Super Bowl at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where his brother Peyton Manning has established himself as an all-time great quarterback with the Colts. Peyton had a head start on Eli and has fashioned a brilliant Hall of Fame career, but little brother's playoff numbers stack up with big brother's. Peyton Manning is 9-10 all time in postseason games with a 63.1 completion percentage and a 29-19 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Eli Manning is 7-3 in the postseason with a completion percentage of 59.8 and a TD-INT ratio of 16-8. If Eli throws three touchdowns on Sunday, it would give him 11 touchdown passes this postseason, which would tie the record for a single postseason set by Montana in 1989 and equaled by Kurt Warner in 2008.

Tough guys: According to ESPN Stats & Information's "Next Level" stats, the pass-catchers in this game are very difficult to tackle after they catch the ball. The stat they use is "yards after contact," which differs from "yards after catch." Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who's been struggling with an ankle injury since the AFC Championship Game, led the league with 290 yards after first post-catch contact. Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz was second with 245. Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker was third with 242 yards, and Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was fourth with 231.

INDIANAPOLIS -- My fellow ESPN.com NFL division bloggers and I got together Friday to enjoy some lovely midwestern February weather and talk about some of the big issues facing the New York Giants and the New England Patriots on Sunday night in Super Bowl XLVI.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Lots of talk around here about talk -- specifically all of the very confident talking the New York Giants have been doing about their belief that they will beat the New England Patriots on Sunday night in the Super Bowl. A theory has emerged that the Giants are making a mistake by giving the Patriots potential bulletin board material. It reached the point at which Giants coach Tom Coughlin was asked about it in his Friday morning news conference, but Coughlin seemed surprised that it was even an issue worth discussing.

"I'm not sure what you're referencing," Coughlin said. "I know that there are one or two quotes out there, but to be honest with you, I don't know that either one of them is any different than Tom Brady's quotes. Our team has played good football against great football teams. We always focus our team on 'humble enough to prepare, confident enough to perform.' That's the way we look at it."

Coughlin's reaction seemed genuine, and it speaks to the sincerity at the source of all of the Giants' predictions of victory and parades. They aren't out there pounding their chests and talking about how great they are. They aren't out there ripping the players on the other team. They aren't saying all of this stuff for the purpose of sending any kind of message. They just really don't feel they can be beaten right now. That feeling is born, as Coughlin points out, from a string of victories over the very best teams in the league, the last couple on the road, and the accurate sense that they're playing their best football of the year at the right time.

The Giants have, for weeks, been expressing supreme confidence without, in my opinion, arrogance. They just really believe in themselves and think they're good. And as they were in each of their first three playoff games, they're sure they'll win. It remains to be seen whether they're right. But they're not acting out or making any of this up. They're saying what they really believe.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Super Bowl hysteria is building, and it's not going to stop before the kickoff of Sunday's game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Will Rob Gronkowski play? If he plays, how much will he play and how good will he be? Are the Giants acting overconfident? Will all of their talk motivate the Patriots? We broke it all down in a roundtable discussion between myself, AFC East blogger James Walker and AFC North blogger Jamison Hensley. Enjoy.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The New York Giants' final media session of Super Bowl week wrapped up around 11:30 am ET on Thursday, which means we won't get a chance to talk to the players again until after the game Sunday night. But man, did these uber-confident Giants make the most of their media time.

More than one Giants player has said New York needs to plan for a parade next week. The receivers have been open and honest with their opinions on a New England Patriots secondary that uses converted wide receivers as defensive backs. And on Thursday, defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was so concerned with the Giants' pass rush in Week 9 that he was dodging phantom pressure:

"Yeah, he was reacting to pressure that didn't exist and he was just throwing the ball places that there wasn't a receiver there," Pierre-Paul said, according to ESPNNewYork.com's Ian O'Connor. "So imagine us just getting there even faster and we're actually doing our jobs and getting there and getting hits on him."

Hey, look. The Giants have been yapping for weeks. There's no denying it. A team that so openly disdains the boastful, chirpy way in which the intrastate rival Jets have carried themselves for the past three years has been acting out of character, openly proclaiming the self-confidence that has fueled its five-game winning streak and carried it into the Super Bowl. And if the Giants lose the game, some will claim that they got too confident, gave the Patriots too much bulletin board material and opened themselves up to a letdown.

I'm not buying that, though. It'd be one thing if this were a team that had never been here before. But there are 15 Giants who were on the Super Bowl XLII team four years ago and a handful of others who've played in Super Bowls as well. They're not unaware of what they're saying or the way it might be perceived. They're not saying it to try to send a message or pump themselves up. They're saying this stuff because they honestly believe it to be true, and the way they've played over the past month and a half has continually proved them right.

It's temping to read the Pierre-Paul comments and say, "Uh-oh... that'll fire up Brady." But this is the Super Bowl. If the Patriots win, I highly doubt you'll hear Brady say after the game that the Giants' trash talk motivated him to play better. "They should be confident," he said of the Giants on Thursday, and he's right. Both of these teams should be. For some reason, the Giants just seem a little less shy about projecting it.

INDIANAPOLIS — It might have been nice if Peyton Manning could have lay low and let his kid brother play in the Super Bowl this week. But a number of different circumstances have conspired to make that impossible, and as you know by now, Peyton gave an interview Tuesday with ESPN's Trey Wingo. Part of that interview included Peyton's thoughts on little brother Eli Manning, who he says, "doesn't need any advice" from his big brother on how to get ready for the Super Bowl or the New England Patriots.

INDIANAPOLIS -- We're all expecting a shootout in Super Bowl XLVI between a pair of quarterbacks who aired it out all season. And it's entirely possible that the New York Giants' Eli Manning and the New England Patriots' Tom Brady will put up big numbers Sunday night.

But K.C. Joyner, ever the contrarian, thinks the Giants would do well to try and run the ball in the Super Bowl. K.C. points out, correctly, that "over the past seven games, most of which were against playoff contender-caliber competition or better, the Giants' rushing attack has been every bit as powerful as it was last season." K.C. also has data to illustrate a "sieve-like showing" by the Patriots' run defense over its past six games, and figures that's an opportunity for the Giants to exploit a weakness.

K.C.'s story is Insider, so that's all you'll get of it from me because we want you guys to pay for the Insider access. But part of the reason for the improvements in the Giants' run game since Week 12 has been the return of Ahmad Bradshaw, who's playing and running hard in spite of a fracture in his foot. As we've discussed before, Bradshaw isn't often given credit for being the physical back that he is, probably because he's compared to his extremely large backfield mate, Brandon Jacobs. But Bradshaw is a tough, powerful, physical runner who obviously doesn't mind getting hit. His work in blitz pickup, where he's among the best in the league, is a testament to that.

I asked Bradshaw about that aspect of his game during media day today and he brightened.

"Always," he said in answer to my question about how long blitz pickup has been a part of his game. "Since high school, when I played safety. I love the contact. Every bit of it. I love getting hit and delivering hits."

If the Giants see the same things K.C. sees on film, Bradshaw could get a heavy share of the load -- and a lot of contact -- Sunday night.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The fun thing about the New York Giants' wide receiver corps is that you never know from one week to the next which one is going to have the big game. There were stretches this year in which Victor Cruz looked like the clear No. 1. There were stretches in which Hakeem Nicks looked like the clear No. 1. And Mario Manningham still looms as a somewhat forgotten field-stretching threat. It's a bounty of options for quarterback Eli Manning, who says he trusts them all and, like the rest of us, doesn't know which one will have the big game that particular week.

"I'm just looking for matchups," Manning said Tuesday at Super Bowl media day. "If guys are double-teamed or they're covered, I have to have faith in each one of those guys to get open and make big plays for us."

He does, and part of the reason is the weekly Friday meetings he holds in which the receivers sit and watch and listen as Manning breaks down film. Manning has been critical to the rapid development of his young receivers, in particular the rapid emergence of Cruz, who finished third in the league in receiving yards this year.

"I've said this a lot of times since Eli has been with us, one of the most attractive things that we like about him was making players around him better, since his days at Ole Miss," Giants GM Jerry Reese said. "That's definitely the case here with Victor Cruz. Eli coaches him up about his routes, the head fakes and those kinds of things. Victor has worked hard to put himself in this position, his position coach helped him and the quarterback has also helped him. He has exceeded all of our expectations, without a doubt."

Cruz's rapid rise has cost Manningham a bit in terms of targets and catches. He's effectively relegated Manningham to No. 3 wide receiver status. But Manningham said he, Cruz and Nicks are the best of friends and harbor no jealousy, regardless of which of them Manning happens to favor in a given game.

"It's amazing," Cruz said. "That guy, he's a starter if he goes anywhere else in this league. For him to humble himself and allow me to come up and not have any problems with that, I really thank him all the time. It's one of those things that could easily have gone sour, could have easily gone the other direction. For him to accept that role, and he's been doing phenomenally for us in that third receiver position, it's just great, and a true testament to his professionalism and what a great person he is."