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Shameless plug alert: I'll be on "Outside the Lines" on ESPN at 3 p.m. ET today to discuss the Giants' Super Bowl run. Tune in for your daily Giants fix, if the parade and celebration are over by then. Tune in for the killer insight I and my fellow panelists bring to the program. Tune in to see what kind of tie I've picked out. Tune in to curse me to my face for thinking Jerry Reese didn't know what he was doing. Just tune in. It'll be fun.

Afterwards, I promise I'll do a Cowboys post. I promise.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Eli Manning admitted he wasn't supposed to try that throw. Rich Cimini has a detailed account of Manning's pinpoint 38-yard sideline throw to Mario Manningham that began the drive that would win Super Bowl XLVI for the New York Giants, and in it the Giants' quarterback is perfectly willing to admit it was a throw he never should have tried:

Just before the snap, the Patriots rotated into a two-deep look, with their two safeties dropping into deep "halves." Manning recognized it. Quarterbacks aren't supposed to throw deep sideline routes against a Cover 2 -- too risky -- but Manning looked to his right and didn't see anyone open.

Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks ran corner routes on the strong side, but they were well-covered. Manning did something the great quarterbacks do, using his eyes to freeze the safeties for a nanosecond. That opened the smallest of windows for him to throw to the back side, to throw to Manningham.

"It was Cover 2. Usually, that's not the matchup," Manning said, admitting that what he did went against the Quarterback Handbook.

But doesn't Manning himself go against the handbook? Hasn't that become the beauty of Manning? The gunslinging daredevil aspect of it all. His faith in himself and his receivers is so complete, honed during hours of weekly Friday film sessions -- the ones in which, the receivers say, he does all of the talking and they just listen -- that he brings no fear with him on game day. And that's why there's no quarterback in the league who tries -- and makes -- more dangerous throws than Manning does.

He's vintage Tiger Woods, bending an impossible five-iron around a tree. He's Greg Maddux living on the corners of the plate while dominating the National League with the Atlanta Braves. He's Brett Favre with better endings. Manning knew he wasn't supposed to throw that ball, but he had a pretty good idea he could hit that teeny, tiny spot, and that if he did Manningham could make the catch of his life. And as he was so often during the Giants' season-ending six-game winning streak, he was right.

INDIANAPOLIS — Ashley Fox's column off of Super Bowl XLVI is on New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin and his worthiness for the Hall of Fame in light of his second Super Bowl title. It's a topic Coughlin doesn't want to discuss because he's just not into such things and besides, he's been busy having the time of his life coaching a team with which he's fallen in love.

That was a word Coughlin used in his pregame speech Saturday night, telling his players that championship teams were made up of players that loved each other, and that he loved each and every one of them. Several players spoke about it in the wake of their Super Bowl victory, and it's clear that their connection with their 65-year-old coach is as deep as it's ever been.

"I thought he was going to come in with 'Finish,' which he's been preaching all year, but instead he came in with 'Love,'" defensive end Justin Tuck said. "He almost got a standing ovation when he walked out. I normally don't listen to those speeches, but as he got going, I picked my head up and started listening. I'm pretty sure we could have gone out and played right then. It was hard to go to sleep after a speech like that."

Not for Coughlin. He slept for nine hours Saturday night. Nervous? He was having the time of his life, on the run of his career with a team that was doing everything a coach dreams a team might do.

"What a wonderful experience it was to see the team come together like it did," Coughlin said.

We tend to oversimplify what it means to do a "good coaching job" in sports today. Too often, we look at the surprise teams — the teams that outperformed expectations — and assume their coaches must have pulled something out of them that we didn't know was there. Surely, the 2011-12 Giants are such a team, but I think the brilliance of the work Coughlin did this year goes beyond that.

This is an example of a man connecting with his team and his team getting it. Coughlin first had to figure out what he had in his locker room, then decide what was the best way to bring the best out of it. By the time the Giants had lost to the Redskins for the second time and were 7-7 with two games left in the regular season, he knew what his players needed to hear — upbeat, positive support. So there was no yelling that week, only a sense of opportunity. He told them, accurately, that they'd be division champs if they won their final two games, and he went on about what a great thing it was to have such an opportunity in the NFL.

The message hit home the right way, and the team still hasn't lost a game since. Coughlin showed his players the love. They responded in kind. And by the time they were assembled for their final pre-Super Bowl meeting Saturday night, everyone in the room already knew how everyone else felt. It almost didn't need to be said. Almost.

"For coach to come out and show you his emotional side, that gets your attention," said Giants cornerback Aaron Ross, who was benched for poor play way back in Week 2 against the Rams and ended up having a fine bounce-back season. "He's always a tough, stern guy, so to see that and hear that, it meant a lot."

These Giants mean a lot to Coughlin, and vice versa. I'd venture to say nothing he's ever done in his coaching career has been quite as fulfilling as this surprise run with this team and its great big heart.

INDIANAPOLIS -- New York Giants punter Steve Weatherford set a Super Bowl record on Sunday night with three punts that forced the New England Patriots to start inside their own 10-yard line. Elias Sports Bureau reports that Weatherford is the first Super Bowl punter ever with three such punts. He could have had four, but a bad bounce carried his second one into the end zone before the Giants' coverage team could down it.

Now, I know some of you complain when I talk about punters, but Giants fans who remember the Matt Dodge era know what Weatherford has meant to the team. He was one of the "non-sexy" signings GM Jerry Reese talked about in the offseason when I and others were ripping Reese for inactivity, and Weatherford's performance in the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl capped an outstanding season.

A couple of other Giants set records Sunday night as well. Tom Coughlin became the oldest coach ever to win a Super Bowl, at the age of 65. And Eli Manning set a Super Bowl record for most consecutive completed passes to start a game. Manning completed his first nine.

Additionally, Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw became the fourth player to score the game-winning touchdown in the final minute of the Super Bowl (even though his team was telling him not to score it). The others are John Taylor, Plaxico Burress and Santonio Holmes, which means it's now been done in three of the last five Super Bowls.

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 — New York Giants tight end Travis Beckum suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in the second quarter of the Super Bowl on Sunday night against the New England Patriots. He is obviously out for the remainder of the game, and his ability to be ready for the start of the 2012 season is in serious question.

Beckum was jammed by a defender while running a route with the Giants driving up 9-3 in the second quarter and crumpled to the ground. He had to be helped off the field by trainers, and the announcement of his injury came soon thereafter.

Beckum had five catches for 93 yards and a touchdown in the regular season and seven catches for 45 yards in the playoffs. He is not the Giants' primary tight end, and the fact that starter Jake Ballard is healthy helps lessen the loss. Tough break for Beckum, though, who has a long recovery ahead of him and has to watch the rest of the Super Bowl from the sideline.

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 NFC East blog has arrived at its seat for the Super Bowl here at Lucas Oil Stadium. This is a photo I took from my seat and put on Twitter. We still have three hours until kickoff but only a half hour until the start of our live Super Bowl chat, which will run until 30 minutes after the end of the game. I hope you can drop by. I'll be on the chat for part of the pregame and the entire first half, and I'll do some tweeting about the game in the second half before it's time to buckle down and write. So I'll catch you in one of those places. Meantime, enjoy. It's pretty awesome to be here.

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.

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 -- So Madonna had a news conference here Thursday, because she's the halftime act for the Super Bowl on Sunday night. And she took questions on a variety of topics, including her workout regimen, whether Alex Rodriguez really has a painting of himself as a centaur ("If he does," she said, "I haven't seen it.") and whether she was aware of the post-touchdown salsa dance of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz.

As you can see in the video, Madonna is very much aware of Victor Cruz.

"I have absolutely no criticism," Madonna said. "In fact, he has inspired me. I've been practicing my salsa moves, and I'm going to show them to you, and you tell me what you think of them, OK?"

The reporter asking the question was Marly Rivera of ESPNDeportes, and Giants PR man Pat Hanlon wrote on Twitter that Cruz "smiled, stepped back and said, 'Get out of here!'" when Cruz was informed of Madonna's tribute.

Oh yeah, we're having fun out here. Don't you worry.