Andy Reid, the Philadelphia coach, would take the blame afterwards, saying he should have been more aggressive with the lead instead of playing conservatively on both sides of the ball. He also agreed with the second-guessers that it was a bad idea in the fourth quarter to go for it on fourth-and-one just inside the Giants’ 40 and turn the ball over on downs instead of pooching a punt.

The Giants themselves couldn’t really explain what happened or even why they didn’t do what most normal people would when getting kicked around like rag dolls, which would be to take their beating and go home.

But early in the fourth quarter, Burress caught a pass in Eagles’ territory and tried to make a big play. He fumbled the ball on the 15, and it bounced forward, pursued by flock of Eagles. Safety Michael Lewis fell on it just outside the goal line, but it squirted into the end zone where Giants wide receiver Tim Carter finally corralled it for a touchdown to make it 24-14.

“We just knew we needed one thing to turn the tide in our direction,” said Tiki Barber, who was held in check all day until the final drive, when he repeatedly made big gains. The fumble for a touchdown was it.

“It was,” Burress admitted with a grin, “the best fumble I’ve ever had.”

The Giants also went to a no-huddle offense that limited the substitutions and defenses the Eagles could run. It simplified what the Giants could do, too, but, by employing three wide-outs, it kept the Eagle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter, who had been stuffing the run, mostly on the sidelines.

The Eagles had been on Manning like sweat on a wrestler the entire game. They’d pounded him without mercy. But he never got happy feet, never panicked, never stopped taking whatever scraps the defense would give him.

“He was unaffected by anything negative that happened,” said Barber. “He wasn’t rattled. He was calm.”

Even then, the teams traded possessions until with 3:28 remaining, Manning hit Toomer with a 22-yard touchdown pass to get within three. They gave the Eagles one first down on the next possession and burned all their time outs by the time they got it back on their own 20 with 58 seconds to play.

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Last week, the Giants had killed themselves with numerous dumb penalties against the Colts in the Manning Bowl. This time, it was Philadelphia’s turn to be dumb. With ten seconds to play in the game, defensive end Trent Cole kicked a Giant after a Manning completion to Jeremy Shockey at the 32. The penalty moved the ball to the 17, from where Jay Feely kicked the field goal that tied the game.

In overtime, the teams traded punts, and then Manning worked his magic, completing eight passes in eight attempts, including the game-ender to Burress on third-and-11 from the 31.

Afterwards, the hero had the aw-shucks attitude that winners always seem to have. “It wasn’t the prettiest game and it was downright ugly for a while,” he said. He admitted that when they were down 17 and going nowhere, “our spirits weren’t high.”

But he kept trying, kept standing in the pocket, kept finding receivers, and, most important, protected the ball. He called a couple of standard plays to run at the line of scrimmage based on the defense he saw. On the winning pass, he signaled Burress to run a fly to the corner and launched the ball just as an all-out blitz washed over him.

With a little coaxing, the man who had just come of age as an NFL quarterback in the second game of his second season as a starter finally confessed that it all felt pretty good.

“This is a great one,” he said. “This is one you’ll always remember.”

And one fans will always talk about.

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