What a difference a play makes. A little more than five minutes into the fourth quarter of the Giants’ win over the Eagles yesterday, Eli Manning cut loose to Plaxico Burress on a 61-yard touchdown pass, and suddenly everything looked good: the game, Manning’s performance, the Giants’ chances in the NFC, and the road to the Super Bowl. The scoring strike put a 10-point capper on a game which the Giants, who were favored by seven and nursing a three-point lead at that point, seemed fully capable of losing, just as they had found a way to lose to a much inferior Minnesota Vikings squad last week.

The Eagles are better than the Vikings, and head coach Andy Reid had them motivated for this game. At the start of the season, this looked to be perhaps the Giants’ biggest game of the year, the game they had to win to make a serious run for the NFC East title. But the Eagles’ three-game skid seemed to have the Giants thinking they could walk right through their traditional foes and start preparing for big games in the next two weeks against Seattle and Dallas. For 45 minutes, the quality of the Giants play was uninspired; the best that could be said was that there were no breakdowns on the special teams of the kind that cost them the previous week.

With the Giants ahead be a seemingly safe 10 points early in the fourth quarter, Eagles third-stringer Mike McMahon directed a rousing eight play, 60-yard touchdown drive that had Giants fans feeling queasy. But as soon as Manning connected to Burress, the emphasis immediately shifted to: ‘Bring on Seattle!’ Or rather, ‘Bring us on to Seattle’, where the Giants will be playing next week with the hopes of emerging with a tie for the best record in the NFC.

I assume that’s what the Giants were thinking, since for most of yesterday’s game their minds didn’t seem to be on the Eagles. Once again, the sloppiness and mental laxity that has plagued this team throughout the season was evident. The Giants allowed five sacks, three of them to defensive end Jevon Kearse, which was three more than the they were able to put on McMahon. For the second week in a row, the Giants had a touchdown pass called back, this time in the second quarter on a splendid 46-yard bomb from Manning to Burress. The penalty wasn’t the usual holding or procedure call but, of all things, a delay of game that came after Manning was flummoxed at the line of scrimmage by the Eagles’ potential blitz (fake, as it turned out). The Giants have not changed the error of their ways, merely the way of their errors.

This week, it was the defense’s turn to show some lapses, allowing the Eagles 404 yards (89 more than the Giants) and 20 first downs (to the Giants 17).The Eagles were supposed to be demoralized by the ongoing Terrell Owens controversy and the loss of Donovan McNabb, but it’s hard to believe that McNabb could have been all that much better than McMahon, who continually evaded the Giants pass rush and then embarrassed their secondary, gaining 298 yards through the air on 18 passes to five different receivers. McMahon wasn’t supposed to have had time to learn more than six or seven pass plays, but they must have been the right six or seven basic pass plays.

The Giants defense had not given up a touchdown from scrimmage in three previous games and added two more TD-less quarters in this game before the roof very nearly fell in. The Eagles consistently found ways to spring tight end L.J. Smith and scatback Brian Westbrook loose – the pair caught 11 passes between them for 141 yards – with an ease that suggested that at least some of the Giants’ recent defensive success has been due to the absence of a first-rate passing attack on the other side of the line.

It’s probably a measure of how good the Giants are that they currently lead the league in points scored and point differential, and some of us are still carping over their small mistakes. Manning, after all, seems to have straightened himself out after the Minnesota debacle – he had three touchdown passes yesterday and no interceptions and now has 18 scores against nine pickoffs for the whole season. Tiki Barber, meanwhile, continued to make his case for being the greatest back in Giants history (112 yards, to give him an average of just under 100 per game this season).

The next two weeks will define their season. If the Giants best both Seattle and Dallas, they will probably go to the Super Bowl. But after last week’s late second half collapse, we reserve the right to be skeptical.

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A thought occurred to me midway through yesterday’s Jets-Denver game (at which point the Jets were down 17-0 and had gained just 79 yards worth of total offense): What would the odds-makers give if the Jets were to play their former coach, Pete Carroll, and his USC Trojans? I honestly think Southern Cal would be at least a seven-point pick. I know the Trojans have their defensive weaknesses, but I don’t think the Jets, who rushed for just 22 yards yesterday with only two runs longer than three yards, could take advantage of them.

I’m not joking: I think USC would beat the Jets and probably beat the stuffing out of them. The Jets have the worst offense in the league, and if the last couple of games are any indication, they will soon be challenging for the title of worst pro offense of the decade. Meanwhile, the best college teams are getting better and better, and I think this season the Trojans have overtaken the bottom rung of the NFL. The Jets have six games left, and next week they are lucky enough to be playing the Saints at the Meadowlands. I say lucky because I think there’s a very good chance that if they don’t score a touchdown against New Orleans, they may not score one the rest of the season.

Which leads to an interesting question. If the Jets were to play Southern Cal, would they tank the game if it meant a chance to get the number one pick in the next draft, where they might land Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart?

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”