The thinking is that if you give Bill Belichick two weeks to come up with a game plan, the New England Patriots will be nearly impossible to beat. The numbers back it up, too: Since the 2001 season, when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, Belichick’s teams have gone 10–1 with an extra week’s rest, either following a regular-season bye or with extra time to prepare during the playoffs.

Given that the Patriots faced the Giants a mere 26 days ago, that fresh game tape should, in theory, give Belichick a wealth of information about his Super Bowl opponent, enough to craft another of his now legendary game plans.

Hold the script. The videotape of the Giants team Belichick has seen, and no doubt will watch countless times again between now and February 3, will only tell him so much about his opponent. That game, in essence, was the start of the Giants’ run of strong performances that put them in football’s biggest contest, yet watching the tape of it won’t tell the Patriots all they need to know.

“You have to give them all the credit in the world,” Belichick said of the Giants this week. “It’s like Pittsburgh two years ago. Pittsburgh did the same thing two years ago, went on the road and won as a wild card team and as we always say, now’s the time when you want to be playing your best football, in January.”

“They’re the best team we’ve faced all year,” he said. “They’re on a hot streak right now, playing great in all three phases of the game.”

In the Giants’ three playoff wins since then, the offense has been a sure and sound unit. They have committed only one turnover — it was on special teams, not offense — and have forced six takeaways. But for most people, the Giants’ postseason flourish starts and ends with the ascent and coming of age of Eli Manning. Nothing else.

It makes sense. He has completed 62.4% of his passes and hasn’t thrown an interception in his past 85 attempts. He’s managing games, but he’s also helping to win them, too. He’s throwing like he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. But in head coach Tom Coughlin’s eyes, this Eli is the same one he has seen all season long.

“Everyone wants to know change, change, change; this is a guy that just consistently goes in that direction,” Coughlin said. “He has made the plays that are necessary, he has managed the game extremely well, and he has made the plays necessary to help us win, and that is exactly what he has done.”

Manning, ever sheepish, says he feels no different heading into Super Bowl week than he did before the loss to the Patriots. He feels as if execution and personnel — not X’s and O’s — are the reasons for the team’s best play since he took over as the starter.

“I don’t think the offense has changed,” Manning said. “I think we have gotten some guys back. We have Steve Smith back in the offense, he has been doing some good things; we have kind of the new combination of Brandon [Jacobs] and Ahmad [Bradshaw] in the backfield; we have Plaxico [Burress] back healthy and being able to practice the last four weeks, which we didn’t have throughout the whole season pretty much.”

Wideout Smith, running back Bradshaw, and tight end Kevin Boss — who played a key role in the first Patriots game — are not your average rookies. All three started the season trying to fight for roster spots and playing time, worked through most of the season without much of a chance, but all of them now figure in as crucial pieces for Manning and the Giants’ offense with one very big game to play. It’s likely that at least one of the three will have a good afternoon against a Patriots defense that is far from infallible.

Defensively, the Giants have supplied pressure as they have most of the season. The sacks, though, are actually down a bit in the playoffs, as they have found different ways to beat each of their postseason opponents. They kept Green Bay’s running game down, making for tough third-down situations; they threw off the Cowboys’ passing rhythm and flustered quarterback Tony Romo, and they pretty much stoned the Buccaneers’ entire offense. And now, the biggest challenge: Come up with another game plan to stop the high-flying Patriots.

The good news is that the Patriots, well, they too have changed since the December 29 meeting. Their offense has been more predicated on the run, which has tempered their scoring totals, and teams have moved the ball down the field on them more often than they did earlier in the season, leading to two closer playoff games.

It’s also easy to say that the Patriots’ passing game has been tamed in the two playoff games, especially with Tom Brady’s three-interception performance against the Chargers, but ask the offensive players — especially the linemen — and they’ll tell you they are just as happy running the ball 40 times and throwing short passes as they are slinging it all over the yard.

This raises perhaps the best matchup of coaches in Super Bowl XLII: The pressure-favoring defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, who hasn’t called a bad game in recent memory, and the Patriots’ young offensive whiz, coordinator Josh McDaniels. Does Spagnuolo play it safe with two- and three-deep coverages? Not likely. Does he throw the kitchen sink at Brady on every play? Not necessarily. It’s likely that his game plan will be as fluid and hard to determine as any he has cooked up this season; in fact, it probably will contain a lot of elements of every game since, and including, the Week 17 loss. Despite the outcome, there was a lot to learn and like about the Giants’ approach that week.

“As I have maintained for the entire season, I’m not really the reflective type,” coach Tom Coughlin said. “What we have been able to do all year long is kind of stay looking forward.”

Mr. Edholm, a senior editor at Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at eedholm@pfwmedia.com.