GIANTS ONCE; NOW MORTALS.(Sports)

Byline: Brian Ettkin

Let's not reduce this season to computations and calculations, tiebreakers and what-if scenarios. If the Giants beat the Saints today and win at Washington in their final game they will finish 9-7 and, unless the dominoes fall wrong, make the playoffs.

And it will matter not.

They're not a Super Bowl team. They're not good enough for that. A great team would have asserted itself by now and run like a stallion instead of backing into a wagon like a plow horse that hopes to be saddled with the NFC's sixth seed.

This isn't baseball, where teams like the Cardinals and Tigers can stumble into the playoffs like bums, dust …