Giants' Probabilities for Playoffs - NYTimes.com Under the headline "The Indescribable Collapse of the Incomprehensible 2012 Giants," Greg Hanlon of CapitalNewYork.com summed up what Giants fans know well: Seasons seem to end with an abject collapse or a Super Bowl ring and nothing in between. We'll never quite get a straight answer with the Giants, the poster child for randomness in the N.F.L. Randomness is another word for luck. So, are you feeling lucky, Giants fans? A reminder of what is required: The Giants can advance to the playoffs later today if 1) They beat Philadelphia. 2) Dallas loses or ties to Washington. 3) Minnesota loses to Green Bay. 4) Chicago loses to Detroit. NFL-Forecast.com gives the Giants a 14.6 percent chance to pull it off. NFL-Forecast.com uses the team efficiency rankings of Advanced NFL Stats, and even Brian Burke, who runs Advanced NFL Stats, isn't that optimistic. His rankings are mathematical, logical, removing human emotion -- think Spock in "Star Trek." But motivation and emotion have their place in N.F.L. predictions. His forecast system has the Lions favored over the visiting Bears, but because Chicago has everything to play for, and Detroit nothing, he wrote on The Fifth Down, "Although the model gives a slight edge to Detroit, realistically it's more likely that Chicago will gut out a win." Football Outsiders gives the Giants a surprisingly high 17.9 percent chance (not surprising to them, I guess, and it is true that the Giants, the Redskins and the Packers are favored to win their games). Bill Barnwell of Grantland, who used to write for FootballOutsiders, calculated the Giants' odds at 8.5 percent. Eli Manning has been speaking optimistically about the Giants' chances, but he's not using advanced statistics. He just needs his teammates to believe they have a shot, lest they come out flat. It's not as if the Giants have had it easy against the Eagles in the Andy Reid era under any circumstances. If this is Reid's final game with the Eagles, "it will bring to an end the 14-year tenure of a head coach who has terrorized the Giants more than any other in recent memory," Jonathan Clegg wrote in The Wall Street Journal. If the three afternoon games go right for the Giants, it will come down to Cowboys-versus-Redskins on Sunday night. The Giants have had good luck with Tony Romo. In their first Super Bowl run with Manning, in the 2007 season, the Giants' first big upset was at Dallas, with Romo failing to connect with Patrick Crayton in the final 30 seconds (Crayton let up at the end of his route). In last season's Super Bowl run, Romo failed to connect with Miles Austin on a third-down pass that could have finished the Giants in the regular season, on Dec. 11. Can Romo, who will be 33 in April, win a big game? Todd Archer of ESPN Dallas: For the third time in five years the Cowboys find themselves in a win-and-in situation in their final regular-season game. They lost a wild-card spot to Philadelphia in 2008 and they lost the NFC East title to the New York Giants last season. But Archer quoted Romo as saying: "I think more than anything I'm a completely different player than I was four, three, two years ago. I look back and laugh at that guy who played in some of those games then. What do you think are the chances that the Giants will somehow again laugh last?