Giants and Corey Webster Savor a Return to Lambeau Corey Webster played down the pick and gave away the ball. Far be it for him to cast his interception of Brett Favre in overtime four years ago in the N.F.C. championship game as the play that altered the paths of the Packers and the Giants and helped route both teams to Sunday's Lambeau Field playoff rematch. "Had an opportunity to be part of that, make a play in an overtime game," Webster said Thursday. A lot of people hold that play in high regard. I just take it as another play, to get us to the Super Bowl, not much more than that. Surely he was kidding, or playing it cool, when he was asked to take the inevitable stroll down memory lane - or at least into the space between Favre and his intended receiver, Donald Driver, on the second play of overtime Jan. 20, 2008. "Donald Driver and Favre had worked together for a long time," Webster said, going back to that arctic night in Green Bay, second-and-8 on the Packers" 28 in a 20-20 game. You kind of think he's going to go to one of the guys he's familiar with. Especially taking into consideration that Driver was covered on the corner by Webster, whom he had burned early in the second quarter for a 90-yard touchdown. But if the Giants that season - similar to this one, at least to this point - symbolized one specific characteristic, it was resilience, a knack for reinvention. Webster embodied that ability as much as anyone after losing his starting position to Aaron Ross and regaining it only because of an injury to Sam Madison. And then came the most storied of postseasons. In the wild-card game against Tampa Bay, Webster contributed an interception and a fumble recovery. In the next game, in Dallas, he quieted Terrell Owens. But when the Packers won the toss to receive in overtime, Webster had to risk getting burned again. "At that point in time, the offense just wants to move the ball methodically down the field, first downs here and there, and normally not try for the home run," defensive end Justin Tuck said. You kind of play the odds in that situation, but we had done a great job of stopping the run, so we were all kind of playing pass there. On that play, obviously, Corey had a great read on him. Just ironic that Brett Favre, in that position, 9 out of 10 times is throwing that ball right into Driver's hands, away from the defender. Under no great pressure despite a blitzing Giants linebacker, Favre lofted a wobbly ball inside of Driver that Webster intercepted at the Packers" 43-yard line. "My goal was to stay as close in the coverage as I could to Driver," Webster said. I saw the ball come and I was able to undercut the route and make a play on it. I just wanted to catch it, being it was cold and freezing out there. He caught it and carried it to the sideline, where he handed it to the Giants" honorary captain that night - Greg Gadson, a United States Army lieutenant who had lost both legs in Iraq. Lambeau turned as silent as it was cold (wind-chill minus-23). Favre unsnapped his helmet in disgust at his worst playoff pass - at least until two years later, when he treated his Minnesota Vikings to a repeat performance at New Orleans in the N.F.C. title game. What became his last pass as a Packer was returned by Webster to the 38. On the sideline, offensive lineman Kevin Boothe's first thought was that the Giants were again suddenly a handful of yards from the Super Bowl. "I was on the field-goal team," Boothe said. At that point, I'm just worried about my stance. Lawrence Tynes, who had incurred Coach Tom Coughlin's frosty-faced wrath for missing wide left from 36 yards at the end of regulation, soon trotted out for the 47-yard game-winner. It was a redemptive kick, for sure, but Webster's play looms larger historically, if only because the Giants were on defense, vulnerable to a sudden-death field goal. "Corey's play was definitely a momentum-turner, the biggest play of the game," Boothe said. If he doesn't make it and the Packers get a couple of first downs, maybe they go to the Super Bowl. And who knows what happens then? Who knows where Eli Manning would be without the immaculate connection - his hand to David Tyree's helmet - against New England in the Super Bowl? Would Coughlin have survived the stumbles of subsequent seasons? If Favre had gone to the Super Bowl, would the Packers have severed ties and handed the ball to Aaron Rodgers? "I'm sure they had noticed Rodgers's talent," Boothe said. I think sooner or later he would have gotten his opportunity to show what we all see now. Perhaps just not as quickly, to where the Packers will host the Giants as defending Super Bowl champions, as a 15-1 regular-season team whose new-age quarterback is as explosive as Favre but without a penchant for making the mind-numbing mistake. "He normally doesn't turn the ball over," Webster said of Rodgers. But it's our job to force him to make turnovers. For that unenviable challenge, Webster can at least look back to a 20-20 game at Lambeau to assure himself he has been there before.