Giants" Hillis Goes From Watching "Monday Night Football" to Playing in It EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Peyton Hillis was walking alongside a New Jersey highway looking for dinner. Cars zoomed past at 60 miles per hour as Hillis warily navigated the edge of the roadway. If he looked out of place, that is because he was. It was Oct. 15; a day earlier, he had been tending to his 1,300-acre soybean farm in southwestern Tennessee. A five-year N.F.L. veteran who had been discarded by three teams in the last three years, Hillis assumed his football career was probably over. Then the Giants summoned him for a tryout. He arrived in New Jersey with a pair of cleats and a small bag of belongings, half expecting a fleeting, 24-hour stay. The Giants instead signed him to a contract and promptly had a car service drive him to a hotel. His room was spacious, but the hotel did not have a restaurant and Hillis did not have a rental car. "So I walked a mile and a half to Pizzeria Uno," Hillis said, smiling. Just another glamorous day in the N.F.L. Six days later, exactly a week after he had been preparing to watch "Monday Night Football" on his living room couch, Hillis was the Giants" starting running back on "Monday Night Football." Though he barely had time to memorize the team's playbook - let alone learn how to drive in northern New Jersey - he scored a pivotal touchdown and was celebrated as one of the highlights in the Giants" first victory of the season. "People just have no idea how strange and surreal a football life can be," Hillis said Wednesday, recounting how he went from farmer to football star in a week. No one in a normal walk of life flies into a new city unknown and unemployed and ends up doing their job on national television a few days later. I love the game, but it's crazy sometimes. The American professional sports landscape is big business featuring high-priced talent performing for the fans" entertainment. But at the fringes, and especially on deep football rosters replete with lesser-known players, there are everyday people trying to lead common lives. But there is nothing routine about jumping off your living room couch one day to become a feted player in a notable N.F.L. game a week later. In interviews last week, Hillis and his wife, Amanda, who hastily flew to the New York area to join him with their 4-month-old son, Orry, described in detail their hectic, chaotic week, explaining what it was like to pick up and move, to get ready to play on one of the sport's biggest regular-season stages and to make sure the baby was fed, clothed and changed. "We were just living a small-town, country life," Amanda Hillis said of the farm they bought a year ago in Stantonville, population 283. But when the Giants called, it was a no-brainer. I was hoping he'd make it. We've lived all over the country during Peyton's football career, why not New York? Hillis previously played in Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City and Tampa. The shining year of his career was 2010 in Cleveland, when he rushed for 1,177 yards and 11 touchdowns and later was on the cover of Madden 12, a popular video game. But by early last month, he had played little in the last two seasons and was cut by Tampa Bay. Five weeks passed until the Giants called. Hillis dashed to his bedroom, packed a single bag, drove two hours to Memphis, flew to Newark and was taken to the first of three hotels where he stayed the next three nights. "I don't even remember the towns those hotels were in," he said. The Giants chose Hillis over four other running backs they invited to the tryout and gave him a veteran minimum contract worth $715,000. In minutes, he was being schooled in the Giants" playbook by quarterback Eli Manning. For each of the next several days, Hillis's late afternoons and evenings were spent in two-hour sessions with Manning. Then he would be driven to another hotel. The second night, he walked to a wine bar. It was only a half-mile away. "I don't drink, but the food was good," Hillis said. The next day, for the first time, Hillis was practicing with the first-team offense because the Giants" top three running backs were injured. "They throw you in the fire and see how you do," Hillis said. I was kind of out of shape, but I mostly knew what to do. So they just kept giving me more and more to learn. I was thrilled, but there's a lot of stress, too. You've got these new teammates who are counting on you. You don't want to let anyone down. Amanda flew to La Guardia Airport on Friday the 18th with the couple's son, a journey that began inauspiciously when Orry threw up on the passenger seated next to Amanda. "Thank goodness he was a really nice guy and acted like it was no big deal," she said. When she got her rental car at La Guardia, it was 5 p.m. "I looked at my GPS and saw that it was 14 miles to Peyton's hotel, so I figured I'd be there in about 20 minutes," Amanda said, laughing. Nearly three hours later - after pulling over at least once to feed Orry - she arrived in New Jersey. Peyton had called to have a pizza delivered. On Saturday, Peyton came home from practice and announced, "Baby, I'm going to play on Monday." Amanda asked, "Special teams?" "At running back," Peyton answered. I'm going to play a lot. By now, the Giants had helped their new running back and his family lease a unit in a condominium complex in Clifton. The next day, while Peyton was at practice, Amanda, who had also packed lightly, decided to buy clothes for the family. She used Google to find an Old Navy store 10 miles away, got the GPS directions, and with Orry in the back seat, headed for the store. Driving through the Lincoln Tunnel was a revelation, as was coming upon Times Square shortly thereafter. "It was breathtaking," said Amanda, who like Peyton grew up in Arkansas. But I knew this Old Navy wasn't going to have a parking lot in front of it. She returned to New Jersey through the tunnel, expecting to return another day when Manhattan was the planned destination. "At least I know the way now," she said. In the hours before Monday's game, Peyton was remarkably calm. "I had thought my N.F.L. career was over," he said. So this felt like a blessing. Hillis, who is 6 feet 1 inch and 240 pounds, seemed to grow stronger as the game wore on, bulling his way into the end zone with the kind of brute force the other Giants backs have not shown this season. He caught Manning's passes as if they had been teammates for years. Amanda attended the game but watched most of the second half on a big-screen monitor outside the stadium as she sat in the rented car. Orry, who might have been unaccustomed to the chilly night, had begun crying after his father's touchdown. Amanda listened to the play-by-play on the car radio. Reunited after the game, the Hillises had a long embrace. Peyton had bruises and welts on his forehead and arms and a bloody scrape on his neck. "We just went back to the condo," Peyton said. We were pretty excited. An action-filled week had not yet ended. By 2:30 a.m., Orry nodded off.