EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - The New York Giants haven't forgotten. The playoff loss to the Eagles to end last season was bad enough. But what Donovan McNabb did toward the end was even worse.

Forced out of bounds late in the Eagles' 23-11 win in the divisional round of the playoffs, McNabb ran through the New York sideline and picked up the phone that was used to communicate with the Giants' coaches up in the booth.

"Verizon wasn't working," McNabb said yesterday during a conference call with New York-area reporters. "There was nothing over there."

But the implication was clear. McNabb was showboating because for the second time in six weeks, his Eagles were handling the Giants. Never before had a team beaten the Giants twice in their own building in the same season. The Eagles won a crucial Dec. 8 game, 20-14, to keep their playoff hopes alive and expose the Giants' offense as lost without Plaxico Burress, then ended New York's season with that January win that propelled them into the NFC championship game.

"I'm sure it did," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said yesterday when asked if McNabb's move stuck with his players throughout the long off-season. "They have good memories."

Every Eagles-Giants game is huge, and this one is no exception. After starting the season 5-0, New York has lost consecutive games to New Orleans and Arizona and is clinging to a half-game lead in the NFC East, with the Eagles and Cowboys right there at 4-2.

Like the Eagles, the Giants are having a bit of an identity crisis. They easily beat Washington, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Oakland during that 5-0 stretch, but those teams are among the worst in the league. When its schedule got harder, New York couldn't hang, losing to the Saints by 21 points and the Cardinals by six.

Eli Manning started the year hot, calmly leading a late-game drive to beat the Cowboys in Week 2. But in the last two games, he completed only 48.2 percent of his passes, and the Giants - tell me if this sounds familiar - moved away from their running game, despite averaging 141.9 rushing yards per game, fifth best in the NFL.

Four times against the Cardinals on Sunday, New York faced third and 2, including once early in the fourth quarter when they were trailing by 10 points. Three times the Giants opted for pass plays, including a deep ball from Manning to Mario Manningham in the fourth quarter, even though Brandon Jacobs was averaging more than 6 yards per carry.

The loss to Arizona put the Giants in a position where, with another loss, they could go from being in a lull to being in a crisis. They began last season 11-1, thought they could make a repeat appearance in the Super Bowl, then watched McNabb embarrass them in front of their own fans.

On Monday, Giants linebacker Danny Clark told the New York Post this of McNabb's faux telephone call: "We kept the picture up all off-season. It sits pretty heavy on us."

Yesterday, he refused to elaborate, saying: "I can't talk about it now. I can't say anything else, no."

Said New York defensive end Justin Tuck: "Is there memories? Obviously. We felt last year we could've easily been the team playing in the Super Bowl. . . . They beat us."

As for his showboating, McNabb said he had no regrets about what he did in that playoff game.

"In this game, do you really need any psychological motivation?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't think so. . . . We've played each other for years, and I don't think you need any type of motivation to play this game. If you need any little thing that happened during a game last year or years before, then really you're not truly focused week in and week out on trying to be the best at what you do."

Contact columnist Ashley Fox at 215-854-5064 or afox@phillynews.com.