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San Francisco 49ers' player Chike Okeafor lies on the ground...

San Francisco 49ers' player Chike Okeafor lies on the ground after breaking up up a pass to Rich Seubert in the final minutes of the NFC Wild Card playoff game in San Francisco. (Jan. 5, 2003) Credit: AP

It is an NFC Championship Game matchup few saw coming last summer. Or last week, come to think of it.

But there was a time no one was surprised when the Giants and 49ers met on the postseason stage.

"We knew somewhere along the line, it was going to be about us and them,'' former Giants quarterback Phil Simms said, recalling one of the biggest rivalries of the 1980s and early '90s.

Added linebacker Carl Banks: "Once you got into the playoffs, they were the Giants' No. 1 rival. They were as hated, and I'm sure vice versa, with us as we were with the Redskins or Eagles.''

The Giants' current January journey has taken them through one opponent with whom they have no significant history (Falcons) and one against whom most of their big games date back a half-century or more (Packers).

But most fans over 30 can recall at least some of this rivalry's heyday, and many younger than that remember the series' most recent playoff renewal -- the Giants' historic meltdown in a 39-38 wild-card loss nine years ago.

"It was just a massive failure of execution everywhere,'' running back Tiki Barber said of the Giants blowing a 24-point third-quarter lead.

This will be the eighth time the Giants and 49ers meet in the postseason, tying Giants-Bears and Cowboys-Rams for the most-played playoff matchups. What makes that more impressive is that the first meeting did not come until the 1981 season, and also that the 49ers were not in the NFL until 1950.

The 49ers began as members of the All-America Football Conference. Their inaugural regular-season game in 1946 and their first playoff game in 1949 were against the New York Yankees.

Their first game against the Giants didn't come until Nov. 9, 1952, at the Polo Grounds.

Since then, the teams have split 28 regular-season meetings. The 49ers have a 4-3 edge in playoff games.

Wild wild-card game

The first six of those games form the heart of the postseason rivalry and precisely span the career of Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

But before we get to those, let's start with that eventful game on Jan. 5, 2003.

Rich Seubert, the guard at the center of the game's most notorious play, said: "I haven't forgotten it. I don't think anyone on the team or in the organization will ever forget it.''

The Giants had squandered a 38-14 lead when Seubert reported as an eligible receiver on what was to be a 41-yard field-goal attempt by Matt Bryant with the Giants trailing 39-38 and six seconds left.

When Trey Junkin's snap went awry, holder Matt Allen picked up the ball and flung it downfield toward Seubert, who was pulled down by the 49ers' Chike Okeafor just outside the end zone.

Officials correctly flagged fellow offensive lineman Tam Hopkins for being downfield illegally but did not throw one on Okeafor for pass interference.

One day later, the NFL apologized for the mistake.

Nine years later, Seubert said: "All I know is, I would have caught that football. I don't know if I would have gotten in the end zone, but I would have caught it.''

Seubert was the last Giant left from that team until he was released before this season and moved to California with his family. He will be one of three honorary Giants captains for tonight's game.

As upset as Seubert was about the officials' blunder then (and now) -- "I don't think those guys knew what they were doing,'' he said -- he emphasized an obvious point:

"It should never have come down to that . . . The refs blew it, we blew it, defense, offense, it was everybody.''

Barber agreed, saying, "You can blame everybody -- the coordinators, the coach, the players, the referee.''

It took so much going wrong for the Giants to lose that it would take several stories the length of this one to begin to explain it. But Barber said the "meat and potatoes of it'' was that they could not find a way to change momentum as the game unraveled. "When that happens," he said, "no matter how much you're up by, you're going to lose."

Bahr none, '90 was the best

As memorable as all that was, the games of a previous era defined the series and generally followed the larger fortunes of the teams.

After the 1981 and '84 seasons, the 49ers won en route to Super Bowl titles. The ascendant Giants won after the 1985 and '86 seasons, the latter a 49-3 demolition at Giants Stadium by the eventual Super Bowl champs.

The 49ers won in a blowout, 44-3, after the '93 season in what would be the final game for Simms and Taylor.

But the most important playoff meeting until this one was the NFC Championship Game after the 1990 season at Candlestick Park. The 49ers were two-time defending Super Bowl champs and had won the teams' regular-season game, 7-3. The Giants were playing with a backup quarterback, Jeff Hostetler.

Leonard Marshall knocked Joe Montana out of the game with a devastating hit. Roger Craig fumbled late. Matt Bahr's fifth field goal, from 42 yards, won it, 15-13, as time expired. A week later, the Giants beat the Bills, 20-19, in Tampa.

"The game that really haunts me is 1990,'' former 49ers receiver Jerry Rice recalled. "They had Lawrence Taylor, so many great guys. I knew it would be physical and nasty, and it was.''

Said quarterback Steve Young: "For us to lose to a team kicking five field goals was like -- that was an extra slap in the face . . . It was rough, to say the least.''

The 49ers last played in the Super Bowl after the '94 season. The Giants have been there twice since then. Now San Francisco stands between them and another visit to the grand finale.

To an earlier generation of players, that is as it should be.

Simms said thinking about the history with the 49ers brings back "a lot of memories,'' ones that range from "great to the greatest to the worst in lots of ways . . . Man, that was some run.''

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