And Lambeau Field is quiet

I don’t think I’ve ever seen 72,000 people leave a stadium so quickly.

An air of disappointment cut through the cold and engulfed Lambeau Field tonight, as the Green Bay Packers’ dream season came to a nightmarish end with a 23-20 overtime loss to the New York Giants in the NFC championship game.

“Losing in general is bad,” Packers running back Ryan Grant said. “To lose like this hurts, but they played better than us. Hats off to them.”

Lawrence Tynes made a 47-yard field goal in overtime after missing from shorter distances in regulation to give the Giants the victory. It came moments after Brett Favre threw an interception eerily similar to the one he tossed against the Eagles in the infamous “fourth-and-26” game after the 2003 season.

“I just didn’t throw it outside enough,” Favre said in his postgame press conference. “It was what we call a shake route. Donald (Driver) had slipped him more like an out route, which was fine. I just didn’t get it out far enough. It’s too bad.”

The game was a head-scratcher for a variety of reasons. For starters, the Packers dropped another game at Lambeau Field. Once invincible at home in the playoffs, Green Bay has lost three of its last five home games in the postseason.

It also was severely outplayed by a team it soundly beat earlier in the season. Granted, things change, but after the Packers stomped the Seahawks in the divisional round, nobody saw this clunker coming.

It was a coming out party for Eli Manning. While nobody is ready to anoint him as the greatest QB in the league, he certainly was the best one on the field Sunday. He completed 21 of his 40 pass attempts (more than two times what the experts thought he’d attempt) and the Giants running back tandem of Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw combined for 130 yards on a whopping 37 carries. The Giants had the ball almost twice as long as the Packers did.

“They made the plays and we didn’t,” defensive coordinator Bob Sanders said. “So hats off to them.”

Favre, in what might be his last game ever, was 19-for-35 passing for 236 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. The rushing game was non-existant. Grant finished with 29 yards on 13 carries. Aside from one Favre rush, Grant was the only Packers ball carrier.

“We just never got into a rhythm in our running game,” offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said.

Other tidbits from the game:

* The Packers fell to 10-4 all-time in NFC championship games, which includes NFL championship games from 1933-’69.

*Of the four losses in the NFC title game in club history, Sunday’s was the first at home. The previous three came at New York (1938), Philadelphia (1960) and Dallas (1995).

- John Casper Jr.