PITTSBURGH — This was a Steel Hurtin’ all right, a day when those two Super Bowl championships seemed like distant memories, a day when Giants fans would have traded Eli Manning for Ben Roethlisberger in a Big Apple minute.
This was a test of their mettle, and Manning and the 8-4 Giants, 24-14 losers, were anything but iron men with iron wills.
This was a jolting, jarring slap in the face, the first blast of December football that left the Giants’ six-game winning streak strewn across Heinz Field, a sobering and humbling reminder that the road to the playoffs is littered with desperate teams fighting every bit as fiercely as they are for January football.