NFL

Warm day no way to close Giants Stadium

The weathermen clearly have no sense of history, which means they are simply a small link in the long chain of people for whom this afternoon means so much less than it should. The weathermen say the temperature for East Rutherford at kickoff will be 46 ­— and sunny. And that is so wrong.

The Giants will play the Carolina Panthers today in what will almost certainly be their final game ever in the portion of the three-building Meadowlands Sports Complex that bears their name, and it feels as if the day snuck up on everybody, as if it just appeared on the calendar without notice, as if everyone has simply overlooked that monstrous stadium towering over its east side.

Do you remember what the final season at Yankee Stadium was like? Do you remember the hollow eyes and the nostalgic looks, the way grown men would stare at the grass and the outfield fences and suddenly a tear would streak down their face, the way it did that famous Native American back in the day in those old pollution ads. There wasn’t this kind of emotional reaction when they tore old Penn Station down.

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And even Shea Stadium — eyesore, obsolete, a rock pile from about the third week of its life on forward — evoked remarkably deep emotions within the souls and the tear ducts of its chief constituents. It may have been a dump, Mets fans figured, but it was our dump.

Where are the tears for Giants Stadium?

Where are the wistful looks around? “This place,” Lawrence Taylor said not long ago, “when I think of this place, I think of bitterly cold afternoons and hard hits and fans that wouldn’t let us lose, that wouldn’t let the other guys out of here alive. When I think of this place, I think of football.”

And maybe that explains it. Maybe we are simply incapable of feeling for a football stadium the way we feel for a ballpark. Maybe it’s the anticlimax of all of this. The Giants, after all, are unlikely to play any last playoff games here, meaning the last time they hosted one, last January, it was a loss to the Eagles, of all teams. And the NFL proved no help, assigning the final regular-season game in Giants Stadium’s history to the Jets, for crying out loud, visitors in their own “home” for 25 years.

And now, it would seem, even the weathermen can’t muster an appropriate day. It’ll be cold. But it won’t be cold, as it should be. It should be so cold that if you crack your knuckles, you worry your fingers might splinter right there in your gloves. It ought to be so cold that when you reach for a beer bottle in your cooler, your hands should actually get warmer. It should be so cold that every breath makes you want to cuss like a Marine.

The wind should be there, of course, a puzzling, perplexing wind that seems like it should be going this way and looks to be going that way but, really, has a mind of its own. It should be the kind of wind that makes a visiting quarterback’s head hurt, the kind of wind that either strikes fear or defiance in a punter’s heart.

“Until you’ve punted at that place,” said Sean Landeta, who once tried to punt the Giants all the way to a Super Bowl by himself, his leg the singular weapon on a day that was better suited to ice fishing, “you haven’t really challenged yourself.”

Those are the games we will remember most, of course. We will long remember Giants 17, Redskins 0, the game that Landeta helped dictate with his right leg, the game that brought the Giants their first Super Bowl berth in January 1987. We will long remember Giants 41, Vikings 0, 14 years later, with Wellington Mara defiantly thumbing his nose at a nation of doubters after the Giants gritted their teeth and ignored the frost while the Vikings completely sagged and slumped at the first sight of their own breath.

We will remember Lawrence Taylor exhorting his teammates to chase after Ken O’Brien “like crazed dogs,” and Joe Danelo booting the overtime field goal against the Cowboys that finally ended an 18-year playoff drought in 1981. We will remember the stray cats that made their home in the bowels beneath the stadium, and Mr. Mara’s faux Rolls-Royce golf cart in which he would check in on his beloved team, and the natural-grass experiment that never quite took, and the time Jim Burt nearly separated Joe Montana’s head from Joe Montana’s shoulders (the same day a panicked Jerry Rice fumbled without ever being hit).

We will remember the last game of the 2007 season, when the Giants offered a preview of what would soon come against the Patriots even if nobody realized it, and the first game after Mara passed away, a 36-0 cauterizing of the Redskins in which there wasn’t a dry eye among 78,000 sets of eyes by the end, and all those bitterly cold afternoons that ended with Bill Parcells drenched in Gatorade courting pneumonia.

We will remember 268 regular-season and 11 playoff afternoons when the faithful arrived early and stayed late, when the smell of barbecues would first hit you on Paterson Plank Road and follow you all the way in, when you’d have to avoid the touch-football games and the hackey-sack football games and an army of believers in their No. 11 jerseys, their 56 jerseys, their 31 and 21 and 92 and 10 jerseys.

Nobody may get weepy about any of this, because it’s a football stadium, and there’s no crying in football.

But we will remember.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com

The game that sticks out is the ’86 NFC Championship Game against the Redskins. Everthing was blowing around. It was really windy that day. Jim Burt had his boy up on his shoulders. There was always a nice, family feeling in that stadium. It was very intimate. The stands were right behind you. I remember winning there a lot. I don’t know what our record was at home during my six years there, but it didn’t seem like we lost many times there.

— Mark Bavaro

My most vivid memories would be of cold and gray early December days with the flags crackling on top of the stadium and West Coast teams coming to town. It didn’t get any better than that.

­— Bill Parcells

So many great games … so many great memories …so many great guys that I played with. We always had home-field advantage cause the place was cold as a sonofagun, but the fans always came prepared. It was my house. I’m gonna miss it, but I’m happy I’ll be there [today] to close it.

­— Lawrence Taylor

I’ll always remember my first game in Giants Stadium against the Eagles in ’97. The building always provided great atmosphere and the fans let you know how they felt. It was our place and it was an extension of me for 10 years. I have a lot of great memories thanks to my teammates and coaches. I’m glad I was able to come back for the Dallas game and be there one last time.

— Tiki Barber

Career leaders at Giants Stadium

Rushing

1. Tiki Barber, 1997-2006

1,156 attempts, 5,389 yards, 30 TDs

2. Rodney Hampton, 1990-97

935 att., 3,720 yards, 31 TDs

3. Joe Morris, 1982-89

783 att., 3,221 yards, 31 TDs

Receiving

1. Amani Toomer, 1996-2008

333 rec., 5,037 yards, 27 TDs

2. Tiki Barber, 1997-2006

288 rec., 2,540 yards, 7 TDs

3. Ike Hilliard, 1997-2004

205 rec., 2,533 yards, 13 TDs

Passing

1. Phil Simms, 1979-93

1,298 completions, 2,346 attempts, 16,969 yards, 110 TDs, 71 INTs

2. Eli Manning, 2004-present

773 completions, 1,387 attempts, 9,121 yards, 66 TDs, 44 INTs

3. Kerry Collins, 1999-2003

745 completions, 1,295 attempts, 8,586 yards, 39 TDs, 32 INTs

Sacks*

1. Lawrence Taylor, 1981-9373.5

2. Michael Strahan, 1993-200773

3. Leonard Marshall, 1983-9241

*Became an official statistic in 1982

Coaching wins

1. Bill Parcells73

2. Jim Fassel34

3. Tom Coughlin29

(includes victories as visiting coach vs. Giants and Jets)

Single-game Giants records


Most Points, Individual: 24, Rodney Hampton vs. Saints, Sept. 24, 1995

Most Rushing Yards: 220, Tiki Barber vs. Chiefs, Dec. 17, 2005

Most All-Purpose Yards: 276, Tiki Barber vs. Eagles, Dec. 28, 2002

Most Passing Yards: 432, Phil Simms vs. Cowboys, Oct. 6, 1985

Most Receptions: 12, Jeremy Shockey vs. Cowboys, Nov. 11, 2007

Most Receiving Yards: 204, Plaxico Burress vs. Rams, Oct. 2, 2005

Most Sacks. 6, Osi Umenyiora vs. Eagles, Sept. 30, 2007

Most Yards Gained: 524 vs. Packers, Jan. 6, 2002

Most Points, Team: 55 vs. Packers, Dec. 20, 1986

Longest Run From Scrimmage: 78, Tiki Barber vs. Cardinals, Sept. 3, 2000

Longest Field Goal: 56, Ali Haji-Sheikh vs. Packers, Sept. 26, 1983

Longest Interception Return: 95, Sam Garnes vs. Eagles, Aug. 31, 1997

Longest Punt Return: 87, Amani Toomer vs. Bills, Sept. 1, 1996

Longest Kickoff Return: 97, Ron Dixon vs. Eagles, Jan. 7, 2001

­— Brian Costello