DETROIT — Those who know Tom Coughlin know there are certain truths he values, and one of them is his keeping to the schedule he carefully and painstakingly lays out for his team.
All his plans went out the window on a road trip that lasted longer than expected, never landed in the original destination and ended up in a city where no one ever expected to be.
“I must have changed the itinerary five times,” said the Giants coach, sounding incredulous he even uttered those words.
Sometimes change does a body good. A road trip that didn’t get to Minneapolis, made a detour in Kansas City and was prolonged because the snow-covered Metrodome roof collapsed ended the way the Giants wanted and needed it to end.
“It was a true test of mental toughness,” defensive tackle Barry Cofield said.
In a game history will remember as the night Brett Favre did not play, the Giants survived some early Eli Manning mishaps with some breakout running from Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, and kept playing punishing defense all evening in a 21-3 victory over the Vikings in front of a festive crowd of 45,901 — mostly Lions fans who all got in for free.
Yup, this certainly wasn’t your ordinary Monday night affair.
“I think they handed this in a very professional manner,” Coughlin said. “There was no complaining, no nothing, we had no frustration, there was no anger expressed at any time.”
This was another keep-pace game for the Giants, who won their third straight game and improved to 9-4 to remain tied with the Eagles atop the NFC East before the bitter rivals go at it Sunday at New Meadowlands Stadium.
Once they finally got on the field for a game that was supposed to kick off Sunday at 1 p.m. in Minneapolis, the Giants tended to business.
“We knew we were going to play the game sometime, it was just a matter of when,” Manning said.
It also was a matter of how. The Giants didn’t get to face Favre, who saw his consecutive-game starting streak end at 297 straight games because of a sprained right shoulder. His replacement, Tarvaris Jackson, will always be an answer to a trivia question and probably not much else. The Giants were demonic in their run defense, completely stopping Adrian Peterson (14 carries, 26 yards) and then pounded away on Jackson, sacking him four times and briefly knocking him from the game with a toe injury.
The extra day of sitting around a Kansas City hotel seemed to hurt Manning, who wasn’t sharp — even though receivers Hakeem Nicks and Steve Smith returned from injuries — and threw two interceptions before putting any points on the board. He did manage a touchdown pass to Kevin Boss, but this was a ground-and-pound deal. Brandon Jacobs (14-116, 1 TD) broke free on a career-long 73-yard run and Ahmad Bradshaw (11-103), helped by a Bear Pascoe block, burst open on a 48-yard scoring run. The Giants ran for 213 yards on the NFL’s fourth-ranked run defense.
“That was our plan coming into the game, dominate running the ball,” Bradshaw said.
The scene was not what is usually seen at an NFL game, as this was a neutral site in every way.
When the Giants came out for pre-game introductions, they were booed. When the Vikings came out they were mostly booed as well. This was officially a Vikings home game and as such all the graphics on the message boards were controlled by the Vikings and that famous Vikings horn was sounded early and often.
The loudest the crowd got was in the second quarter, when a prolonged version of the wave went round and round. Then the crescendo hit its peak when a lusty chant of “Let’s Go Lions!” arose when the Vikings had the ball, followed by throaty boos when the message boards said “Quiet please, offense at work.”
Despite the rigors of the long, strange trip, the Giants endured, and prospered.
“Just the way we were behaving the whole trip, everybody was professional,” Osi Umenyiora said. “We love each other, which is the most important thing. I don’t mind being around them, so it was fun, we bonded and we went out and played well.”
paul.schwartz@nypost.com