SANTA CLARA, Calif. — They might have three rings between them, courtesy of the Giants, but talking about Big Blue in the past tense makes both Mario Manningham and Brandon Jacobs smile.
Reunited with the 49ers in the offseason, the ex-Giants seem to have about as much love for their former team as they feel their former team showed in free agency.
In other words, practically none.
That is obvious just by asking Manningham about his clutch, 38-yard sideline grab against the Patriots in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl in February, which paved the way for the Giants’ second Lombardi Trophy in five seasons.
“It’s ancient history,” Manningham told The Post after the Niners’ first training-camp practice here Friday. “It happened in, what, February? It’s about to be August. The past is the past. I’ve got my ring, and it’s chilling. I’m just thinking about what I can do to get another one.”
And by “chilling,” Manningham means “forgotten.”
“I’ve got the ring locked up, and it’s already dusty,” he said.
Manningham, who signed a two-year, $7.375 million deal with San Francisco in late March, still appears to be smarting from being overshadowed by Victor Cruz’s breakout last season, and by the Giants’ room-temperature interest in keeping him.
But Manningham’s feelings of disillusionment with the Giants pale in comparison to those of Jacobs, who told The Post that he mentally began checking out as far back as the winter of 2011 and was surprised general manager Jerry Reese brought him back last season.
“I had been mentally planning to make this move for two years now, so it didn’t surprise me that it happened,” Jacobs said. “I thought it was going to happen last year, to be honest.”
If the Giants were frustrated by Jacobs’ inability to stay healthy, clashes with the coaching staff and occasional temperamental outbursts, Jacobs said he was just as frustrated by his role in New York.
“I was put in situations there where it stopped me from doing a lot,” Jacobs told The Post. “I was mentally disturbed there. My mind was in a bunch of other different places, worrying about things that were out of my control. I don’t have anything against them, but it was time for a clean slate.”
Jacobs and the Giants finally parted company after he asked for his release due to what Jacobs said was the team’s demand that he take a $3.5 million pay cut from his scheduled $4.9 million salary.
Even though the 49ers didn’t offer him much more (a one-year deal worth roughly $1.5 million), Jacobs jumped at the chance to complement franchise back Frank Gore and make what he considers a clean break.
“It was a smooth divorce,” Jacobs said, smiling as sweat poured down his forehead. “I didn’t ask them for half, and I let them keep the dog.”
Manningham describes his departure from the Giants in equally upbeat terms, even though he landed a relatively inexpensive deal from San Francisco and already is being overshadowed by Randy Moss.
“It ain’t weird at all being on another team than the one that drafted me,” said Manningham, who later snapped at a New York reporter for asking what he said were too many Giants-related questions. “It’s a great opportunity, is what it is.”
Despite hard feelings of his own, Jacobs sounded more and more conflicted the longer he talked Friday about leaving the franchise that enabled him to win two Super Bowl rings.
Even coach Tom Coughlin, whom he clashed with on more than one occasion, still is in Jacobs’ thoughts.
“I miss that old bastard,” Jacobs said, laughing. “I love [Niners coach Jim] Harbaugh, but he’s a different breed of coach. Tell that old bastard I miss him.”
Amid the complaints about his final two seasons as a Giant, Jacobs also showered praise on the Mara and Tisch families, said he dearly misses good friend Ahmad Bradshaw and refuses to rule out a return someday.
“If I was welcomed back there in the future, I would go,” Jacobs said of the Giants. “But right now, I’m a 49er.”
And he is determined, along with Manningham, to help San Francisco do what it couldn’t in January against the Giants in the NFC title game — reach the Super Bowl.
“They’ve got a great football team, no question about that,” Jacobs said of the Giants, who come to Candlestick Park on Oct. 14. “But they’ve got a tough team here to go through here if they want to think about winning another one.”
bhubbuch@nypost.com