NFL

Giants need second win in row or playoffs are in peril

It has been more than two months since the Giants accomplished what used to be second nature to them: Winning back-to-back games.

Every time they believed they had jump-started themselves — narrowly beating the Falcons in overtime and holding on to outlast the Cowboys — the ensuing thud dropped the Giants further back into the pack and made their playoff-contender status feel increasingly fraudulent.

Is this the time for the trend to end?

Not since pounding on the terrible Raiders back on Oct. 11 have the Giants put together as feel-good a performance as Monday night’s 45-12 beat-down of the Redskins.

What certainly could serve as a springboard to bigger and better things might be looked back on as merely one impressive evening if the Giants cannot build on their momentum this Sunday against the Panthers in what will be their final game at Giants Stadium.

“It gave us confidence going into the final stretch of the season to come and play a game like this and completely dominate on all sides,” tight end Kevin Boss said. “It gives us confidence to make this little playoff push.”

It has to be more than a little playoff push for the Giants (8-6) to barge in. They need to win their last two games — they close the regular season at Minnesota, facing a Vikings team that looks as if it will need the game for seeding purposes — and hope that either the Cowboys (9-5) or Packers (9-5) lose one of their remaining two games.

That gets the Giants in. It won’t be easy.

“We just try to do the best we can with our circumstance, and we’ll have to see what happens,” coach Tom Coughlin said yesterday. “We have to win games. We have to win.”

The Redskins, after recently playing hard for lame-duck coach Jim Zorn, clearly had nothing in the tank and never really competed with the Giants.

The Panthers (6-8) aren’t going to the playoffs, but this past weekend beat up on Brett Favre and the Vikings 26-7 down in Charlotte. It remains to be seen how interested John Fox’s club will be on the road two days after Christmas.

“Our players are going to see it over and over, they had to be impressed by it,” Coughlin said of Carolina’s mauling of the Vikings. “It’s on tape. There isn’t anything you have to make up. There it is, right for the players to see.”

Brandon Jacobs said he sensed something brewing on the train ride down to Washington and “felt the energy in the locker room” prior to the dismantling of the Redskins.

With Eli Manning soaring down the stretch, the Giants on offense continued to hum, but it was on special teams and especially on defense that the Giants operated at much higher efficiency.

“I think we just rediscovered what we knew was there,” defensive tackle Barry Cofield said. “We didn’t rewrite the book. Coach Coughlin didn’t tell us anything new this week. It’s the same stuff he preaches week to week. Finally it showed on game day.”

Maybe the Redskins were so bad the Giants couldn’t help but look so good. The patched-together defense allowed no points, 78 total yards, one first down in the first half and finished with five sacks and three interceptions. For once, the postgame chatter was all good.

“Our defense played well and our coaches worked their tails off last week to get it the way it turned out,” Coughlin said. “I give a lot of credit to our defensive staff, Bill Sheridan and his staff. We’ll just go from there.”

Where the Giants go from here is back into the fire, the next game bigger than the last as they look to extend their season.

“I was glad to see our players respond, and naturally they are going to have to continue to do that,” Coughlin said. “It’s been in front of us. We’ve had an awful lot to say about what happens going forward. I think that’s basically the way you’d like to have it.”

paul.schwartz@nypost.com