FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Eli Manning may have a clear view downfield against the hardly super secondary of the New England Patriots.

Get ready, Julian Edelman. Here comes Victor Cruz.

A young group including undrafted free agents, a Pro Bowl player in a sophomore slump and even a wide receiver was good enough to help beat Joe Flacco and the Baltimore Ravens — barely — in the AFC championship game.

The New York Giants and Manning, with his big-game experience, and receivers Cruz and Hakeem Nicks, pose a tougher challenge Feb. 5 in the Super Bowl.

“The Giants are playing like they’re the best team in the National Football League at this point,” former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison said Wednesday, “and Eli, he’s been fantastic and he will pick this secondary apart.”

James Ihedigbo isn’t listening.

After three years as a special teams player for the New York Jets, he’s started the last 14 games at safety for the Patriots with no interceptions. He is, Harrison said, a “serviceable” player, but hard-working and team-oriented.

“We have a saying, ‘All we got is us,’ and that’s how we play,” Ihedigbo said. “We play for each other.”

Since the season began, 16 defensive backs have played. The changes began in training camp, when the Patriots released starting safeties Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders.

Cutting Sanders, a smart leader, was “a big mistake” by Coach Bill Belichick, Harrison said.

The Patriots allowed 70 completions of 20 yards or more, nearly 41/2 a game. But Belichick saw improvement after the midpoint of the season.

“I don’t think that necessarily the work ethic or the desire or the competitiveness to do it has changed a lot, but the results started to improve because of a little more continuity, a little better execution, better technique, more confidence,” he said. “It’s a group of guys and coaches that have worked hard and tried to get better on a daily basis.”

The starters are Ihedigbo and cornerback Kyle Arrington, both undrafted, second-year cornerback Devin McCourty, and safety Patrick Chung, who missed seven games with a foot injury, then played in the next-to-last game of the regular season.

The backups are Edelman, Sterling Moore, Antwaun Molden, Nate Jones and Malcolm Williams. Edelman is the only one who was with the Patriots last season, as a wide receiver and punt returner.

The last time he played defensive back? “I think 1998,” he said. “Pop Warner. I was 12.”

Edelman had finished his junior season at Kent State when the Patriots and Giants last met in the Super Bowl.

That was the last game for Harrison, now an NBC analyst.

“One point in time I said I felt like this was the worst secondary that the Patriots had the last decade and I felt strongly about that,” he said. “I’m not 100 percent sold on any of these guys.’

There were missed tackles, poor communication and lack of physical play, he said. The Pats allowed 293.9 yards passing, second-most in the regular season.

Since their playoffs began with a 45-10 win over Denver, Harrison has seen the defensive backs competing harder and playing better. But their performances declined in the 23-20 victory over the Ravens, he said.

“I was very disappointed because, yes, they made some plays,” Harrison said. “Sterling Moore, obviously, made a couple of key plays, but Patrick Chung and that secondary, you saw some miscommunications and it’s his job to get everyone lined up and the other guys to do their job. And Flacco had a couple of opportunities down the field he didn’t convert that could have been a totally different game.”

Moore, a rookie cut earlier in the season, swiped the ball out of Lee Evans’ hands in the end zone with 22 seconds left.

“That play, that’s our season,” Ihedigbo said. “That’s everything that we worked for right there and he knocks that ball out of the receiver’s hands.”

Moore followedby breaking up a pass to Denn is Pitta at the 3-yard line with 15 seconds left. Then Billy Cundiff hooked a 32-yard field goal attempt.

“I can’t say enough (about Moore),” Ihedigbo said. “He played phenomenal at the end.”

But Moore was the culprit on a 29-yard TD pass to Torrey Smith with 3:38 left in the third quarter as the Ravens took a 17-16 lead.

And Edelman did a poor job on Anquan Boldin for gains of 29 and 9 yards on Baltimore’s final drive.

“Afterward you’re like, ‘Wow, you definitely had to guard Boldin,’ ” he said, “but not during the game.”

 

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