Being under the radar fine for WR Manningham

Former Wolverine Mario Manningham has 116 yards and three touchdowns in this year's playoffs for the Giants. ASSOCIATED PRESS Enlarge

INDIANAPOLIS -- With Victor Cruz's breakout season, Mario Manningham's role in the New York Giants' passing attack diminished in 2011.

That has changed somewhat since the calendar flipped to 2012. In three playoff games, the former University of Michigan star has eight catches for 116 yards and has scored a touchdown in each game.

Now he finds himself on the brink of Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium against the New England Patriots.

Call him Super Mario.

Receivers Cruz and Hakeem Nicks have been and remain New York quarterback Eli Manning's prime targets.

They have combined for 193 catches worth more than 3,300 yards and 20 touchdowns during both the regular season and playoffs.

Manningham, meanwhile, went from 60 catches for 944 yards and nine TDs a year ago to 39 for 523 yards and four scores this past regular season.

"I'm comfortable in my role," he said. "I can't complain. I like going out there and being under the radar. It's kind of like I can go out there and make a play at any time because [opponents] are paying attention to Hakeem and Victor. It's fun knowing someone is always going to be open."

Nicks has been bothered by a shoulder ailment in recent weeks -- he's expected to be at full-go Sunday -- which may have created an opportunity for Manningham, an Ohio native, to step up since the start of the postseason.

"I'm just trying to make plays," he said. "I've got a hunger for making plays … not doing too much, not doing too [little]. I'm just doing what I've got to do."

Manningham accumulated 2,300 receiving yards and caught 27 touchdowns during a career at Michigan that was first shortened by a knee injury while a sophomore and then by his decision to enter the NFL draft after his junior season.

He said his favorite memory with the Wolverines was catching a game-winning touchdown as time expired against Penn State late in his freshman campaign.

"We stopped them from going undefeated that year," he recalled.

His departure from Michigan was not a clean one. There were reports of failed drug tests, to which he later admitted. It also was reported that he scored six out of a possible 50 points on the Wonderlic test, an intelligence assessment given to draft candidates at the NFL combine.

Considered one of the better receivers available, he instead dropped into the third round of the 2008 draft, where the Giants made him the 95th player selected.

Still, he said his journey from Michigan to the Super Bowl has "been a nice one. I'm in my first Super Bowl, obviously.

"I'm just trying to go make plays, enjoying everything, knowing it's a job, knowing it's a business, [but] trying to make fun out of it for as long as I can."