By Mike Garafolo / The Star Ledger

By now, Amanda Tynes knows what a good kicking “operation” looks like. And it doesn’t start with the low snap that nearly skidded off the wet Candlestick Park grass Sunday evening as her husband lined up for the second NFC Championship game-winning kick of his career.

So she looked away.

Amanda never saw Steve Weatherford calmly control the ball. She never noticed him place it in the perfect spot. Never witnessed Lawrence’s foot make contact or the ball sailing through the uprights.

She only saw, in her mind, the rain blowing in different directions, Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff badly shanking a potential tying kick against the New England Patriots earlier in the day, family friend Matt Allen running with the ball after Trey Junkin’s low snap in 2003, Lawrence’s miss against the Falcons from a similar distance and, perhaps in the recesses of her memory, his two misses before the made 47-yarder at Lambeau Field four years earlier.

“Settle down,” her husband tells her now, leaning on one elbow on the floor of the living room in the family’s Bergen County home, three days after that 31-yard field goal sent the Giants to Super Bowl XLVI.

“I’m a professional.”

These professionals are also regular folks, with regular families that have regular nauseous feelings in times like these. Their wives want it badly for their husbands, for their careers and for their friends. It’s arguably more nerve-wracking for them than the players because they have no control over the outcome.

And to be the wife of a kicker, perpetually the least-appreciated member of the roster who’s either a goat or hero … and nothing in between?

“People are like, ‘You have the hardest job.’ I’m usually the calmest person, but in the playoffs, I’m not,” Amanda said as her 4-year-old sons, Caleb and Jaden, pieced together a puzzle nearby. “Abby Manning was like, ‘My stomach was in my throat. How did you do that?’ I told her I almost fainted.”

Just like four years ago, when Amanda had trouble looking up after the misses in Green Bay. Watching alone in an apartment in Clifton about five months after the birth of her sons (and an extended hospital stay because they were born two months premature), she let out a muted yelp after the final kick, ran into the bedroom where the babies’ nanny was and jumped on the bed in elation.

The Giants were going to the Super Bowl — or as Caleb and Jaden now call it, the “Super Goal.”

This year, Amanda and her “support group” consisting of Kimberly Jacobs, Megan Tollefson and Laura Weatherford traveled to the road playoff games. The wives who have been through the Super Bowl process before understand the enormity of it, so they’re much more nervous than the first-timers.

“Everyone was kind of on edge this past week,” she said. “Kim was sitting next to me and she was talking about forgetting (her son) Brayden’s belt to karate. It’s no big deal, we do it all the time.

“And she just loses it. I knew at that point …”

Even the kids were feeling the pressure.

Caleb, who along with Jaden attends a Montessori school, had a young girl walk up to him, point her finger in his face and say, “Your daddy better win on Sunday!”

“She’s in first or second grade,” an exasperated Amanda said. “I asked, ‘What’s that girl’s name?’”

Lawrence interjected, “That’s where it starts. You know she watches football with her dad.”

It’s all somewhat funny at this point because Tynes made the kick. Had he not, things might have been different. If he didn’t have that third shot in Green Bay (and made it), he realizes he probably wouldn’t be a Giant right now.

These are the things that pass through Amanda’s mind.

“Afterward they said (Sunday’s) games were decided by two chip-shot field goals. There’s no such thing!” Amanda exclaimed. “In those conditions, I was worried about extra points.”

During that final field goal, Kim held her hand, Megan had her arm and Laura pretty much enveloped her. Like Kim with the karate belt, one emotion took over after the screams and hugs told her Lawrence ignored the swirling winds and trusted his left-to-right pregame read.

She began bawling.

Brandon Jacobs ran over, grabbed all of them by their rain-soaked ponchos and lifted them over the railing and onto the field. Amanda, guided by Giants vice president of communications Peter John-Baptise, found Lawrence, hugged and kissed him.

Wearing her pink wool hat with the No. 9 on the front, as well as her pink poncho, she unknowingly posed for photos with an expression dubbed “ugly cry face” by Lawrence and Steve Weatherford.

“He texted me a picture of myself, ‘How about this ugly cry face?’ ” she said of Weatherford. “So I found the one of him and texted back, ‘How about your ugly cry face? And your chin strap was stuck on your head. That’s a double embarrassment.’ ”

Said Lawrence: “That’s what makes the game so fun, that reaction right there. Grown men in uniforms celebrating like kids.”

This time, Amanda and Lawrence are bringing the kids to the Super Bowl.

While Jaden tends to get a bit distracted by stadium big screens and a search for a mascot the Giants don’t have, Caleb understands the game a bit. Both boys remind Lawrence to “kick it high and far, Daddy.”

In the end, they might be professionals, but they’re also fathers.

And if Lawrence needed a reminder, he needed only to hear how Amanda, unable to sleep on the red-eye flight home Sunday, was watching a local newscast with live shots of the players leaving the Giants’ facility. Like Kim Jacobs, Kate Snee and a few other wives seated around her, she knew her husband had to hurry the kids to school.

Once again, she was nervously rooting for him.

“The reporter says, ‘None of the guys are really stopping to talk,’ and said specifically, ‘We tried to talk to Lawrence Tynes but he waved and went on,’ ” Amanda recalled. “I’m like, ‘He better be waving. He has to get home!

“ ‘Don’t stop! You need to get home! Go!’ ”

By David Campbell / Dothan News

Lawrence Tynes battled the weather and the pressure, and the former Troy kicker booted the New York Giants into another Super Bowl.

Tynes hit a 31-yard field goal in overtime to send the Giants to the Feb. 5 Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. It looked easier than the 47-yarder he hit four years ago, also in overtime, at Green Bay to put the Giants in the Super Bowl.

“They’re both kicks to go to the Super Bowl and they have their own circumstance, but pressure-wise, they’re both the same,” Tynes said on Monday. “It was (shorter this year), but the weather was terrible. I saw the TV copy and it didn’t really do it justice. The rain was three different ways, the wind was howling, especially in overtime when the wind really picked up and was howling.”

Tynes, now in his fifth year with the Giants, was a bit more at ease before the kick Sunday than he was in 2008, when he had missed a kick near the end of regulation which would have won it. The end result was the same – mass celebration.

“I think having done it before really helped calm me down a little bit,” Tynes said. “It’s a great feeling, to celebrate with your teammates most important, those are the guys that do all the work, you jump up, bang heads, slap each other around, that’s the best part of it. Jerrel (Jernigan) was one of the first guys I found, so that was really cool.”

Tynes, Jernigan and Osi Umenyiora are three former Troy Trojans who now play for the Giants. The Trojan presence in the Giants locker room is a big one.

“We’ve got the most players from one school in our locker room,” Tynes said. “Well, Boston College has three and I think Miami has three, too, but we hold our own in there. We’re always talking Troy in there. For the most part, we’ve won more games than most of these other schools.”

Tynes said his celebrity rose a little bit after his first big kick in 2008. He’ll get recognized every now and then – not as much as star quarterback Eli Manning, but enough. However, his twin 4-year-old sons hear even more about him. Caleb and Jaden were only a few months old after the 2008 NFC title game, but now know that their father kicks footballs for a living.

“They go to a little private school here in town,” Tynes said. “All the kids and teachers know what I do. They’re at an age now where they know Daddy plays football. Jaden actually told me that he told people to stop talking about his daddy today because everyone was talking about me. It was pretty funny.

“They know I kick. Before a game, they say Daddy, kick it high and far. It’ll be pretty cool to have them at the game.”

The twins didn’t go to California, but they will be at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. They attend most home games, Tynes said.

“They’ll stick around for a half,” Tynes said. “The Giants have a really nice childcare facility and they’d almost rather go down there and be with their buddies that they’ve grown up with.”

Tynes, 33, is the oldest member of the New York Giants. He spent a year in NFL Europe, two years in Canada and three with the Kansas City Chiefs before being traded to New York in 2008. Kickers, if they’re still consistently making kicks, have longer careers than most NFL players. Tynes said he’d like to play at least until he’s 40.

“I’ve had a goal to play to 40,” Tynes said. “I feel as healthy as I’ve ever been and strong as I’ve ever been at this stage, so I don’t see why not. Plus, they moved the kickoffs up five yards, so that’s been a big help.

“There’s 32 guys in the world that do this. It’s tough to get in. It’s even tougher to stick around. Once you make kicks and make big kicks and be a consistent player, you’ll last a while.”

One of the most prolific kickers in NFL history is retiring.

Matt Stover, 43, announced on Wednesday that he is hanging it up after 19 seasons, 13 of them with the Baltimore Ravens. His departure leaves linebacker Ray Lewis as the only player still active in the league who played with the franchise in its inaugural 1996 season.

Stover played five seasons with the "old" Cleveland Browns before the team moved. He last played in '09 for Baltimore's former team, the Indianapolis Colts. The Ravens have a press conference scheduled for Thursday to make the formal announcement.

Throughout his career, Stover was a prolific and reliable field-goal kicker. His 471 field goals made and 2,004 total points scored both rank fourth in NFL history, right behind still active 46-year-old John Carney in each category. Stover also ranks fifth all-time in field-goal attempts (563) and eighth in field-goal percentage (83.7).

Stover was the unsung hero of the Ravens' 2000 team that went on to beat the Giants 34-7 in Super Bowl XXXV. While Lewis and the defense posted a historically dominant season, the Ravens' offense sputtered for most of it. In that season, Stover made a league-leading 35 field goals, a career high. His 135 total points were second to only 26-touchdown scorer Marshall Faulk.

Stover may still a long-shot to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Kansas City Chiefs great Jan Stenerud is the only pure placekicker enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The other kickers in the Hall also played other positions: George Blanda (quarterback) and Lou Groza (tackle).

First published by: Mike Bayham