For 49ers, bad taste still lingers from NFC title loss

• 49ers have a constant reminder of their loss with former Giants Manningham, Jacobs on the team.
• Some 49ers conflicted about them losing vs. Giants winning NFC title game.
• San Francisco coach Harbaugh calls Sunday's rematch "new business."

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- When Mario Manningham arrived in March, having signed a contract with the San Francisco 49ers as a free agent after four seasons with the New York Giants, he brought with him a particular piece of jewelry his new teammates eyed.

His Super Bowl XLVI ring.

"Players were talking about it, like, 'You got my ring on,'" Manningham told USA TODAY Sports this week. "I'm like, 'Yeah, whatever.'"

Their ring. Not the Giants' ring.

That's been the sentiment around these parts since the Giants outslugged the Niners in a memorable, physical, rain-soaked NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park last January. It was a battle of defenses, with the occasional big offensive play (Vernon Davis' 73-yard and 28-yard touchdowns and Manningham's 17-yard score on a gorgeous read-and-pass by Eli Manning), and it went to overtime.

That's when Jacquian Williams' strip of Kyle Williams on a punt return set up Lawrence Tynes' game-winning field goal.

The fumble was the difference in a game that had many potential turning points the Niners didn't grasp. The best they can do at this point is try to make amends in Sunday's highly anticipated rematch.

While using that disappointment to fuel them.

"We lost a game; it wasn't our time. They beat us, and that was it. I'm sure my teammates as well as myself, there's a bitter taste in our mouth because, that game, it hurt," Davis said. "We lost that game, and we're still thinking about it a little bit. But we can't jump out of our skin. We have to continue to stay focused."

Davis threw in both angles in that statement — the Giants won, and the 49ers lost. But this summer, San Francisco safety Donte Whitner made a comment about how the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints were the two best teams in the postseason and, once the Niners beat the Saints, "It was ours to lose … and we let it slip through our fingers."

The perception, particularly back in the Giants' training camp in Albany, N.Y., was that Whitner was implying New York didn't earn the victory and the chance to beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Packers linebacker Clay Matthews making a similar statement about his team's playoff loss to the Giants certainly helped fuel that interpretation by a perturbed bunch of New York players.

Whitner was asked this week to clarify his statement and, while he gave the Giants credit because they won the game, he reiterated the belief the 49ers helped them along.

"I guess it would come from there were some footballs on the ground that we had an opportunity to get that they ended up jumping on. There were some interceptions in the air that we didn't really take advantage of," Whitner told USA TODAY Sports when asked why he and his teammates had trouble putting that loss behind them. "We had guys knocking each other down. The ball is there; two or three guys are around it."

Whitner said film of that game was hard to watch because it only led to reliving the plays that could have been made, such as safety Dashon Goldson heading to intercept a pass in the third quarter only to collide with cornerback Tarrell Brown. Goldson had momentum, so if he picked that one off a few yards inside Giants territory the 49ers would have been in field goal range if not the end zone.

In overtime, Goldson collided with Carlos Rogers as both players attempted to pick off Manning's first pass of the extra period.

And there was also a play in the fourth quarter, with a little more than two minutes remaining and the game tied at 17, when New York running back Ahmad Bradshaw was stripped of the ball at his own 21-yard line. Goldson recovered, but the officials ruled Bradshaw's forward progress had been stopped.

"We feel like that was a fumble," Whitner said. "So all of those things go into it."

That game is long since over, and the championship rings have been manufactured. When Manningham's fellow former-Giant-turned-49er Brandon Jacobs hears the same chatter about how his ring should actually be on a San Francisco player's finger, he tells them to read whose name is on the side of it.

"I wouldn't say it's bitterness. We can't take bitterness into this football game," Whitner said. "It's disappointment. We understand we're disappointed about that loss, and we want to go out there and win this one."

That's precisely what 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh has been preaching.

"New business," Harbaugh said this week. "Got to take care of business, and it's new business to me."