The journey has taken 11 games, but something significant has happened to the Giants. The players have taken ownership of this team.

It’s about time.

That is something that should carry them past the Redskins on Sunday and their Dec. 19 rematch with the Eagles for the NFC East title. At this point in the season, smart, tough football goes a long way.

For too long the Giants, and many of their fans, have pointed to Tom Coughlin or other coaching factors when things go wrong, but the Giants showed with their second-half comeback over the Jaguars on Sunday, that it’s really about them doing the little things right. It’s about playing with emotion, staying in their defensive lanes, executing simple, effective plays on offense and not turning the ball over.

In other words, they played vintage winning football for the final two quarters. It’s all about trust.

“You have to remain faithful to the values that you believe in,” Coughlin said yesterday, repeating a message he told his team.

That message came across loud and clear when Eli Manning explained how simplifying the offense Sunday led to the 24-20 victory, staying with basic personnel and “putting your best players on the field.”

“We didn’t do quite as much and it helped us execute a little bit better,” Manning said.

Too often in this over-gadget NFL world, teams get too tricky. In the end they wind up fooling themselves.

Vince Lombardi’s Packers did OK with basic plays, including their vaunted sweep. Manning’s simple hot-read, game-winning 32-yard touchdown toss to tight end Kevin Boss was the perfect example of making the right read and running the right simple play at the right blitzing time.

“He has a great feel for the game,” Manning said of Boss.

Just play football.

That message also came across loud and clear Sunday when Justin Tuck challenged his teammates in his halftime speech, saying how the Jaguars had come into the Giants’ house and dominated and that Tuck wasn’t going to stand for it. That hit home with all the defensive players.

As linebacker Michael Boley noted, it was a speech “from the heart.” Football is a game of heart and the Giants learned a wonderful lesson in that second half at New Meadowlands Stadium. Play harder and smarter than the other guys and you win. That lesson should serve them well the rest of the season.

Yes, the receivers and offensive line are banged up, but the Giants still have a tag team of running backs in Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw that can be ferocious as long as they don’t fumble the ball away.

That’s taking another form of ownership, secure the football, ball security. Coughlin pointed out that Giants Football is about two things: “Win the physical battle and don’t turn the ball over, win the turnover battle.”

It’s not about the bells and whistles with these Giants, it never has been. Eli is not Peyton, but he has his own way of putting up the Ws. The defense was a monster in the second half, closing down cutback lanes for quarterback David Garrard with defenders selling out on every play.

It’s going to take that kind of effort every Sunday because of the Giants’ injuries. The players understand all of that now. These are their games to win. They will need to get going from the start Sunday against Donovan McNabb and the Redskins.

“We hope that we don’t need a speech to get us going,” Boley said.

All the speeches have been made. The players know it’s up to them these final five games of the regular season. With the Eagles losing to the Bears, life is all even again. It’s time to make the most of this opportunity.

The Giants, finally, got the message.

kevin.kernan@nypost.com

