As a former seventh-round draft pick, Jennings is proud of the fact that he’s a self-made player: As a kid, he was asthmatic, overweight, and bespectacled, but he became a health obsessive who eschews the non-organic food in the Giants’ cafeteria and sleeps in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He was the man of the hour after Sunday’s game and was clearly relishing the moment, happily accommodating every interview until a PR staffer told everyone that time was up. As with all of the Giants, Jennings obviously had been waiting for this moment for too long.

“The road to get to this level for me has sometimes been very lonely, because you gotta make a decision to do things that sometimes more talented people don’t have to focus on,” he summed up to reporters at the end. “I didn’t roll out of bed and have it all together, so I had to learn. It was hard, but I appreciated it along the way because, you know, one day, when this game is over, I got many life lessons, philosophical lessons, analogies to keep me fresh and motivated.”

In contrast to Jennings’ incremental path to NFL relevance is that of Jason Pierre-Paul, who had no interest in playing football until his high school coach plucked him off the playground basketball courts and told him to get the quarterback — then watched as he became a first-round draft pick several years later. Really, any hope the Giants have of being serious contenders rests with Pierre-Paul’s recapturing much of his 2011 form, when he had 16.5 sacks. He had only two sacks last year but already has 1.5 this year, and his pressure on Ryan Fitzpatrick yesterday helped force an interception.

But there was a troubling aspect to Pierre-Paul’s day: After several plays, he writhed on the ground in pain and labored to get to his feet. The routine recalled the great former Giants defensive end, Justin Tuck, whose in-game injuries all looked the same from the outside but sometimes wound up torpedoing entire seasons, fans would learn after the fact. Three games into the season, it’s hard to imagine that Pierre-Paul, who also suffered a stinger on opening night, will make it through the season at close to 100 percent.

Still, he was upbeat at his locker yesterday, the win buoying his natural cheeriness. JPP enjoys the jaunty back and forth with reporters, and after a terrible season and two losses, he wasn’t about to let minor injuries dampen his mood. When a reporter asked him about his injuries, he playfully cut him off as if the reporter’s eyes were deceiving him. “Nope, I’m good. Why y’all ask me questions where, you know … ?”