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The Giants would like to think that their come-from-behind victory over the Bears in Chicago will come to represent a turning point, when the growing doubts about a teetering team were finally tucked away.

In a less cosmic way, it proved an apt dress rehearsal for the postseason.

“Not just to win, but to come back in the fourth quarter, after a lot of turnovers, after being down by 9 points, and to win in somebody else’s backyard, that was big for us,” Michael Strahan said after the Giants’ 21-16 victory. “Because that’s what we’re going to have to do if we want to be successful this season.”

The Giants (8-4) have not clinched a playoff spot, but their destiny appears almost certain. The only way they can win the National Football Conference East division is if they win their remaining four games and the Cowboys (11-1) lose theirs. The only way the Giants will not secure one of the two wild-card slots is a monumental meltdown combined with an unexpected surge from two teams whose records now sit at .500 or below.

As a wild-card team, the Giants would play all playoff games on the road, barring a conference championship game against the other wild-card team.

And that might be the best-case scenario for the Giants and Eli Manning. The Giants are 5-1 on the road, which Coach Tom Coughlin called “a good, substantial record,” and they are one of five teams with fewer than two road losses.

Manning, not coincidentally, has been far more effective away from Giants Stadium, too. He has completed 62.7 percent of his throws and has an 83.0 passer rating in road games. At home, he has completed 54.1 percent and holds a 64.9 rating.

“There is a sense of, This is it, this is our group, this is our team, we are the only people that are in support of one another, we are on the road and in enemy territory, and we have a lot of things that have to be done properly in order to succeed,” Coughlin said yesterday during a conference call. “I just think it has to do with that kind of thinking.”

Of course, if Coughlin could fully explain why the Giants have been so good on the road the past two seasons (10-4) and so mediocre at Giants Stadium (6-8), they might solve their home woes.

As it turns out, it might not matter.

The Giants can clinch a playoff berth with a road victory Sunday against the Eagles and a combination of losses or ties by Carolina, Detroit, New Orleans, Arizona and either Washington or Minnesota.

For the moment, the Giants are slotted to play Tampa Bay in the first round. A trip to Seattle is the second-likeliest possibility. The Packers (10-2) and the Cowboys are in position to play host to the first-round winners.

The victory at Soldier Field served as a suitable warm-up for the chilly reception the Giants could face next month. The air was not frigid, but it was uncomfortably damp and windy. The fans were not deafening, but they were plenty boisterous. The Bears (5-7) were not the most formidable of foes, but they were the defending conference champions desperate for a spot in the playoffs.

The Giants displayed elements typically critical to postseason success. The defense held the Bears to 68 yards rushing and sacked Rex Grossman six times. It allowed only four first downs in the second half and forced field goals on Chicago’s final three trips inside the 20-yard line.

Offensively, the Giants ran the ball 37 times, matching their second-highest total this season, for 175 yards. And Manning shook off a horrid performance through three quarters — a continuation of his four-interception day in a loss to the Vikings a week earlier — to lead the Giants to two touchdown drives in the waning minutes.

“For Eli to stand up and come back and do those things, hopefully it builds confidence for him, because I think that’s really all his game is — a bunch of confidence,” Strahan said. “Talent-wise, he’s as talented as any quarterback in the league.”

The victory masked some emerging concerns. The Giants turned the ball over eight times in the past two games — six interceptions and a Manning fumble among them — and did not create any turnovers.

And the injury list, rather dormant in the first half of the season, is growing. Running back Derrick Ward broke his fibula Sunday, an injury that ended the season of linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka two weeks earlier. Injuries in the secondary are seemingly contagious, and nagging ankle pain for receiver Plaxico Burress and linebacker Antonio Pierce has grown worse.

The Giants are likely to make the playoffs, perhaps with three weeks left in the season — an unimaginable possibility in September. And they would probably have to play those postseason games on the road.

This season, that beats the alternative.