CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Chris Weinke couldn’t turn around Carolina’s disappointing season. Tiki Barber and Eli Manning helped revive the Giants’ playoff hopes.

Barber rushed for 112 yards, Manning threw three touchdown passes and the Giants snapped a four-game losing streak yesterday with a 27–13 win over the banged-up Panthers.

Weinke, making his first start in more than four years in place of the injured Jake Delhomme, threw for a team-record 423 yards, but had three second-half interceptions. He also was undone by drops and a nonexistent running game as the Panthers (6–7) lost their third straight.

While most of the attention was on Delhomme’s sprained right thumb that forced him to miss his first game in four seasons, the Panthers’ injury-plagued defense proved to be no match for the Giants (7–6), who remained in the top spot in the NFC wild-card race.

Barber went over 10,000 career yards rushing in the second quarter on the way to his fifth 100-yard game of the season.

Manning had his second solid outing in a row, throwing a 2-yard touchdown pass to David Tyree midway through the third quarter to make it 27-10.

The touchdown was set up after the first of Gibril Wilson’s two interceptions of Weinke. The 34-year-old former Heisman Trophy winner, who hasn’t been a full-time starter since Carolina’s 1–15 season in 2001, completed 34 of 61 passes, but struggled with his accuracy in the second half.

Kevin Dockery picked off Weinke in the fourth quarter, sending most of the crowd home.

Weinke, who had thrown 13 passes in the past four seasons, had at least six different players drop passes. He surpassed Steve Beuerlein’s record of 373 yards passing against Green Bay in 1999, but it didn’t stop the downward spiral of Carolina’s once promising season.

Carolina’s starting cornerbacks, Ken Lucas and Chris Gamble, both missed the game with hamstring injuries. Rookie Richard Marshall and Christian Morton started in their place, but Morton pulled up with a hamstring injury five minutes into the game while playing on special teams and didn’t return.

That forced Dion Byrum, an undrafted rookie signed last month off Tampa Bay’s practice squad, to work with the first team.

Plaxico Burress took advantage, beating Marshall on a 45-yard pass and Byrum for a 28-yard TD that made it 10–0 in the second quarter.

Weinke got going in the second quarter, throwing a perfect pass to the outside shoulder of Drew Carter, who hauled it in over Dockery for a 36-yard touchdown that cut the Giants’ lead to 10–7.

Carter, who had eight catches for a career-high 144 yards, made a diving catch for a 38-yard gain and Weinke scrambled for 13 yards on the next possession, leading to John Kasay’s tying 37-yard field goal.

But Manning’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Shockey in the final minute of the first half gave the Giants the lead for good at 17–10.

DeShaun Foster returned from an elbow injury that sidelined him for two games, but the Panthers managed only 45 yards rushing.

Steve Smith was held to five catches for 67 yards as Delhomme looked on from the sideline wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

Delhomme hadn’t missed a game since taking over as Carolina’s no. 1 quarterback at halftime of the 2003 season-opener. He led the Panthers to the Super Bowl and the NFC championship game in his first three seasons, but has come under fire during Carolina’s disappointing season.