Can these Giants be like the 2007 version?
Eli Manning pumps his fist as he runs to the locker room after defeating the Cowboys, 31-14. (Jan. 1, 2012) Credit: David Pokress
It didn't take long for the comparisons to begin.
A team no one believed in. A team that appears to be getting hot at the right time. A team that has won enough games to save its coach's job and now is looking to secure his legacy even further.
Sunday may have been the first day of 2012, but for the Giants, it had a big 2007 vibe to it.
"I know '07 is going to come up a lot, but this team has its own identity," Justin Tuck said. "I think we can learn from '07, knowing that when we get hot, we can go and play with anybody. But just because we've done it doesn't mean that it's going to happen. There are a lot of similarities to that year and hopefully we can, as they say at Notre Dame, wake up the echoes. Hopefully we can wake up some echoes in the Giants' history."
Not everyone was as keen to embrace the similarities.
"We're going to try not to compare right now," Eli Manning said. "We have a lot of guys on this team who weren't here in '07 and don't know, so this is a whole new year and a whole new situation and we have to enjoy this."
True, there are many new faces. But some of the ones that were on the field for that run in January-February 2008 still are around. And they remember.
"I would not want to face the New York Giants in the playoffs right now," Brandon Jacobs said. "I got the same feeling [as in 2007]. There's a lot of guys that are here that weren't a couple of years ago when we went [to the Super Bowl], but it's the same kind of feeling that I have."
That sense does, in fact, permeate playoff rookies such as Victor Cruz and Jason Pierre-Paul. Cruz, who was a Cowboys fan who recalled being heartbroken by the Giants' win over his favorite team in the playoffs in January 2008, said it's "amazing" to be a part of the history of the franchise. And Pierre-Paul, who finished his Pro Bowl season with 161/2 sacks, said we can expect even more from the Giants in the weeks to come.
"That was nothing," he said of the last two wins. "Next week is going to be even better. We're in the playoffs!"
More Giants
