Giants already thinking Super repeat
New York Giants receivers Mario Manningham and Hakeem Nicks hold aloft the VInce Lombardi Trophy after their victory in Super Bowl XLVI against the New England Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (Feb. 5, 2012) Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
INDIANAPOLIS -- Ahmad Bradshaw scored the winning touchdown and the Giants won Super Bowl XLVI just moments before he was surrounded by reporters amid the falling confetti. "It's the greatest feeling in the world," he said. "I can't wait to do it again."
Yes, the Giants already are looking ahead to the 2012 season.
The rest of us turned the page on 2011 more than a month ago with a big party in Times Square. The Giants will do so with a big party in lower Manhattan Tuesday. At that point, they'll start focusing not on the Super Bowl in Indianapolis but on the one in New Orleans 12 short months from now.
They came into Sunday's game talking brashly about winning. Now they're getting an early jump on next year.
"The big thing for us is to get one next year," linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka said. "We had a great season a couple of years ago but we had a letdown the year after."
He's talking about the 2008 season, when the Giants started 11-1, endured Plaxico Burress' accidental self-shooting, finished 12-4 and were bounced from the playoffs in their first game. Can this team do what the 2008 group couldn't and repeat?
"I believe we can," Kiwanuka said. "If we won it this year, there's no doubt in my mind that we can. We just have to get into the playoffs."
The Giants do have a good young core of players. Eli Manning obviously is a franchise quarterback who can lead a team. And they could be getting some injured players back if they sign free agents Terrell Thomas and Jonathan Goff, two starting defensive players who didn't play a snap this season.
There undoubtedly will be some changes. But the Giants hope they can take what they have done this season and turn it into a dynasty.
"I really want to see them keep this team together, do what we have to do to make ends meet," running back Brandon Jacobs said. "It's a great football team. This football team could do this again. I honestly believe that. If we stick together and fight like we've been fighting, there's no reason why we can't do this again."
Jacobs might not be around for that. The team owes him a $500,000 roster bonus in March and likely will release him rather than pay that money. At the very least, they will try to renegotiate a new contract with him.
Jacobs said he'd like to be back, if only to try to win a championship in easier fashion than the up-and-down path this season's team endured.
"We can be so much better," he said, "but I still don't think we'll be the team that can do it clean. We'll still have to be the team that causes stress on ourselves and does it the wrong way. That's how we win . . . I don't like those situations. We're too good for that. We are a much better football team than doing it the dirty way. But this team fights back."
And maybe they'll fight back-to-back.
