Smarter, Wiser Giants Ready for Battle

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Thus, the New York Giants, despite the wondrous throes of a four-game winning streak that finds them only a game behind the NFC East division-leading Dallas Cowboys, are now at a crossroads.

Coach Tom Coughlin and his G-Men reached similar heights last season, only to soon fall to depths that left them frantically clawing just to sneak into playoffs. Back then, the Giants won five in a row after a 1-2 start, to sit at 6-2 and atop the conference. But, they closed the year in reverse fashion, winning just two of eight to barely eke into the postseason.

Having to exert energy like that surely caused the G-Men, as by the start of those aforementioned playoffs they bore the look of a team that was already finished. But this latest run breeds new hope, even among those that were there for last season's mini collapse.

“Going through the year we went through last year and everybody is always on our quarterback and our defense and y(Michael) Strahan you get a thick skin," veteran receiver and elder statesmen Amani Toomer told the NY Daily News. "Not to mention what they said about our coach. We've definitely been through the fire and criticism and I don't think anybody on this team is afraid of it and that is important to play in New York."

Toomer and his mates understand the scrutiny here is like that in no other stratosphere. All eyes will surely be on the Giants from this point on, as veterans like quarterback Eli Manning, tight end Jeremy Shockey and defensive end Michael Strahan may yet be fighting for their legacies and careers here.

And then there is Coughlin, the heretic of a coach whose old-school ways often seem to place him in a perpetual state of flux with many of his new jack players. But maybe not this time.

After their inauspicious beginning, the Giants said and did all the right things. But, more importantly, they seem to have still believed. In themselves. In Tom Coughlin. It all made for a different locker room. Certainly, it helps that Coughlin seems more in control of the pulpil than any other he's been a part of in recent years. This time, there's no Tiki Barber around to make all his juxtaposed views known.

And, again, it all shows. As much in the way the Giants handled themselves through that early adversity as it does now in the way they are so prospering.

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