By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- It's one thing for the Super Bowl champions to be overshadowed by a team in their division. That's a bit annoying, perhaps, but to be the less celebrated club in their own city, in their own stadium -- that can get a little galling.

So it goes for the New York Giants. Seven months removed from their upset of the previously unbeaten New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, they're readying for the new season with relatively little fanfare and amid expectations, at least outside their locker room, that seem less than burdensome.

There is little talk of a repeat. There is no nationwide chatter about a potential dynasty in the making now that the youngest member of quarterbacking's first family has developed into a championship-caliber passer. There is not that much attention being paid to the Giants, period, and that's not so easily accomplished while laboring in the shadow of New York City.

The Dallas Cowboys, the team ousted by the Giants in the second round of last season's playoffs, supposedly are the club to watch in the NFC East after spending the offseason adding to a division-winning roster. And the team being watched in New York is the Jets after their training-camp trade for quarterback Brett Favre. The Jets usually have been the pro football junior varsity in New York, but the arrival of Favre knocked Eli Manning and the Giants off the back pages of the tabloids for much of the preseason and threatens to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

"If the media wants to cover them more than us, that's fine with us," Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce said as a crowd of reporters -- albeit relatively tiny by local standards -- surrounded his locker one afternoon during the preseason. "We're fine being under the radar. We know we've got a good team here."

Indeed, that still seems to be the case. It was an offseason of losses for the Giants, as the trade of tight end Jeremy Shockey to the New Orleans Saints was sandwiched around the retirement of Michael Strahan and the loss of fellow defensive end Osi Umenyiora to season-ending surgery. But what remains appears to be a solid club.

The Giants won the Super Bowl with rookie Kevin Boss filling in for the injured Shockey at tight end, and some within the organization apparently suspected Manning's development might have been tied partially to the fact he no longer had to worry about how his tight end might react if he did not get enough passes. When those sentiments emerged in media reports in New York during the offseason, Shockey became unhappy and reportedly had a yelling match with General Manager Jerry Reese at a minicamp.

Now he's in New Orleans in a reunion with Saints Coach Sean Payton, a former Giants offensive coordinator. The Giants will miss Shockey's receiving and blocking skills but not his temper tantrums on and off the field, and they're crossing their fingers that trading him will amount to addition by subtraction.

The same cannot be said of losing Strahan or Umenyiora after the Giants rode their defense's ability to harass quarterbacks last season to their championship. Strahan nearly retired before last season but didn't. He said his farewell to football in the Super Bowl afterglow and took a broadcasting job at Fox, but the Giants came calling to discuss a possible return soon after Umenyiora suffered cartilage damage in his knee in a preseason game against the Jets. Strahan turned them down and stayed retired.

While talking to Strahan about a comeback, the Giants moved Mathias Kiwanuka back to defensive end. The former first-round draft pick had been shifted to outside linebacker last season because of the team's logjam at defensive end. The Giants also moved Justin Tuck, who developed into a top pass rusher last season as a part-time player, into the lineup full time.

"Tuck is a very good football player," Umenyiora said during the preseason, days before his injury. "Mathias Kiwanuka is a very good football player. . . . We still feel like we can have a very good pass rush and a very good defense and a very good team."

Coach Tom Coughlin has a post-Super Bowl contract extension, and he no longer will have so many locker room uprisings to quell with the exits of strong-willed veterans like retired tailback Tiki Barber, Strahan and Shockey the past two offseasons.

Of course, the Giants' fortunes will continue to rise and fall with those of Manning, the former top overall pick in the NFL draft who suddenly became a mistake-free quarterback in last season's playoffs. Even more suddenly, he is the second-most-watched quarterback in town these days, but he's not one to complain about that.

Just before the Giants played the Jets and Favre in their preseason game, Manning said: "It should be a little different, I guess, seeing him live in a dark green uniform. But it shouldn't make a big difference to us."