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Riotmaker
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: South Burlington, Vermont
Posts: 5,717
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Always Looking Forward
Quote:
EAST RUTHERFORD - A few days after Super Bowl XLII, Eli Manning and Shaun O’Hara ate dinner at Rao’s, the famed Manhattan restaurant. One of the other guests was baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. The current and former pro athletes began talking about titles.
QB Eli Manning and the rest of the Giants are preparing hard for the 2008 season.
“Eli asked him how many championships he won and he said 10, so Eli turned to me and said, ‘Alright we have nine more to go,’” O’Hara said today. “When you think of it in those terms it is pretty amazing to be with someone who has won 10 and Derek Jeter with all the ones that he has won. Even to have won one and to look back at what the Patriots did in having won three in the last couple years it is pretty remarkable.”
In reality, the Giants have no such lofty thoughts. Of course, they’d love to win another title, but such big achievements come only after successfully completing a long series of small tasks. Two weeks into the offseason conditioning program, the team is preparing just as it does any year with the long-range goal to improve on the previous season.
“It has been a good start to the offseason workout program, good attendance, guys are focused, and I think what we realize is that we can become a better team,” Manning said.
Today was the first day since the end of the season the media was permitted in the locker room, which means the players fielded their first questions about the R word – repeat. It was not a subject they discussed with relish.
“Last year we got hot at the end of the season, but we need to become a better team all-around,” Manning said. “We have a lot of things to work on and guys realize that. Guys understand we can’t just stay content with where we are. At every position we need to improve.
“I think we need to keep the same attitude we had last year. We don’t have to talk about repeating, that doesn’t have to be part of our discussion. Our discussion is getting better, becoming a better football team, and that is what we are trying to do.”
It’s a long, arduous process that begins with the conditioning program, and goes through mini-camp and training camp and continues throughout the season. And the task becomes harder this season, because when the players leave the work environment of the stadium, they interact with family, friends and fans who want to re-live the good old days of the 2007 season.
“It is a hard page to turn when everybody you see is bringing it up,” O’Hara said. “I think we all realize where we are. For most of us, this is kind of the first time through this process. So we are all kind of adlibbing and trying to feel things out for ourselves.
“I mean, we are having a great time. We should have been doing this every year. There are a lot of NFL players that go through their career and never get to experience it. I think that winning a Super Bowl is something that every player and coach should have the opportunity to go through. The reality is that not everybody has that chance. You get to cherish it for what it is, relish the moment, and just keep it as a great memory. But you can’t dwell on it just like if you hadn’t won the Super Bowl. You can’t dwell on that, either.”
Manning said the next chapter began for him when the conditioning program kicked off last week.
“You have to say last year was a great season and it was fun, but it is over,” Manning said. “There will still be time to enjoy it when we get our rings, when we go to the White House, those types of things. It is the time you enjoy those moments and celebrate and that is fine. But once you are in here, once you are working out, once you are committed to getting better and doing the football stuff, you have to turn the page and say it is a whole new year. If we stay the same team as we were last year, we are not going to be able to do this again. We have to become a better team.
Manning has enjoyed a whirlwind couple of months, which started with three weeks off after the Super Bowl.
“I just went on vacation,” Manning said. “I went to the beach for a week, went hunting for five or six days, went to Mississippi, went to Nashville, and went to New Orleans. Just saw friends and family and people who were rooting me on and people who you feel at home with and relaxed with and you can be yourself.”
He has also made a number of charity and promotional appearances. Manning could no doubt fill most of his days with activities not related to football. On Wednesday night, he and his brother Peyton – another Super Bowl MVP champion quarterback – appeared on American Idol’s “Idol Gives Back.” In the spot, taped Sunday, they introduced a video about their hometown of New Orleans, where kids are still affected by Hurricane Katrina. In the video, the Mannings visit with the kids and talk to them about their lives.
Both Manning brothers are heavily involved in endeavors that help other people. The requests for their time have increased significantly. Eli is learning he can’t do everything he’d like, because he has a football season to prepare for.
“You still have to manage your time,” Manning said. “I thought the greatest thing I did after the game was I did my regular kind (postseason) get-away and I was gone for three weeks. I didn’t do an appearance, I had to get my rest and my time back. After that I started working out and you have to do some commitments and things come up and everybody is pulling at you. But you still have to be picky in what you do and understand that it is my job to get ready for this season. I have my workouts, I have my work here that I have to get done. If something comes up between that and you are capable of doing it, you can do stuff, but my work here is my number one concern. That is my job.”
It’s one he’s working hard at to improve. Though he hasn’t started throwing yet, Manning is lifting and running. And he does have specific personal goals.
“I would like to add 10 more yards to my throw and to my deep ball,” he said. “The weightlifting, the stretching, and everything you can do to do that. There are a lot of things you work on and a lot of it is in the film room and a lot of it is out there on the field or in the weight room - just doing everything the right way to improve your game.
“It is not a matter of just going out there and seeing how far you can throw it. You will be able to tell in practice when you have a guy running down the field and just be able to get it a little bit farther. You would like to hit it at 45 yards, that is not a problem, but sometimes you have to hold it a little longer, you have to move in the pocket, and the guy gets downfield. Just to work on improving your deep ball. It was something we weren’t very good at last year and I think we can get better at.”
NOTES
*Safety Sammy Knight joined the Giants on March 3. The Giants will be his fifth team; he played last season in Jacksonville. Knight was asked if it’s different joining a Super Bowl champion.
“Not for me, just because I didn’t win a Super Bowl,” Knight said. “I take my hat off to them, but for me coming in, it is like riding the wave a little bit. But I am hungry. If anything, it is the added incentive for me because I really can smell it, I will see the ring, I see the banner. It just pushes me that much more, especially seeing the joy that these guys have from winning the Super Bowl.”
Knight is expected to replace Gibril Wilson at free safety. Wilson signed with the Oakland Raiders.
“There’s no pressure at all for me,” Knight said. “I play the game, so my thing is I am confident in my ability, I am confident in my ability to help others and others to help me and listen. I don’t have an ego. My bottom line is when you get on the field it is one ball and if you go after that ball you will be okay. In the history of my career I have done that. I want to continue to do that and that is what the offseason is for, preparing to do that. I am really excited for this opportunity to play with these guys and just for us to grow together as a team and to win.”
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http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/sto...story_id=27043
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Always Looking Forward
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