"If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Most Super Bowl champions barely wait for the last piece of confetti to fall before assessing the immediate future and deciding the time is ripe for a repeat. Usually, it is the breathless optimism of a team, flush with victory, unable to consider it can ever be knocked off the top of the mountain.

Getting back isn't impossible, but it's close. The Giants cannot be evaluated solely on what they did in their 6-0 closing run because in other years their 9-7 regular-season record would have kept them out of the playoffs. As the celebrations continue and the Giants bask in the afterglow of their Super Bowl XLVI triumph, the clock already is ticking as far as putting the pieces together to make another run in 2012."