New York Giants News and Notes: Football 365 Edition

Good morning fellow Giants fans. As we sit here on the morning of February 27, 22 days after the Giants hoisted the Lombardi Trophy at Lucas Oil Stadium, Tom Coughlin and Jerry Reese are back in Indy -- right back to work. They will tell you that there is no offseason, and that's really what the NFL has become--a league in which you have to keep working, scouting, studying, preparing and focusing on the big prize all along if you want to stay competitive. And with that, especially with the advent of the NFL Network, football has become something that we can all, for the most part, follow year 'round. Naturally, though, a Sunday during the Combine with the Daytona 500 and NBA All-Star game being bigger sports stories (well, until the Daytona was postponed due to rain), pales in comparison to getting our NFL itch scratched on Sundays from September to February. I digress, and you don't need to hear me digress, so let's see what kind of Big Blue news we can extract out of the Web this morning....

Top Five New York Giants Free Agents: Fan's Take - NFL - Yahoo! Sports
It may be the National Football League offseason, but the New York Giants and general manager Jerry Reese are back at work—Reese never really stopped working. With free agency and the NFL on the horizon, there really is no offseason. Speaking of free agency, five key members of the Giants' Super Bowl XLVI championship team will hit the open market on March 13.

This isn't a list we haven't seen before, but we are inching closer to March 13 and decisions must be made.

Burning question: can the New York Giants build a dynasty? | February
If the New York Giants hope for regular Super Bowl appearances, they can do no better than to study the team they victimized (on February 5). The dynastic New England Patriots won the AFC East eight of the last nine seasons. The sole miss came in 2008 when the Pats, without Tom Brady for most of the season, finished 11-5 but lost the tiebreaker to the Miami Dolphins and ended up becoming the first 11-win team in 23 years to miss the playoffs. The Patriots have appeared in five Super Bowls since 2001, winning three. Their last two appearances were losses to the Giants, but the Patriots prove that dominating the division is the first step to dynastic intent. That's not good news for the G-men, due as much to the nature of their "Beast" rivals as because of deficiencies in their own talent.

I don't always post items from fellow bloggers, but there is some interesting food for thought here about how difficult it is for the Giants to dominate the NFC East. And with Green Bay, New Orleans and San Francisco all playing at a very high level, there appears to have been a balance of power shift to the NFC this past year.

UFC 144: Frankie Edgar Gets Call From NY Giants' Justin Tuck - Bloody Elbow
A day before he steps into the Octagon at UFC 144 to defend his UFC Lightweight title, Frankie Edgar got a call from another champion to wish him good luck: New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck. Fresh off his second Super Bowl title victory, Tuck talked to Edgar in his Japan hotel room Friday. The two-time Pro Bowl selection watched his UFC 136 title defense over Gray Maynard before a game earlier this season and drew some inspiration from it.

You know JPP? Brockers looking like bigger version of Giants' ex-project - NFL, NFLDRAFT - CBSSports.com - NFLDraftScout.com
"You want guys who are big and long and fast and powerful," Giants general manager Jerry Reese said. "You want everything, but if a guy is big and has got long arms that helps. If he has speed off the end, that helps. [Or] power up the middle. "Your pass rushers are different breeds, good athletes. We like pass rushers, and we look for them." Well, then, someone should start looking at LSU's Michael Brockers. After watching what happened to the Giants and their defense this season, I can't imagine clubs aren't here trying to find the next JPP. If Manning wasn't the team MVP last season, Pierre-Paul was -- producing sacks, deflections, pressures and forced fumbles that put the Giants in the playoffs, then carried them through.

Mike Vaccaro: New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada must understand his importance to club from manager Terry Collins - NYPOST.com
In a very real way, Collins is like that other sporting skipper in town with the initials T.C. In Tom Coughlin’s early days with the Giants, much was made of "Coughlin Time," which meant if you were on time you were really five minutes late. "Collins Time" is less formal and it doesn’t really have a name. Players just understand that whatever the official reporting date is, you can alter that as early as you like.

'Gronk' explains dance decision - NFL - Yahoo! Sports
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski spoke for the first time about his post-Super Bowl shirtless dance that was caught on camera in the wake of losing to the New York Giants. Gronkowski told WPEN in Philadelphia that he was just having fun and spending time with family and friends in the aftermath of the game.

I have no problem whatsoever with Gronk doing that. But the only thing I will add is that I would never be in the mood to party after losing in the Super Bowl. Heck, I never feel like doing anything if the Giants lose a game, ever, as it is. Is that wrong?