It may be baseball season, and Yankees and Mets fans are both struggling to deal with theinconsistencies of their respective teams, but the euphoric feeling of a Super Bowl championship is still resonating in New York Giant fans’ hearts. It has been nearly 5 months since the Giants defeated the New England Patriots and took the Vince Lombardi Trophy back to East Rutherford, New Jersey, and as mini-camps are being conducted, it is easy to wonder whether or not the New York Giants can repeat, let alone make the playoffs.

While many joke about how the NFC is the NFL’s version of Jerry Springer, a circus where you don’t know what is going to happen, there are some teams on the rise that can make it difficult for the Giants to coast into the playoffs. 3 of these teams sit right next to the G-Men in the standings column, in the NFC East Division.

Many people already know about how good the Dallas Cowboys were last year, and will be this upcoming season. With the additions of Zach Thomas, and draft picks Felix Jones and Michael Jenkins, the Cowboys are expected to be the best team in the NFC, even without the potential reinstatement of Adam “Pacman” Jones.

The Philadelphia Eagles, who had one of their most disappointing seasons in recent memory, have added talent to help them compete in this rugged division. The biggest addition to the Eagles is shut down cornerback Asante Samuel, who ironically dropped an interception on that miraculous game winning drive by Eli Manning in the Super Bowl. I am sure Samuel will want to makeup for that miscue and has his sights set on picking off Manning a couple times this season.

The last team in this division finished 9-7 last season and are expected to probably finish last this year. The Washington Redskins are coming off a very solid season in which their defense was among the best in the league and their quarterback, Jason Campbell, started to play to the level at which his coaches expect him to play. While the offense did struggle at times, the Redskins added 3 receiving threats in this year’s draft and will most likely have another strong season on both sides of the field.

This leaves the defending Super Bowl champion, New York Giants, whose off-season didn’t go as smoothly as they wanted it to. With future hall of fame Defensive End Michael Strahan retiring, the Giants will need to find a replacement to help Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck pressure the quarterback, which is the exact reason why the Giants were able to defeat the Patriots last season. The Jeremy Shockey soap opera continues as he doesn’t plan to attend mini-camp. The team also lost two key players in their Super Bowl run, Safety Gibril Wilson and linebacker Kawika Mitchell. They did happen to add two safeties, one via free agency in Sammy Knight, and one in the 1st round of this year’s draft in Kenny Phillips.

While it appears the Giants will be facing an uphill battle to repeat as champs, perhaps it is not too far out of reach. Eli Manning had such a phenomenal run during the playoffs that maybe he can produce this well during the regular season. This is yet to be determined as most of his critics, including myself, don’t even think he will sniff the Pro Bowl this season. While many players impact the success and the failure of a team, no one has as big of a say in their team’s performance as much as the quarterback and in this case, Eli Manning needs to step up and have a career season just for the Giants to make the playoffs.

Personally, I think the Giants will fall short because of the tough matchups they will face in their division and because too many teams have added talent to their rosters, while the Giants have lost key elements of their championship run. A lot of questions surround the team this year and many believe the team will be content with their Super Bowl rings and just go through the motions this season. If the Giants are reading what their critics are saying, it will motivate them to play even harder and prove that they weren’t “dumb-luck” champs and keep that Lombardi Trophy in New Jersey.