Before "the drop" and "the catch" and "the phantom-D-on-the-touchdown" and "the proposal" and "the Gronk dancing shirtless" and all the other moments that made Super Bowl XLVI iconic, there was this small hint from a handicapper that the Giants were, at the least, on someone's radar: "I had them ranked one slot higher than the Jets at the end of last season, third-best performing team in the NFL (my order was Chargers, Steelers, Giants, Jets, Packers). They were the second-best offense, seventh-best defense. And when I ran my projected wins model for this year, they finished with the fifth-best record. Their only problem was INTs, but if they tighten things up …"