Teams hope to duplicate Giants' '07 draft, more notes

Fifth-round pick Kevin Boss beat Rodney Harrison for a 45-yard gain in Super Bowl XLII. Bob Rosato/SI

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Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we count down to the start of the annual meat market that is the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis ...

• In a dream world, of course, it's supposed to work out for every team like it did for the Giants last year. The trip to the combine is where an NFL team starts to lay the foundation of its annual draft class, and no team got more out of the due diligence it did in late February than the Giants, whose crop of rookies contributed mightily to their storybook run to the Super Bowl title.

Last year at this time, newly named Giants general manager Jerry Reese went to the combine looking for impact players and building blocks for a roster he wanted to re-shape rather than re-build. He got more than he could have ever imagined, as New York's entire eight-man draft class not only made the team, but seven of the players wound up playing very significant roles in the Giants' surprising success story.

Where would New York have been without fifth-round tight end Kevin Boss and seventh-round running back Ahmad Bradshaw once Jeremy Shockey and Derrick Ward went down with broken legs late in the regular season? And from December on, how essential were second-round receiver Steve Smith, third-round defensive tackle Jay Alford and first-round cornerback Aaron Ross, all of whom had their spotlight moments in the Super Bowl upset of the Patriots? Even fourth-round reserve linebacker/longsnapper Zak DeOssie -- a guy who really made the radar screens of NFL teams at last year's combine -- was a contributor as a rookie.

At last year's combine, they were all just guys with numbers and names on the backs of their T-shirts, and we didn't know for certain who was a prospect and who was an imposter. But we know now, and we know the Giants did their homework last February, which helped lead to their big confetti shower in Glendale, Ariz., the following February.

Being able to consistently find players is the toughest trick in the NFL. Reese and the Giants arguably put together the greatest draft class in franchise history in 2007, but an encore is going to be difficult, especially since a Super Bowl win not only adversely affects your draft position but significantly shortens your offseason. Reese and the rest of the Giants personnel will be in Indianapolis a mere 17 days after their conquest of undefeated New England.

It may not be the Giants this year, but some team will use the work it conducts at the combine as a springboard to a great draft and a better season than most will expect. All the hours of player interviews, testing, drill work, medical checks, scouting and face-to-face observation will pay off for some, and in a perfect world, the Giants' fate could befall someone else in 2008.

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