Super Bowl 2012: Why 2007 Season Shouldn't Matter to the Giants in 2012

There are a lot of eerie similarities between the New York Giants' 2007-2008 season leading up to their Super Bowl victory and this season.

In 2007, they started the year 6-2 before struggling in the second half of the year, just as they did this season.

The first time around, they lost in Week 17 to the still undefeated New England Patriots, 38-35, and went on to exact their revenge by ruining their perfect season by winning the Super Bowl. This year, the Giants lost to the then-undefeated Green Bay Packers, 38-35, only to beat them in the divisional round of the playoffs.

And, just like they did in the 2007-2008 season, the Giants made it to the Super Bowl with an overtime field goal in a road NFC Championship game.

While these parallels are good for generating discussion, they're mere coincidences. In fact, it's a slight to the Giants and all they've done in the years between Super Bowl appearances to say that the current iteration of the team bears much similarity at all to the one they fielded in the 2008 game.

In 2007, the Giants were a run-first, defense-heavy team. They ranked in the top-10 in most every defensive category aside from points allowed, and averaged 134.3 rushing yards per game.

That formula worked well for the team, luckily, because quarterback Eli Manning was nowhere near playing at the level he is this season. He completed just 56.1 percent of his passes that season, for 3,336 yards, averaging just 208.5 yards per game.

He threw 23 touchdowns to 20 interceptions that year, and it looked as though the team was winning despite the way he played and Manning's role was more of a game manager than offensive leader.

This season, the Giants have leaned on Manning almost exclusively. Their defense ranked 25th in points allowed and 27th in yards allowed, and their run offense came in dead last in rushing yards. But thanks to Manning, they fielded one of the best passing games in the league.

Manning threw for 4,933 yards this season, and scored 29 touchdowns to just 16 interceptions. His completion percentage rose to 61 percent and he averaged 308.3 yards per game.

With Manning in a leadership role, the Giants were able to win games despite their defense not looking as strong as it has in recent years. Injuries played a huge part in that, to be sure, and things have improved for the Giants on that side of the ball in recent weeks as players gradually began returning to full health.

The NFL is different every year, and teams generally follow suit. While it's hard to say if the 2011 Giants really are a better team than they were in 2007—after all, it was just Manning who seemed to be struggling that season, while this year they've had troubles in every phase of the game that didn't directly relate to Manning—they've certainly evolved.

They took a similar path to reach the Super Bowl, but they did it in a wholly different way than they did the first time. But if there's any indication of just how much has changed, it's the fact that the Patriots were 14-point favorites in their 2008 Super Bowl meeting but are favored by just three this year.

The similarities between the Giants' 2007 and 2011 seasons are worth talking about, because it's certainly a fascinating storyline. However, when it comes down to it, the Giants have changed and no longer resemble the team that they once were.

Sometimes when history repeats itself, it manages to highlight just how much has changed. For this year's Giants, that's certainly the case.