If you think the Giants plan on being The Other Team in Town . . . think again.
“I think this season might go down in history as one of the best Giant seasons,” Justin Tuck told The Post.
Clearly, Tuck isn’t losing any sleep over the hullabaloo over the media darling Jets. When I brought up The Other Team in Town notion, Tuck laughed, and loudly.
“You heard what I said to it,” Tuck said. “Write in quotations, ‘He laughed.’ ”
Except it’s no laughing matter.
“I’ll just say this — we’re the last football team to walk down the Canyon of Heroes,” Tuck said. “They can have all the glamour and glitz and all that, I could care less. . . . I’m trying to be careful. There are some things I could say I don’t want to say.”
About the Jets? “Yeah.”
Why refrain? “I like the Jets. I honest to God wish them well. I hope we meet in the Super Bowl.”
Do you think they talk too much?
“Some of ’em.”
The Jets haven’t won a championship since Jan. 12, 1969. The Giants have won three Super Bowls. The Rex Ryan Jets haven’t won anything yet.
“I agree,” Tuck said, before adding: “You said that, I didn’t.”
But you agree with it.
“I agree with it,” Tuck said. “It doesn’t matter. They deserve all the attention. They had a better year than we did. It’s all about, ‘What have you done lately?’ ”
And what the Jets have done lately is reach the AFC Championship game. And what the Giants have done lately is close out Giants Stadium in disgrace to finish 8-8 and out of the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I’m not gonna talk about the Super Bowl; you’re not gonna get me to say that anymore,” Tuck says. “The Saints won the Super Bowl last year. We didn’t. It doesn’t matter if we won it three, five, 12 years ago. It’s time for us to move on and make another Super Bowl run.”
Humbled and hungry and healthy again, in body and in mind, the Giants are driven to restore the pride and offer their cash-strapped fans more bang for their bucks.
“I feel as though they’re gonna say to themselves, ‘The PSLs could be 20, 30, 50 percent higher than what they are’ and they still got their money’s worth,” Tuck said.
When Tom Coughlin moved swiftly to replace rookie defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan with Perry Fewell, it sent a jolt of electricity through Big Blue.
“It’s hard to keep your attitude high all year long, especially when you’re losing,” Tuck said. “Call it what it is — Coach Sheridan is not a rah-rah guy. He’s not going to bring energy to the game. . . . Sometimes it’s hard to get behind a guy like that.”
Fewell is much more like Steve Spagnuolo, the Giants’ beloved Super Bowl defensive coordina tor who left to coach the Rams.
“You can tell he loves what he’s doing,” Tuck said. “He has that fire about him, like he really loves defense. I think that is contagious. I’ve seen him lead a safety or corner into the end zone after a pick in practice. . . . Bill would hi-five us, but it sometimes didn’t feel like he wanted to be there.”
Fewell also brings a flexibility that was missing last season.
“Bill got stagnant in his playcalling,” Tuck said. “We didn’t do a lot of adjustments last year. . . . We kinda played individual ball a lot, me included. It made it easy for teams to single us out and block us.”
When the Giants began the defense of their Super Bowl XLII championship two summers ago, Tuck talked of a dynasty.
“We started feeling like we were entitled,” Tuck said.
With Antonio Pierce retired, Tuck vows to step into the leadership vacuum.
“I’ve talked to a lot of guys about it — present players and past players about it,” Tuck said. “I think it’s time to come into my own in that field.”
The Cowboys appear to be The Team to Beat in the NFC East, but Tuck is wary of the Donovan McNabb-led Redskins.
“McNabb knows how to win games in October, November, December, and Washington hasn’t had a quarterback to do that in a while,” Tuck said.
Do you think the Eagles made a mistake by dealing him to the ‘Skins?
“I do,” Tuck said.