Giants GM Jerry Reese addressed the media at the Combine and spoke about other teams reactions to the Giants win.

“You get a lot of ‘atta boys’ and a lot of pats on the back,” Reese said of the reaction from his colleagues at the combine. “And you try to run from people so you can watch the players. Everybody is happy for us. It’s exciting to be on top in this environment right now. But you can’t keep patting yourself on the back. You have to move on and try to get ready for a new season.”

This is the first time since 2003 that Reese is not in charge of the Giants’ draft. Oh, he will have the final say in the draft room, as the general manager always does. But the nuts and bolts of draft preparation now fall to Ross, who was named to his position after Reese ran last year’s draft.

Reese’s many other duties as G.M. prevented him from being as immersed in the draft-eligible players as he normally is at this time of year.

“It’s a little different for me,” Reese said. “Last year I knew everybody here. This time I haven’t been able to go out and see players like I usually do. But I’ll catch up before April. I’ll know who they are, and I’ll catch up. But it’s a little different going in and not knowing the guys like I knew them last year. I knew everyone in the building last year. So it’s a little different for me.”

But that doesn’t mean Reese is detached from the process. Quite the contrary. Reese attended the organizational draft meetings prior to the combine. And before the draft begins on April 26, Reese will be as familiar with the names on the board as he always is.

“I’m a scout - I was raised as a scout,” said Reese, who joined the Giants organization as – what else? – a scout in 1994. “Once a scout, always a scout. You always have that in your blood. In the pre-draft meetings after we got back from Arizona, just to be kind of out of the loop and watch Marc Ross run the meetings - he did a tremendous job running the meetings and the scouts did a nice job catching up right after the Super Bowl. But it was a weird feeling sitting in the room and not controlling the draft.”

More at Giants.com.

Tom Coughlin took time out to speak to the press at the NFL Combine on Friday.

As reported on Giants.com:

“I’m trying to make sure that all the things along the way that you don’t read about or see on TV or whatever, the interviews and that type of thing, I don’t want to miss out on anything that was really good,” Coughlin said. “Hopefully, that’s not going to happen, but it’s a blur the way that goes. But it’s wonderful to hear people say ‘Super Bowl champions’ and ‘champions of the world.’ It’s kind of nice to get here and be back in the football environment and see so many friends from years gone by, people that have been in the league for a long time. It’s just a nice thought.”

Coughlin is not one to dwell on the past, even when it is worth celebrating. So he was happy to travel to Indianapolis for the combine, where he can begin to gauge more than 300 draft-eligible players and start preparing in earnest for the 2008 season.

“You really don’t ever stop,” Coughlin said. “We got back (from the Super Bowl) on a Monday night, we had our exit meetings, etcetera, on Tuesday morning, we had a magnificent experience in the Canyon of (Heroes) over there in New York and we had a great session when we came back to the Meadowlands with the fans being there. Then, all of a sudden, the next day we had to do (player) rankings and evaluations and write-ups and needs and things of that nature. So we went right ahead and did that. And then, as soon as we got back (from vacation), we continued along those lines with the information coming about the combine and free agency and started the evaluation of free agents, started our cut-ups. So we jumped right back into it.”

Because the Giants season ended so late, and the coaches were given much-deserved vacations last week, Coughlin did not have as much time as usual to prepare for the combine. But he’ll gladly make that tradeoff every year.