There are many parallels to the Giants and the Bengals, at least in some key areas and hopefully Mike Brown was paying attention (although I bet Katie had to remind him that the Super Bowl was on yesterday).

Tom Coughlin was close to being fired. He was about to run out of town by the fans. He'd lost the team. Nobody wanted to listen to him. In many ways this is similar to what is going on right now with Marvin Lewis (although Coughlin and Lewis are polar opposite type coaches). Marvin can't coach any more and he's lost this team. He's on the hot seat.

Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey are selfish, larger than life players that were cancers on this team. They were holding the Giants back. Tiki retired and everyone doubted that he could be replaced. Shockey broke his leg and an unknown rookie Kevin Boss fills in and does a fantastic job for Shockey. Boss catches a 40+ catch in the Super Bowl. Shockey watches from a luxury box with his entourage (not his team mates) sipping beer. So the Giants win without their star RB and stud TE. Nobody thought that was possible and when the Giants were 0-2 everyone thought Coughlin was an idiot and Tiki was sorely missed and Eli Manning was a goofball.

So the lesson to be learned from the Giants season is that team chemistry is huge in this ultimate team sport. Those players, like Chad Johnson, that are me driven and hurting the team chemistry must be dealt with. Even if it looks like they're irreplaceable, they may not be missed at all. The other difference for the Giants is strong ownership. The Mara family is legendary in football (sort of like the Brown family is). Mike Brown won't eat the 8+ million cap hit it will take to trade Chad. He will expect Chad to honor a very fair contract (and in this regard I agree with him). But the Mara family stood by Tom Coughlin and made the right football decisions in the draft and regarding personnel. Can Mike Brown do the same thing? I don't think so, but if he and Marvin can, the blueprint for success has been established by the G-Men.