From 2007-11, the Giants had two Super Bowl-winning teams in five seasons. In 2007, they upended the previously undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, and they went on to take down the Patriots again on the tail end of that stretch to capture another Lombardi Trophy.

But as good as those two teams were, there are former Giants who believe neither of those two squads were the best all-around units the Giants had during their latest Super Bowl era.

That title belongs to the 2008 squad.

Former members of the team told Paul Schwartz of the New York Post what could have been with a team that at one point was 10-1, before Plaxico Burress, one of the heroes of Super Bowl XLII, accidentally shot himself in the leg with an illegally possessed firearm.

"I think that was the best team we had," said Amani Toomer, who was in his final season with the team.

"That year, I tell people all the time, was the most fun I've ever had playing football in my entire life,' former center Shaun O'Hara told The Post. "That year we literally kicked the snot out of people. I couldn't wait to get to the stadium on Sunday, on game day, because we were that good.''

During that 2008 season, Eli Manning had an 86.4 passer rating and only 10 interceptions, while Brandon Jacobs and Derrick Ward both rushed for over 1,000 yards. The Giants scored 30-plus points in seven games during the regular season, and at 10-1 and as defending champions, they looked to be the class of the NFC.

But after Burress, who had been dealing with a hamstring injury, shot himself with a concealed, unlicensed handgun inside a Manhattan night club in late November and was suspended by the team, the Giants' season began to fall apart.

After limping into the playoffs with three losses in four weeks, the Giants fell to the divisional rival Philadelphia Eagles, 23-11, at MetLife Stadium, as the Eagles took away the Giants' running game and ended a once-promising campaign.

"If we had beat Philly, the Cardinals would have had to come up and play us at MetLife, that would have been a disaster for that offense and Kurt Warner," O'Hara said to The Post. "If we had gotten past Philly, I have no doubt we would have beaten Arizona. And we would have beaten Pittsburgh.''

The Giants went on to win another Super Bowl three seasons later, but as O'Hara told The Post, if Big Blue would have been able to cap off that once-tremendous 2008 season, the word dynasty would have been brought up.

"I think about it every year around the Super Bowl, because everyone talks about how tough it is to go back-to-back and had we won that year people would have started saying the 'D' word," O'Hara said. "That's how things would have changed. Who knows the trajectory of the franchise, how different that would have been for everybody?''

Video: 2008: Eli Manning and Peyton Manning talk Tyree catch

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