Giants G.M. Jerry Reese already has said that he wants his team to be an annual contender, like the Patriots.

“That’s what you want to do,” Reese said earlier this week.  “We have a really young team.  We just don’t want to go away.  New England set the bar really high. The league is not built for one team to stay on the top long.”

That’s a respectable goal.  The challenge, however, will be to manage the salary cap over the long haul.  For now, the Giants reportedly are $20 million under the spending limit for 2008.  But that will change once the guys who contributed to that shiny silver trophy start getting in line for new contracts.

The key to emulating New England will be to get the core players to play for less money in New York than they could get elsewhere.  With the Pats, the hometown discounts begin with quarterback Tom Brady, who arguably is the most underpaid player in the history of the game.

In New York, then, the pace will need to be set by quarterback Eli Manning.  But if he approaches his next contract like his brother Peyton did in Indy, Eli will go for the biggest piece of the pie that he can get.  And that will make it hard to keep a highly competitive team on the field over the long haul.

But with Eli coming into his own on the field, maybe he’ll develop into his own man off the field, too.  Maybe he’ll look at how Brady handles his contract and how Peyton handles his, and maybe Eli will decide to do it like Brady.

Regardless of how it turns out, it’ll be interesting to watch.