The “us against the world” story line usually doesn’t last very long. Inevitably, either the us or the world wins and it’s settled. Those who didn’t believe are justified, or convinced otherwise. There are no rematches.

Yet here come the Giants, the team that shocked the world in four straight playoff games last winter, blazed a route to the championship by winning 11 straight games away from home, took a “no one thought we could do it” attitude and shoved it in the face of the previously undefeated Patriots along with everyone else who predicted a Super Bowl blowout.

They proved ’em wrong. So where do they start their 2008 season?

Not even as favorites to win their division.

They won rings, but there was no offseason ceremony during which the Giants were presented with the respect of the league.

What more do the Giants need to do?

Well, winning it all again would be a good start. And that’s apparently fine with the team that can’t seem to shake its underdog status.

“You do it once and people can call it a fluke, but if you do it twice, they start to really respect you and understand your talent,” Giants center Shaun O’Hara said.

That journey, which has been in the planning stages since the airplane touched down from Phoenix in February, begins in earnest this week with the opening of training camp.

The players are due to report at the University at Albany on Thursday and the first practice of the season will begin Friday morning. In an offseason that has been a real page-turner – at every workout, OTA, minicamp and ceremony following the Super Bowl, the players and coaches have talked about turning the page and moving forward – it’s time to lick a collective thumb and give one final flip.

We’ve run out of pages in this book, it’s time to crack open a new volume. Welcome to Giants vs. World: the Sequel.

“We are not really interested in going backward anymore,” Tom Coughlin said.

Sure, there are voices around the league who still consider what the Giants pulled off last year to be pure luck, just a team and a quarterback who got hot at the right time.

The thing is, to a certain extent, the Giants think that, too. They understand that though the season had a perfect ending, it really was far from perfect.

“I don’t think we’re satisfied,” Eli Manning said. “I think we are happy about last year, but we are not content with where we stand as a team and what we can do as an offense, as a team. We know that we can become a better group of players. We can have a better season.”

That starts Friday.

The Giants are very aware of the challenges facing all defending champions. Without saying much about it, Coughlin made sure each player received some data about previous Super Bowl winners. In the era of free agency and the salary cap that began in 1993, there have been more Super Bowl-winning teams that failed to make the playoffs the following year (four) than repeat as champions (two).

Perhaps more pointedly for this franchise, the Giants have never made the playoffs in a season following their three previous Super Bowl appearances.

They also face specific challenges such as the discontent of players such as Plaxico Burress and Jeremy Shockey, the loss of Michael Strahan to retirement, and an abbreviated training camp which will end about a week earlier than normal thanks to the scheduling of a preseason Monday night game.

If there is a cure for the hangover, it’ll likely be found in the sweat of two-a-day workouts. And an underdog persona that not even a Super Bowl win for the ages could shatter.