A few hours before the Giants took the field for their first training camp practice in Albany this summer, Jason Pierre-Paul, wearing a spotless white Super Bowl XLVI Champions hoodie, was asked how much room there was for improvement in his game.

The third-year defensive end answered with an assertion that left reporters scratching their heads and opposing offensive coordinators surely shaking theirs.

“I am about 50 (percent),” Pierre-Paul nonchalantly calculated. “I am still learning. That is the good thing about it. I want to come out here and learn and keep on improving.”

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Can it possibly be true? A player coming off a season in which he registered 86 tackles and finished fourth in the NFL with 16½ sacks is only halfway to his potential? By sheer statistics, admittedly a limited measure of a defensive player’s impact and ability, that means he can be ...

“A 30-sack guy?” Giants linebacker and part-time defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka asked.

“He could be. Absolutely,” Kiwanuka continued. “He definitely has the potential to be one of the best ever. There’s so much that goes into it that’s out of his control so you don’t want to jinx him or anything like that, but if the kid keeps working and God’s on his side and he stays healthy, we expect to see great things out of him.”

Pierre-Paul, 23, is the latest elite defensive end in the Giants’ seemingly endless supply. He is already widely regarded as one of the NFL’s best defensive linemen and will be joined by a healthy Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck tonight in the Giants’ season opener against the Dallas Cowboys — completing perhaps the league’s premier group of defensive ends.

It took until the 2011 regular-season finale, against the Cowboys, for the trio to play together at full strength and the impact was season-changing.

The Giants sacked Tony Romo six times as they clinched the NFC East title with a 31-14 victory on Jan. 1.

And the group created chaos throughout the postseason, logging 6½ of the defense’s 11 sacks while alleviating the pressure from what was a faulty secondary earlier in the season.

"These three D-ends are probably top 10 in the National Football League," said former Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce. "One might be No. 1 or 2. I think JPP is on that mission to be one of the best defensive ends in the game. It's always been known as a linebacker city, now it's turned into a defensive end city."

A revved-up rush

Finding their way on the field together via defensive coordinator Perry Fewell's

"NASCAR" package — four defensive ends at once on passing downs — Pierre-Paul, Tuck and Umenyiora completed the Super Bowl run by disrupting Tom Brady and the Patriots' juggernaut offense four years after Umenyiora and Tuck did the same in Super Bowl XLII, with Michael Strahan as the third component.

“I think those last few games, where you saw all three of us, was us playing at the height of what we could’ve been the entire year,” said Tuck, the defensive captain who had three and a half sacks in the playoffs after just five in 12 regular-season games.

“Everyone knows that when we play well, this team, this defense plays well. A lot of pressure is on us, but we like it that way.”

Tonight, they'll be on the field together again. Fewell said Tuck's play is "night and day" from last season, when he battled through a variety of injuries and personal tragedy.

Umenyiora, who had nine sacks in just nine regular-season games in 2011, finally ended a very public contract dispute over this past offseason and has overcome his knee and ankle ailments.

Then there’s Pierre-Paul, who played in all 16 games in 2011.

It was against the Cowboys in Week 14 last season that Pierre-Paul enjoyed his breakout, prime-time performance.

With Umenyiora sidelined and Tuck hampered, he recorded six tackles and hounded Tony Romo for two sacks, one in the end zone for a safety. Pierre-Paul topped off his night by blocking the potential game-tying field goal with one second remaining in the Giants’ season-saving 37-34 victory.

“We talk about putting the four guys out there; it’s hard to find out who’s the quickest and who’s the fastest,” Fewell said. “Some days I look and I say, ‘Boy, JPP looks great today.’ But he looked awesome down there and then Osi comes flying off the end and I’m saying, ‘Wow, boy, that’s pretty fast.’ And then Tuck, he makes a move and I’m saying, ‘Wow, man. ...’ I’m scratching my head, and then Kiwi does something.”

Holding the line

Pierre-Paul’s emergence has cemented the Giants’ ability to identify and cultivate pass-rushers. What began with Strahan wreaking havoc solo, evolved into a duo of Strahan and Umenyiora. In 2007, Tuck emerged as the third cog and the three fueled a pass rush that accumulated a league-leading 53 sacks and propelled an unlikely Super Bowl run.

When Strahan retired, Kiwanuka returned from an injury-plagued 2007 and was inserted into the defensive end rotation in 2008. The Giants finished 12-4 and sixth in sacks with 42, but the number fell to 32 in 2009 and, consequently, the Giants finished 8-8 and out of the playoffs.

The plunge was enough for general manager Jerry Reese to address the pass rush with the Giants’ first-round pick. With the 15th overall pick, Reese chose Pierre-Paul, a freakishly athletic defensive end who began playing football his senior year of high school and had just 13 games of Division 1 experience at South Florida.

Reese heard the skeptics. It was a reach. It was a panic move. They already had Umenyiora and Tuck, and there were other positions of need.

But it was another example of what the Giants value most: pass-rushers up front that can get to the quarterback without a blitz.

“I’ve never seen a guy like that -- maybe Jevon Kearse, physically,” said backup quarterback David Carr, who was sacked an NFL-record 76 times in 2002 with the Houston Texans.

“He’s a freak. Everyone knew he was physically able to do it, but he’s picked up so much. He’s learning from the best in the game.”

Pierre-Paul arrived in East Rutherford without some of the basic football knowledge players learn at the high school and college levels. There were technique shortcomings and mental misunderstandings.

He relied on pure athleticism and his 6-5, 270-pound frame to record four and a half sacks in 2010, his rookie year.

His education continued under Umenyiora and Tuck. He prodded the veterans on how to play the run, and on technique and down-and-distance situations, but during last season they stayed out of his way.

“We didn’t tell him anything. Hell no,” Umenyiora said. “The way he was performing, what were you going to tell him? ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing, man.’ You don’t want to mess that up when somebody’s rolling like that.”

Pierre-Paul continued improving on his technique and football IQ this past offseason and the veterans say they have seen vast improvements, enough to warrant projections as wild as the one Kiwanuka made.

Thirty sacks would shatter the single-season record of 22½ Strahan set in 2001. But with players of Tuck’s and Umenyiora’s caliber surrounding him on and off the field, Pierre-Paul is left wondering where his ceiling might be.

“This is only my third year, man,” Pierre-Paul said. “How cool is that? And I’m only 23 years old. I’m just getting better. Who knows by the time I’m 25, 26?”

Jorge Castillo: jcastillo@starledger.com; twitter.com/jorgeccastillo