What got Eli Manning this far won't get him, or the Giants, any farther
ATLANTA — If there’s a moment that defines Eli Manning – and, by association, the Giants – in 2018, it came in the final minute of Monday night’s 23-20 loss to the Falcons. With 45 seconds remaining, Manning crouched under center literally close enough to touch the goal line.
In defiance of all logic, with all-world offensive weapons like Saquon Barkley and Odell Beckham Jr. at his side, Manning simply dove straight forward into the pile for an utterly impotent quarterback sneak. And then he did it again, frittering away the last few precious seconds of the game.
“From the one yard line there, we’ve got to get it in,” Giants head coach Pat Shurmur said after the game. “You should be able to convert on a sneak. We’ve all seen him do that. For whatever reason, we didn’t get it done.”
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. In that regard, the Giants are bordering on institutionalization. They keep trying and pushing – that was the narrative from Shurmur after the game, along with Manning, Beckham, and likely every other member of the team who had a postgame microphone in front of them – but it’s not working. This team has started the season 1-6 for the second year in a row.
Manning wasn’t terrible Monday night. He didn’t make any game-crushing mistakes, and he piled up an impressive 399 yards in the air. Sure, a third of those yards came in virtual garbage time, with the Giants down two scores, and another third came in utterly ineffective between-the-20s first-half ping-ponging.
But it wasn’t enough, not even against a beatable Falcons team, a team whose battered and porous defense gave even a half-strength Manning enough opportunity to hang in long after the Giants should have been dust. Manning came close, but once again, he simply couldn’t get it done, couldn’t find the right receivers at the right moments, couldn’t orchestrate a comeback the way he’s done 26 times in his career.
In the end, it’s simple: What got Manning to this point isn’t going to get him any farther. And the Giants’ season – and their future, as long as Manning’s under center – will depend on whether he can adjust and overcome. And that’s a hell of a tall order for a quarterback who took his first pro snaps around the same time as fellow New York quarterback Sam Darnold entered kindergarten.
Another metaphorical Manning moment: first drive of the second half, Giants down a touchdown. Manning has just connected to Sterling Shepherd for a beauty of a 53-yard pass, the kind of fall-down-the-stairs-and-land-on-your-feet miracle play that’s defined Manning’s career. (You don’t even need me to say “David Tyree” right here, do you?) Second and goal on the Atlanta 8, and Manning flares out on a naked bootleg. He’s got half the Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s east end zone ahead of him. All he has to do is get there.
He pumps. He chuffs. He rolls like a man trying to get to the grill from the other side of the pool as his burgers are catching fire. And he … almost makes it. Two plays later, he’ll miss on a fourth-down play, and the Giants’ last real chance to even up this game vanishes.
Would a younger Manning have made that run? Perhaps. Time drags us all down. But it seems unlikely that a younger Manning would have missed on so many close opportunities.
Asked after the game what parts of his own game Manning felt he had to work on, he hesitated for a moment. “Just keep trying to make good decisions,” he said. “Whether trying to move in the pocket or buy time, make good decisions.” It’s a curious thing, a 15-year veteran still weighing the concept of making good decisions, but here we are.
Making matters worse for Manning – at least from a perception perspective – was the fact that his older brother Peyton was in attendance, watching from a skybox. And while Eli tried – and failed – to sneak in that touchdown, cameras caught Peyton watching:
In a football sense, you could argue that Peyton Manning is the worst thing ever to happen to Eli. Peyton is the ultimate older brother, smoother, funnier, a yes-ma’am-no-sir grinder who out-studies and out-thinks not just Eli, but everyone. If Eli Manning were born Eli Smith, or Eli Jones, or Eli Anything-But-Peyton’s-Little-Brother, he would be taking about one-third less grief than he does today. (Lop off another third if he were playing for, say, the Chargers, the team that originally drafted him, or the Saints, his daddy’s old team.)
Peyton casts a long shadow, and Eli can’t outrun it even three years after Peyton retired. When we think of Eli, we think of the fumbles and interceptions, the stumbling as a defensive line swarms him, the lost look as the game collapses around him. We think of The Manning Face. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth.
Which, in a way, is unfair as all hell, because Eli has put together one hell of a statistical resume. Bear in mind: only five men in the entirety of human history have thrown more passes, for more distance, than Eli Manning. Only six have thrown more touchdowns. He’s a likely Hall of Famer, even without the one transcendent season, because he’s been so above-average for so many years.
Eli Manning has succeeded for so long, and has compiled such lofty numbers, by nibbling away at the edges of the field, chewing up defenses six yards at a time. You play football long enough – Manning is in his 15th season, which still seems a bit incredible – and you can shape a career in ways you can’t shape a single game.
What’s gotten Eli Manning this far isn’t working in 2018. And he and the Giants are going to have to figure out some solutions, and quickly. The seconds are ticking away, for him and for the team, and time-wasting quarterback sneaks aren’t going to cut it.
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Jeff Eisenberg: What now for Rae Carruth?
• ‘Decoy’ Flacco stands, watches rookie’s first NFL TD
• Terez Paylor: Jags can no longer hide their Bortles problem
• Charles Robinson: Why the NFL wins when players are divided
