ELI Manning was scrambling backwards now, wheeling and going backwards some more, at the end of an unconscionable day when his career had suddenly gone disturbingly backwards, a day infuriating and maddening enough for Giant fans to wonder aloud again whether he will be anything more than a middle-of-the pack quarterback.
Manning (21-49, 273 yards, 1 TD) had already thrown four interceptions, and was lucky he didn’t have six or seven, and three of them were run back for touchdowns, which meant that he had put up more points for the Vikings than he had for the Giants.
No one in the NFL had seen this kind of futility from a passer in 23 years. Not even Dave Brown had a day like this. So the only surprise about Manning finally taking an ignominious 26-yard sack was that Tom Coughlin had unwisely left him and Plaxico Burress with the Giants, 41-17 losers, out of hope.
“I wanted to finish the game,” Manning said. “I’m gonna keep playing ’til the end.”
He should have thought about playing at the beginning, after he had completed his first three throws, because he spent the rest of the first half 3-for-17 for 47 yards and two interceptions.
So as the calendar turns towards December, and the biggest games await, the shell-shocked, humiliated Giants know full well they will blow the playoffs if the quarterback shows up as WEE-li.
Manning: “You throw four interceptions, it’s never a good day. … I didn’t perform well, and they took advantage of it.”
He was asked if he had ever had a nightmare day like this, at Isidore Newman High in New Orleans, or at Ole Miss, maybe.
“Anything you do, you have bad days,” he said. “When it’s going bad, it can add on. You get behind, you try to force things, and they just got us out of our element.”
He had thrown four picks two years ago against these Vikings, but he is supposed to be beyond this type of meltdown by now. “We just could never get in a rhythm,” Manning said.
How’s this for rhythm? Quarterback throws the ball, Jeremy Shockey has his back turned, and Darren Sharper picks it off and a 7-7 game is now 14-7. “I threw it hot and the guy was in the right spot,” Manning said.
Someone wanted to know whether the fact that Big Brother Peyton was watching from up high made it harder for him. “Doesn’t make any difference,” Manning said.
He had gotten his completion percentage up over 60 percent, but now his accuracy is once again an issue. Some of his throws were so high and so wide it was hard to believe that the southwest wind was blowing at only six mph.
Dwight Smith’s interception that set up a first-half touchdown was a deep middle underthrow for Plaxico Burress. On third-and-11 from the Vikings 11, Ray Edwards tipped a Manning pass and Smith’s 93-yard runback made it 34-10. Two plays from scrimmage later, linebacker Chad Greenway stepped in front of Shockey and the 37-yard runback made it 41-10.
Burress, who a year ago might have been uncontrollably flailing his arms, made it a point to wait for Manning as they trudged to the sidelines, the boo-birds singing, and patted him on the helmet.
There were 13 minutes left. The two of them should have been rested for the Bears.
“We weren’t giving up,” Coughlin said. “If we had 11 players that could have gone in for the other starters,” Shaun O’Hara said, “then he should have pulled us all.”
This was the worst pass defense in the league and cornerback Antoine Winfield was out. “We knew if we were able to make him throw off his back foot and make some throws we would have a chance to make some plays,” Sharper said.
His teammates were eager to deflect the blame and point fingers away from their quarterback. “If he didn’t care about the game, if he didn’t care about his teammates, if he didn’t care about winning, then I think the players would not give him that benefit of the doubt,” O’Hara said.
The quarterback cares.
“He will bounce back,” Coughlin said. The quarterback is resilient.
“You’re gonna be the goat some day, you’re gonna be the hero someday,” Amani Toomer said.
When Manning is the goat-to guy, the Giants have no chance.