CHICAGO – Eli Manning was leading the Giants to ruin.
Then he led them to victory. A stunning, improbable victory the Giants needed almost as badly as Manning did.
“It wasn’t the prettiest . . . at times it was flat-our ugly,” Manning said after somehow halting the uproar swirling around him. “But it was sweet.”
He had thrown two interceptions and lost the ball once on a self-inflicted fumble as the Giants’ season was heading down a slippery slope. Based largely on Manning’s failings, the Giants trailed virtually all afternoon in the cold, wet and wind, mired in offensive stagnation. They were down 16-7 in the fourth quarter before Manning shook off the demons that have bedeviled him the past few weeks.
“You got to be able to forget the week before, got to be able to forget the play before and just move on,” Manning said.
After throwing four interceptions in a terrible loss to the Vikings and laboring mightily for three quarters, Manning led the Giants on a pair of touchdown drives in the final 6:54, then turned the keys to the game over to a resilient defense and, lo and behold, the Giants came back to beat the Bears 21-16 to escape Soldier Field in command playoff position.
“He put the bad plays behind him and he realized the game was still to be won on the field,” Tom Coughlin said. “He went out and led our team to a win, really a win that I think will give us some inspiration.”
Why not? At 8-4, the Giants with four games remaining have a working margin over their nearest NFC wild card challengers (Vikings, Lions and Cardinals, all 6-6) and it would take a total collapse to wind their way out of the postseason. They appeared to be on that path until the unlikely comeback took hold.
The Giants, who lost the turnover battle, 4-0, were down 16-7 when Manning lobbed a pass into the end zone not high enough for Plaxico Burress, and cornerback Charles Tillman came up with the interception 13 seconds before the end of the third quarter. The next time Manning got his hands on the ball he misfired on three consecutive passes and trotted off the field after a three-and-out showing no signs of rising out of a month-long funk.
“It looked bleak,” Coughlin said. “Our defense kept getting the ball back.”
Desperation put the Giants in a no-huddle attack and, as it has in the past, that sparked Manning. An 11-play, 75-yard drive cost the Giants running back Derrick Ward (career-high 154 rushing yards) to a broken left leg, but Manning threw low and Amani Toomer scooped the ball off the wet grass for a six-yard scoring play that was initially ruled incomplete and overturned after Coughlin’s replay challenge.
“I’m thinking I caught it, there’s no way they can not call it a catch,” Toomer said.
The Giants were within 16-14 with 6:54 remaining, already having put the clamps on return ace Devin Hester, and turned the game over to their defense, which dialed up its sixth sack of Rex Grossman, this one split between Justin Tuck and Kawika Mitchell – who played his best game of the season – to hand Manning the ball on his own 23-yard line with 4:55 left.
“He started off a little shaky but he came through for us,” defensive end Osi Umenyiora said. “We knew he was going to come through and he did just that.”
Manning hit all four of his passes on the final drive, finding little-used David Tyree twice – Tyree’s first catches of the season. A 15-yard bullet to Burress put the Giants on the Bears’ 2-yard line with 1:37 to go and Coughlin had a decision: Force the Bears to burn their one remaining time out and kick a field goal or go for the end zone. He opted for the latter and Reuben Droughns scored on first down, with 1:33 remaining.
Once again, the defense needed to make a stop. The Bears took over on their 41 after Hester’s 19-yard return. They got to the Giants’ 28-yard line, but when Grossman’s last pass was knocked away by safety James Butler, the Giants exhaled.
“We came into this game looking to be 8-4 and by the grace of God we are,” Coughlin said.
And by the grace of a Manning-inspired comeback.