Eli Saves the Day

The Giants barely escaped with a victory at the Meadowlands after the defense gave up a 14 point lead in the fourth quarter. The Giants have one person to thank after the game, and that’s Eli Manning.

Manning was superb. He tore apart the Falcons secondary and made them look dreadful throughout the game. Manning threw three TD passes, and had big play after big play. Mario Manningham came up big for the Giants, getting open often and making big plays after the catch.

Everybody now knows why Eli did get a huge contract coming into the season. He won’t always throw for 384 yards like he did today, but he’s a winner and never gets flustered. This was probably the best game Manning ever played in the regular season and he put the team on the back during the biggest game of their season. If the Giants lost they would've been 5-5 and lost another game to the Cowboys in the division, after they defeated the woeful Redskins 7-6. Without Antonio Pierce the Giants lost a big leader, but Manning put the onus on himself and played extremely well.

So for all those people who still doubt Eli, it’s time to stop. The Falcons secondary may have helped him out a little bit, but he made superb throws, where only his receivers can get them. He was 25/39 with 384 passing yards and 3 TD’s and one interception. Without Manning the Giants wouldn’t have won today because they didn’t run the ball like I thought they would. Brandon Jacobs had only 12 carries for 39 yards, but he was taken out of the game in the second half after suffering a leg injury due to a tackle made his enormous thighs wobble.

Without a dominating running game once again, it was up to Manning and he came up huge. He saved the defense from another collapse. If they had lost the defense would’ve gotten all the blame because they clearly were fatigued in the fourth quarter and couldn’t get any pressure on Matt Ryan.

The Giants defense played well in the first half and it looked like their pass rush would dominate. They were attacking Ryan but they clearly ran out of gas and Ryan took advantage of what became another embarrassing performance in the fourth quarter.

The Giants won so their can’t be too many complaints but the defense may want to thank Eli for saving them, and at the same time, they can tell all the Manning detractors to get off his back.