An ending to what could have been the biggest trade blunder in the history of the New York Giants nearly came crashing down on Sunday as the Giants trailed the Bears 16 - 7 with less than 7 minutes to go.
Giants QB Eli Manning has struggled for the better of the last 6 quarters he has played. His timing has been off and his decisions have been atrocious at best. Fast forward to Sunday's game against the Chicago Bears and you would have hoped young Eli would work himself out of the slump he was in.
For the first 3 and half quarters Eli Manning looked more like the remnants of Dave Brown, an offense that could not score, while the defense doing everything they could to keep the team in the game.
Throwing two bad interceptions, including one in the red zone, and fumbling the ball away when no one even hit him, Eli Manning's QB career, the Giants playoff lives and Tom Coughlin's future all laid in the balance of mistakes that were now magnified. As Joe Buck said during the broadcast, with each passing second and the Giants staring down defeat, the NY Media and the fans were licking their chops to scream at Giants ownership, that it might be time for a change.
Now in most cities, (even had they lost the game, would still be the #5 seed in the playoffs), the media frenzy, would not be this great. However, this is New York, where a guy can hit 50 home runs and the fans can't get him out of town fast enough.
With all of that in the balance. And all of the pressure beating down on his shoulders, Eli simply drove down the field, over 70 yards two times to score two touchdowns and now all of that bad play and all of those "oh no, here we go again emotions" are swept under the rug, at least for one more week.
In the final 7 minutes of the game, it was the Eli Manning that we all saw against Denver a few years back, and the Eli that we had all hoped the Giants mortgaged their future for. And it is the complete package of Eli Manning that frustrates Giants fans everywhere, because you just don't know which one will show up.
In week 1 against Dallas, he looked like a big time QB ready to step up this year. Then last week against Minnesota he looked like one of the worse QBs in history. No one can quite understand why he does his Jekyl and Hyde routine on a week to week basis, but we can all agree, we need to see more of what we saw in the final 7 minutes against the Bears.
One thing is for sure, the kid rose up in a big time situation, with a lot of people's jobs on the line. How did he respond? All he did was drive twice down the length of the field, and win the game.
By: Michael C. Podlesny
About the Author:
Michael C. Podlesny is the co-host of the Big Blue Review, a weekly podcast featuring the latest news on The New York Giants. The podcast can be downloaded from Michael's blog at [http://BigBlueReviewpodcast.Blogspot.com]
