East Rutherford, NJ- The subject line for this article shouldn’t be weird or surprise anyone. At 1-7 as the saying goes, expect the unexpected due to desperation of a win.
Eli Manning has had his struggles over the last two seasons which includes holding a 4-19 record as the started for New York (Not counting the loss against Oakland last season where he did not play). The difference between last seasons debacle and the current one, Eli is no longer the sympathetic figure in the equation.
Though his stats have been solid this season at points, the offense just does not seem to be clicking with him on the field as it has in past years. The lack of pointing points of the board has been an issues the latter part of the 2016 season. The team has been under the 20 point mark in five of the eight games this season
“I think it’s just scoring more points in the red zone.” Manning stated at media session on Thursday. “I feel like we’re moving the ball well. I feel like we’ve made improvements between the first four games, and the second four games. Getting yards and moving the ball, and getting down there, and being a little bit more explosive. Now, we need to translate that into more touchdowns.”
Knowing the struggles both the team and his QB are having, Head Coach Pat Shurmer is not committing to manning past this week’s Monday Night Football game against the 49ers. ” He is starting Monday. You roll with it how you want, with the idea that he’s going to get us on a run here and there will be no decisions to be made. In other words, part of the conversation was, we trust you, we want to work with you, and we trust the fact that you’re going to get in there and help us win football games.”
Eli being Eli reacted the way you would want him to in that situation, with class and being a team player. “You worry about this week. We got the 49ers. I got a job to do, and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability.”
These comments are coming of the bye week while in this time frame Coach and Eli communicated to discuss the first part of the season. “I spoke to Eli a couple times this weekend and I explained to Eli that he’s going to start Monday. I also explained to Eli that everybody needs to play better and as we go through this, it’s important that we’re not ‘almost’ in these games, we do what we have to do to get it over the top and win football games. We’ll just take it from there. But I spoke to the team about that, and then I also spoke to Eli about that specifically.”
Manning confirmed the conversations. When pressed at the media session about the conversation Eli simplified it. “Just get ready for the second half. Go play well. We need to improve. Everybody needs to improve and get going, but I do feel like we’re close. We just got to score some more points.”
We all know that this Giants team has talented pieces but have to find away to put the whole thing together. Manning has been struggling and looking like a 38 year old QB. The decisions by management will be made at the end of the season to on what to do on the $23 million dollar contract Mannings contract.
Giants travel to San Fran for Monday Night Football on Sunday for Monday Night Football.
