Peyton Manning is in Indianapolis today, trying to stay perfect against the Jets for as long as he will be allowed to play, and maybe make history. Eli Manning is at Giants Stadium for the last time, trying to keep his team alive for a wild-card playoff berth.
And Giants fans saying goodbye to Giants Stadium want the ball, and the season, in his hands.
On this nostalgic, tension-filled, anxiety-wracked, scoreboard-watching day, he isn’t The Other Manning.
He is The Mann.
Giants fans have long come to grips with the fact that their quarterback will never be Perfect Peyton.
But with the stakes so high now, they are asking him to be The Perfect 10.
Giants fans cannot possibly trust the defense, not after one dominating performance against Jason Campbell.
In Eli They Trust.
It took a while, yet not as long as it took Phil Simms before he persevered and wore the naysayers out.
Manning will be pitching today against Matt Moore, which is the football equivalent of CC Sabathia against Oliver Perez.
It is the singular reason why the Giants will beat the Panthers today and send Giants Stadium out in style.
“I think he has been playing great football,” offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said. “I wouldn’t say the last two weeks, I think really the last six or seven weeks, with the exception of the one half against Denver, where offensively we didn’t perform very well at all. Really they have been playing very well and of course, it isn’t always him, but certainly he is always an integral part of it.
“So for us to have been playing as well as we have been playing, you have to give a lot of credit to him. He is doing a great job. . . . The thing he is judged on is the throws or the accuracy of the throws and the completion percentage, etc. But so much we ask and demand of that position in our system is that he can set up the run game. The run game has been getting steadily better. That he set up the protections, which obviously helps him, but he gives us the chance to have the success that we have had. So he has played well really for a long time. We have been very pleased with the way he is performing.”
Eli Manning, remember, wanted to play in Giants Stadium, for Giants fans.
Who asked him to deliver a third championship.
Check.
Who asked him to become the leader of their team.
Check.
Who asked him to be at his best in the fourth quarter.
Check.
Who asked him to speed up the growth process of his young receivers.
Check.
Who have asked him to show up every Sunday, even with a stress reaction in his right foot.
Check.
Tom Curry walks out to the middle of Giants Stadium for the coin toss today, walks out there with 50 years of memories from Yankee Stadium to now, from The Fumble to Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms to now and Eli Manning, walks out there with his 26-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter representing three generations of Giants fans.
Curry started going to the games with his late grandfather, Jack Maher Sr., in 1958, when he was 6 years old, and since Giants Stadium opened in 1976, has been in Section 226, Row 8, Seats 1, 2, 3 and 4.
“You suffered with them, you cried with them, you laughed and you won with them,” Curry said. “It was just like a family affair.”
This is what Curry, basketball coach and athletic director at Leonia (N.J.) High School, would say if asked to give a pep talk today to the 2009 Giants.
“I’d tell ’em about all the great players who played on this field,” Curry said. “How many times the fans stuck it out in the cold and the heat.
“It’s time to step up and make this season memorable.”
Now he mentioned Michael Strahan and LT and Simms and said: “Step up and play like that for a day and make us proud to be Giant fans — which we always are.”
The quarterbacks Tom Curry has watched pass through Giants Stadium read as follows: Craig Morton, Joe Pisarcik, Scott Brunner, Phil Simms, Jeff Hostetler, Dave Brown, Kent Graham, Danny Kanell, Kerry Collins, Kurt Warner, Eli Manning.
The very first time Giants fans saw Manning at Giants Stadium came at the 2004 draft day party, when he stood on a stage in one end zone and 3,000 of them chanted his name and roared when he removed his suit and donned the new No. 10 blue jersey bearing his name.
“I like Eli,” Tom Curry said. “I think he’s a helluva quarterback.”
Who will get this game for all Giants fans and keep their season alive on the day when Thanks For the Memories goes both ways.
steve.serby@nypost.com