NFL

Eli on spot for Giants faithful

DEAR ELI:

As members of Giants Nation, we never thought we’d ask this of you, kid. Never thought we’d have to send out an S.O.S. to you. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

So please, Save Our Season.

Because you’re the only one left who can.

“I gotta do my job, but we can save the season,” you told The Post yesterday. “We gotta do it as a team to save the season.”

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Phil Simms always had a defense he could depend on. And you had one two years ago, when all we needed was you to step up and take us to the Promised Land, and you did. Boy, you sure did.

But Steve Spagnuolo is gone, and Michael Strahan is gone, and so is that defense. We looked it up: One year before Lawrence Taylor arrived, he defense surrendered 425 points. Sixteen years after LT retired, the defense has yielded 330 points with three games left. Fuhgeddaboudit. Wellington Mara, God bless him, must be slamming his leather helmet against heaven’s Big Blue locker room wall.

Look, we’ve had our issues with you. You weren’t Peyton. Then you weren’t Big Ben either. Tiki Barber called you out on your attempts at being a leader. Your shoulders would slump after an interception, and we didn’t like that. Then you won us our third Super Bowl, and for that we always will be grateful. Then you couldn’t handle the wind in the playoffs last year. We’ll give you a mulligan on that, kid. You’re the least of our problems now.

As a matter of fact, you are The Pride of the Giants right now. Once we stopped cursing out the defense — probably about an hour ago — it occurred to us that that really wasn’t Eli Manning against the Eagles. That was Peyton Manning!

We know you don’t like being compared with your big brother. We know that you are not your big brother. He’s in a league of his own. But over these last three games, if we are going to be in the playoffs for the fifth straight time, we are asking you to be Peyton Manning.

“We just gotta have the attitude we just gotta go out there and play great,” you said yesterday. “Let’s play football, let’s have some fun and let’s enjoy this experience.”

Let’s have you play great, and maybe we’ll enjoy this experience. Eli, you shouldn’t have to throw for 391 yards and three touchdowns again to beat the Redskins on Monday night at FedEx Field or the Panthers on Dec. 27 at Giants Stadium or the Vikings in the Jan. 3 regular-season finale at the Metrodome. But the way Bill Sheridan’s defense rushes the passer, the way it covers receivers, the way it communicates, the way it melts down in the fourth quarter, who the hell knows what coach Tom Coughlin will need from you.

“I think he’s definitely taken more of a leadership role, in the huddle,” Steve Smith said of you. “Before the series, he’ll just say, ‘Let’s go,’ getting everybody hyped up. I’ve never heard him do that the past few years.”

Eli, you tried to carry your team against an Eagles defense that had owned you, but your own sad-sack defense would not let you. You have been hot and cold and now our only playoff hope is that you stay hot, the way you did over the final four games of that magical 2007 championship season.

Who else can we ask? Hell, it isn’t as if you can look to Brandon Jacobs and the running game for support.

The way we figure it, if you can get to 4,000 yards before our sad-sack defense allows 400 points, we can make what Bill Parcells used to call The Tournament. And imagine if you didn’t have that foot and heel problem, Eli!

It’s Pass-Fail for the 2009 New York Football Giants, Eli.

Thank you,

Giants Nation

steve.serby@nypost.com