The shine from those two Super Bowl MVP trophies Eli Manning owns has been slightly dulled by his dismal performance in a season that, in the end, he will turn out to be as big a reason as any the Giants will watch the playoffs from home.
This follows a 2012 season when Manning failed to lead the Giants into the postseason, so that will make him 0-for-2 making the playoffs since the Giants won Super Bowl XLVI and it will mark the fourth time in the last five seasons the Giants have missed the playoffs.
Five games remain in this disappointing Giants season, beginning with Sunday night’s suddenly insignificant NFC East game against the Redskins, and you wonder if there is anything Manning can do — outside of padding his poor stats — to restore himself as one of the league’s elite quarterbacks, which is a club he belonged to after the team’s second Super Bowl victory in five years.
All of the Giants’ troubles on offense this season, of course, are not Manning’s fault. The protection from an offensive line that has had injury issues has struggled at times and the running game, also hurt by injuries, has scuffled. But if Manning is going to remain a member of that “elite’’ club, these are things he must overcome the way the rest of those who belong to that exclusive club do.
–Tom Brady is in his 13th season as the starter in New England and only twice in that span have the Patriots failed to make the playoffs — and one of those seasons he was injured in the season-opener. They are a virtual lock to make it again this season.
–Peyton Manning started in Indianapolis for 13 years and only twice in that span did the Colts fail to make it to the playoffs — the first of which was his rookie year. Manning is now en route to leading the Broncos to the postseason for the second consecutive year.
–Drew Brees is in his eighth season as the starter in New Orleans and is about to lead the Saints to their fifth postseason.
– Aaron Rodgers, who’s currently injured, is in his sixth season as the starter in Green Bay and has led the Packers to the playoffs in four of his first five years there.
Even the best of the best teams have down years, but those teams somehow persevere and make it the playoffs more often than not, and they do it because they have Brady, Manning, Brees or Rodgers quarterbacking them.
Manning has been unable to rise above that the way the others have, and this season is Exhibit A.
Asked by The Post on Wednesday if it is an “unfair burden’’ placed on the top quarterbacks they must be able to carry their teams to greater heights when those around them are struggling, he said, “You try to go out there and make plays and do your job and hopefully that’s good enough to get wins, but you need guys around you to play well and step up, too.
“It is a team game, but you kind of hope that the quarterback position can make up for some plays as well, and when there are plays there he’ll step up and make the clutch ones.’’
Left unsaid was the fact Manning has simply not made enough of those plays to “make up’’ for breakdowns around him.
This is not to say Manning is finished or it’s time for the Giants to seek his replacement in April’s draft. Manning is going to be the Giants quarterback for years to come, barring major injury. This, too, is not to take away the great things he has accomplished — most notably those two Super Bowl MVPs.
But even a casual cynic can be left to wonder if David Tyree had not made the miraculous helmet catch of that Manning heave in the first Super Bowl win and Mario Manningham had not made the acrobatic catch along the sideline in the second Super Bowl win whether Manning might be considered a middle-of-the-pack quarterback.
The damage to this season has already been done.
A Giants playoff berth is as likely as Manning rushing for more yards than he passes for the rest of this season, but he does have five games to restore himself as one of the league’s better quarterbacks and quiet whatever clamoring is certain to come from angry Giants fans once the season does reach its merciful end.