For a guy with two Super Bowl MVP awards in his cabinet, Eli Manning was rather bland in Sunday’s 24-20 victory over the Raiders.
Manning was 12-of-22 for 140 yards, one touchdown, one interception (his first in three games, but it went for a touchdown). He was sacked three times, and his longest completion was for 25 yards.
But what mattered to Manning was the Giants walking out of MetLife Stadium with a victory, their third straight. One very positive sign for the Giants is they are alive for the playoffs with Manning being less than Eli all season but showing signs of late.
“I’m worried about wins and obviously getting wins,” Manning said. “Things weren’t easy [Sunday], but we were able to put together a couple of good drives and get some points. Obviously, we have to get a little better on third down. … We have to figure out how to execute a little better, especially in the passing game.”
Manning threw one touchdown, could have had two easily. He found Rueben Randle in the right corner of the endzone for a five-yard pass that made it 14-10, Giants. But he missed Victor Cruz — badly — also from the 5-yard line and the Giants settled for a fourth quarter field goal and the 24-20 lead.
“The wind, a few times it got away from me,” Manning said. “That’s what you get sometimes playing here.”
Specifically on the Cruz play, Manning said: “It might have got caught up in the wind a little bit and just died somewhat.”
Might have. Or it might have been simply a pretty bad throw to the right side of the end zone.
“I’m having a nightmare about that one tonight,” Cruz said. “I ran the route the way I was supposed to, I read the coverage properly, it just got thrown a little further out than normal. If it was on me I could have walked in. [But] I wouldn’t read too much into that. That’s just getting the ball thrown to me as opposed to getting thrown out a little bit.”
Manning did throw one other pass that resulted in a touchdown: for Oakland. Just before halftime, he was picked off by Raider Tracy Porter who went 43 yards for the touchdown.
“The guy just undercut it. I didn’t step into the throw like I wanted to and he just read it and made the play,” Manning said.
Manning’s guys were quick to come to his defense.
“He gets mad at himself. He holds himself to a high accountability, as any quarterback should. He likes to come back and do better than he did the play before. We rally behind him, obviously. He’s a resilient guy,” said Cruz, the intended target on the pick six play.
“If you take that interception away, he had a decent day. He controlled the ball. He made the right passes, did the right things, read the coverages perfectly. It’s something we want him to do, something he does,” Cruz added. “That’s the Eli we’re used to.”
Randle echoed those thoughts.
“He did a pretty good job managing us, getting us in and out of the plays,” Randle said. “He did a great job managing the game putting us in good positions to make plays.”
And most importantly, he won.