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They give you one wish at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and a 15-year-old boy from Barre, Vt., wanted to meet his New York Football Giants and spend one Sunday night at MetLife Stadium with them against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
“Go out there and play like you’re world champs,” Adam Merchant told his team at practice Friday.
Chris Snee saw the boy, his stomach ravaged with cancer, on the sidelines before the game, and shook his hand, and promised him:
“We’re going to play like champions.”
Then Snee said: “He kind of smiled at me, and I ran in the locker room.”
Giants 38, Packers 10.
“It was amazing,” the boy said.
He was seated in the locker room next to Justin Tuck, wearing a blue wool Giants cap and a No. 90.
“It was a dream come true,” the boy said.
Dream come true watching Eli Manning show up as the two-time Super Bowl MVP.
“You could really feel the inspiration that he gave us, and we didn’t forget it man, and I think it really was a catalyst to help us play inspired football tonight,” Victor Cruz said.
“This kid, of all the places he wanted to go for his wish, he wanted to come to watch us practice and to come to this game,” Snee said. “When he said, ‘Play like champions,’ I think we all stopped and thought about it. … We are the champions, and we need to play like that.”
That was no tired arm on Manning and that was no tired team they might have called the Smackers last nightat MetLife Stadium.
Quarterback slump over.
Woevember over.
Second-half swoon over.
By the time it was all over, Manning had passed Phil Simms atop the alltime Giants quarterback chart with his 200th career touchdown pass.
But more importantly, he won another showdown with Rodgers and helped make a wish come true for a lifelong Giants fan who has been dealt a terrible hand.
“It was good to see his arm come back alive and be able to hit us on some crucial plays,” Cruz said.
Manning had started the night with 99 straight throws without a touchdown pass, and the drought reached 107 before it ended with a 16-yard strike to rookie Rueben Randle.
Manning didn’t have to worry about Clay Matthews or Charles Woodson, the Packers’ defensive leaders both out with injuries.
Rodgers (five sacks) had to worry about Corey Webster and Osi Umenyiora (strip sack) and Jason Pierre-Paul (fumble recovery) and all those Big Blue champions who played like champions.
Manning (three touchdowns, no interceptions) didn’t even need a healthy Hakeem Nicks this time.
Until he needed him to wrest the club record from Simms, whose career stretched from 1979-1993. Manning has done this 11 games into his ninth season. Different era, different philosophy and all that. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s the best Giants quarterback of all time, even if Simms has removed him from the elite pedestal.
“Anytime you’re mentioned with Phil Simms and Charlie Conerly (now third in Giants history) and some of those quarterbacks, it’s an honor,” Manning said.
It was already 31-10 when Manning fired over the middle for Nicks, who caught the missile at the 2, rolled on top of Davon House, and stretched over his shoulder and extended the ball over the plane of the goal line with his massive right hand. Tom Coughlin successfully challenged the officials’ ruling he was down at the 1.
Play like a champion running back: Ahmad Bradshaw sparked the opening touchdown drive with a 59-yard screen catch-and-run, and it was Bradshaw whose 13-yard TD romp followed Jason Pierre-Paul’s fumble recovery of an Umenyiora strip sack of Rodgers.
Play like a champion quarterback: Third-and-7 at the Lombardi 34. Manning dropped back. Saw an opening wider than the gap between Michael Strahan’s front teeth. Channeled his inner Tim Tebow, and lowered his left shoulder into Tramon Williams at the end of his 13-yard gain.
“It sparked our sideline, that’s for sure,” Coughlin said. “It sent a message to the rest of our team as well that whatever you have to do to succeed, do it.”
He threw a slant behind Nicks. That made 107 passes without a touchdown for Manning. There wouldn’t be a 108th. Manning lofted a rainbow in the back of the end zone for Randle, past House and M.D. Jennings, and it was Giants 14, Packers 7. It was 24-7 when Manning found Cruz with a 9-yard touchdown bullet.
Wish granted.
“He said, ‘Go show everybody you’re the world champions, and why you’re the world champions, and play that way,’ ” Manning said. “I think it got everybody fired up, and we came out and played the way that we know we can.”