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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Some of it comes off the field. This time, it was back at the team hotel, maybe four hours before the Giants would face the Carolina Panthers a few blocks away, at Bank of America Stadium. The walk-through was over. The assignments were distributed. The preparation was over.
Now it was time for Eli Manning to offer a message.
“We have playmakers on that field,” he said. “We have guys in this room who can get this done tonight.”
The Giants were banged up and bloodied. They were missing their starting running back, two receivers, a stalwart on the offensive line. The Panthers are telegenic darlings with their exciting young quarterback, and they had hammered the Saints on this very field just four days earlier. You could’ve built one hell of a case against the Giants.
And offset that with one enduring truth: If Eli Manning isn’t the very best quarterback in the league, he is certainly its finest advocate. Some of it comes off the field. Most of it happens on the field. Most of it is a quarterback who doesn’t ever seem bothered by who’s in and who’s out, by the transient nature of the game.
“He’s always going to do the right thing,” Ramses Barden said. “So it’s up to you to do the right thing. Because if you do, he’s going to get you the ball. He’s going to get you catches, and yards, and touchdowns. He’s going to find you. And he’ll make you a professional receiver.”
Manning was 27-for-35 for 288 yards and a touchdown in this 36-7 thrashing of the Panthers in front of 73,951 folks, more than a few of them invaders from Gotham. Barden, from deep on the depth chart, was good for nine of those catches and 138 of those yards, and afterward the only thing that surprised him was how the night seemed to surprise everyone else.
“We have guys who expect to perform when it’s their turn,” Tom Coughlin said.
Manning is the reason for that. It never seems to matter the physical state of the offense: At this point in his career, it is going to hum at a premium level no matter who else lines up alongside him. A year ago, he lost Kevin Boss and Steve Smith and so he simply started throwing balls to Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks instead.
Nicks got hurt last week? Domenik Hixon? Ahmad Bradshaw?
Come on down, Ramses Barden. Come on down, Andre Brown and Rueben Randle. Get ready to stay busy, Martellus Bennett. It’s your turn. It’s your time.
He’s going to find you.
“He provides the confidence for those guys when their opportunities come,” Coughlin said.
By building them up after the walk-through. By throwing their way during games, and drilling them in the hands and the numbers, his actions screaming louder than his voice ever will: Who wants to make the next play?
“We’re well-informed, well-coached, well-prepared,” Manning said. “We should expect to play well.”
During this remarkable phase of Manning’s career it is almost impossible not to conjure the famous words of Bum Phillips, talking about the great Paul “Bear” Bryant: “He can take his’n and beat your’n, and take your’n and beat his’n.”
In Manning’s case? He can take his’n backups and take your’n starters to the woodshed. Playmakers come. Playmakers go. There is one constant. He wears No. 10.
Brett Favre was like this in his prime. Receivers would appear in Green Bay and were touched by the hand of Favre and were much better than they ever were before. Or would be again.
Was that an accident? A coincidence?
There used to be a joke in baseball about how lucky Bob Gibson was: Whenever he pitched, the other team’s hitters always seemed to have a bad day. People keep waiting for Manning to stop torching defenses, keep waiting for secondaries to stop having bad games when he’s aiming their way.
Funny thing, though: That doesn’t happen so much. Doesn’t stop flummoxed coaches like Carolina’s Ron Rivera to stammer and stutter about needing to “challenge” Manning more, stop being so “soft” in coverage. Maybe next time.
Maybe next week. Or maybe we’re just watching what happens when a quarterback at the peak of his powers throws the wealth around. To his’n starters. And his’n substitutes, too.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com