This is Eli Manning’s team, and Eli Manning’s moment. Everybody loves Eli, everybody busted his chops about his “Football on Your Phone” rapper video with his brother and laughed along with him.
The laughter has died inside the Quest Diagnostics Training Center, and a team and a season are dying prematurely with it.
Sunday in Carolina, it was almost as if the Giants’ offensive linemen staged a sit-down strike, almost as if they decided to leave their franchise quarterback twisting in the wind for his audacity to throw seven interceptions in the first two games.
Just imagine how Peyton Manning would have reacted to a beat down like that, seven sacks and more hits than Springsteen.
Eli isn’t Peyton. That is not his style.
But right here and now, it is No More Mr. Nice Guy time.
It is too late in the game for Eli to be feared, but it is not too late to do some critical bidding for Tom Coughlin and get angry.
Bill Parcells taught Phil Simms a valuable lesson once about the hazards of acting too friendly with his offensive linemen.
General manager Jerry Reese was applauded for putting everyone on notice in the sunshine of summer.
It would carry more weight now for Eli Manning to put everyone on notice, because the locker-room countdown to Super Bowl XLVIII — 130 days as of Tuesday — seems like a cruel joke.
“We’ll see in practice if certain guys need to be challenged,” Manning said. “We’ll see how it goes and do whatever I think needs to be done to get guys playing at a high level.”
Just do it!
Until they do, no one is absolved from The Blame Game.
Reese: The offensive line looks old and battered.
Offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride: Quicker throws, quicker in-game adjustments, a little hurry-up, screens, something.
Coughlin: A Churchill quote, a Patton quote, something.
Manning: Enough with the picks. Walk the Talk. Your Super Bowl is Sunday in Kansas City.
In the meantime, they can’t protect the quarterback and they can’t get to the opposing quarterback. Around the Giants, that is a formula for disaster. They can’t run the ball either. All of a sudden,
David Wilson’s fumbling woes seem like a distant memory. Those big butts Reese imported to stop the run? Can any of them possibly replace the offensive linemen who are getting their big butts handed to them?
Who are these imposters?
Where is the fight?
“We need to have that fire,” Mark Herzlich said.
Where is the fire? Where is the passion? Where is the toughness? Where is the pride? What happened to all the talk of making history, of becoming the first team to play in a Super Bowl in its own backyard?
“I did challenge our pride a little bit today,” Coughlin said Monday.
For those Giants who require a refresher course:
Pride is Lawrence Taylor playing with a shoulder harness causing him excruciating pain, willing his depleted team to victory with one arm.
Pride is Mark Bavaro unable to practice all week and then dragging his damaged knees to game day and dragging defenders with him.
Pride is a sneering Harry Carson giving no quarter, no inch at the point of attack.
Pride is Simms lifting weights inside the bowels of Giants Stadium in the dark of winter and becoming Bill Parcells’ battlefield commander.
Pride is Michael Strahan getting after Tom Brady and exhorting everyone around him on the sidelines to believe at the end of Super Bowl XLII.
Pride is Carl Banks stuffing the run.
Pride is Jumbo Elliott bludgeoning Bruce Smith in Super Bowl XXV.
Pride is an old warhorse named Ottis Anderson stiff-arming his way to Super Bowl XXV MVP.
Pride is George Martin keeping Parcells’ locker room together
Pride is Eli clutching up with a Lombardi Trophy on the line.
Pride is a sixty-something head coach coaching the team the way Wellington Mara was certain he one day would.
Pride is looking in the mirror and doing something about what you see.
Pride is representing those who came before you and recognizing what it means to wear the uniform.
Pride is representing the greatest city in the world the right way.
Pride is showing up as a Seal Team 11 in shoulder pads.
This is how Parcells described a Bill Parcells football player for me prior to his Hall of Fame induction:
“Smart … tough … committed … in condition … and the same guy every day. And I probably would say … unselfish would be an important word for me, too.”
He would have loved Eli. He would have wanted him to take the lead here now. No More Mr. Nice Guy. Because let’s face it, the franchise quarterback can’t throw the ball to himself.