NFL

Reese keeps faith despite Giant sputter

Nearing the midpoint of their season, riding a two-game losing streak and facing a trip to Philadelphia for a tangle with their fierce NFC East rival, it sure appears to be a crossroads moment up ahead for the Giants.

Three players who were supposed to anchor their defense — linebacker Michael Boley, cornerback Aaron Ross and defensive tackle Chris Canty — are getting healthier, but not enough to play this Sunday. It’s a tenuous time around the Giants, but the architect of the roster is keeping calm.

“You have to win the game some kind of way, you have to manufacture some wins if you have to,” GM Jerry Reese yesterday told The Post. “I don’t think we’re in a panic stage. We’re 5-2, we’re No. 1 in our division.

GIANTS BLOG

EAGLES’ WESTBROOK GAME-TIME DECISION

“This is our formula: Win the physical battles, don’t hurt yourself with bad penalties and play as a team. We’ve come up short a little bit the last couple of weeks in that respect. We’ve just got some things we need to clean up.

“I think our football team is still a good football team. It’s not like we’re in last place. We’re in first place in our division. We feel good about where we are, we don’t feel good about how we played the last couple of weeks. We got a great opportunity this weekend to go down to Philadelphia and try to get things straightened out.”

The record shows the Giants have beaten one team (Cowboys) with a winning record and four other teams that are a combined 5-23. When confronted the past two weeks by two NFC powers, the Giants were thrashed in New Orleans and beaten at home by the Cardinals.

This certainly opens the door for discussion as to the legitimacy of the Giants record. It’s a door Reese swings shut.

“I think that’s, in my opinion, media chatter,” Reese said. “It’s the National Football League, it’s men against men. People said Oakland’s struggling and Kansas City’s struggling and Tampa.

“We won those games. We were supposed to win the games, I suppose, according to everybody. Oakland goes out and beats Philadelphia. It’s men against men. There’s no easy games in this league. It’s not junior high or high school. The last couple of weeks, we played a couple of good teams and we came up short. There’s probably a lot of reasons we came up short.”

One of the reasons is the play of Eli Manning, who after five games was an early candidate for MVP honors. Not so in the skid.

“He didn’t play his best game this past weekend or the past couple of weekends,” Reese said. “He’s got a foot issue he’s working through, but that’s no excuse, because he goes out there and plays.

“I wish he was perfect and could play a perfect game every weekend, but that’s not reality. It always stands out when you’re the quarterback and you don’t play well. It looks like, ‘What’s going on?’ He’s come back from tough games before. We expect him to do that again.”

The Eagles at last week’s trading deadline worked a deal with the Rams for linebacker Will Witherspoon, and all he did in his first game was return a deflected pass for a touchdown this past Monday night in Washington.

The season-ending loss of Kenny Phillips following knee surgery leaves the Giants short at safety, and Reese said, “Needless to say, when he got hurt, we investigated some situations, and things didn’t materialize or it didn’t make sense for us.”

The Giants did pick up Aaron Rouse off waivers from the Packers, but for now C.C. Brown stays put as Phillips’ replacement.

“I don’t think the safeties have played awful,” Reese said. “It sounds like everybody’s giving C.C. Brown a hard time. He’s come in and really done an admirable job for us.”

paul.schwartz@nypost.com