CHARLOTTE—About the only bright side to Eli Manning’s afternoon at Bank of America Stadium Sunday was that he survived with his health intact. That shouldn’t be taken for granted considering the beating he took from the Carolina Panthers defense.
Manning was sacked seven times and hit at least 20 other times en route to a 38-0 loss to Carolina. The Giants quarterback spent most of the day trying without much success to elude a Carolina pass rush that stymied the Giants offense. Manning completed just 12 of 23 passes for 119 yards with one interception. His quarterback rating was 49.0.
“We knew they had a good defensive line and they had guys who could get to the quarterback and get some pressure,” Manning said. “Obviously, they did a good job. So we have to find ways to slow down the pass rush whether that is running the ball with screens or getting the ball out quicker.They won the physical battle.”
The Giants entered the game, hoping to take advantage of an injury-riddled Panthers secondary. But they managed just 18 net yards in the first half and only 150 for the game. Manning’s passing yardage was his lowest total since 2008.
“They didn’t put their secondary out there on an island much and were able to get great pressure with just bringing four guys and that’s tough,” Manning said. “When you can drop seven guys and rush four and get pressure, it’s going to make it hard for any offense to have a successful passing game, and they were able to accomplish that.”
At 0-3, the Giants find themselves struggling to keep their season relevant. They face a tough test Sunday in playing the Chiefs in Kansas City. “We have to have an urgency to get better,” Manning said, “going to Kansas City, another road game (against) a team that is playing good football with a good defense. We just have to worry about getting better and making improvements, and making sure that everybody is doing everything they can to prepare themselves for this game.”
Manning knows it won’t be easy to get back into contention.
“Obviously, we’ve dug ourselves into a little bit of a hole,” he said. “All we can worry about right now is looking at this film, finding out where our mistakes are and where we need to make improvements and how we are going to change things and get back to winning some football games.”