He said he’s already doing football drills and even took about half of the practice reps on Monday. Manning, just one month removed from surgery on his left ankle, is participating in the program, too. They have not been competitive.Manning will get to work quickly with his newest target, since Beckham arrived in New Jersey with the other Giants rookies to join the offseason workout program on Monday morning. Now they have lost 10 of their last 13 games, seven of them by double digits. The Giants were 6-2 at the halfway point last season. All of us have to step up and take some of that pressure off of him.” He’s trying to put all this on his shoulders. Justin Tuck, who has won two championships with Manning, said, “I agree with Coach. “Keep him comfortable, keep him upright, he’s the best quarterback in the NFL,” guard David Diehl said. The interceptions can suck the energy out of a team, but Manning’s teammates believe in him. But the pressure is obviously getting to Manning as he too often is trying to make plays that he ran in the backyard with Archie, Peyton and Cooper. These are lessons he learned as a rookie. Remember, he had two last-minute drives to beat the Patriots in two Super Bowls. Manning has been around too long to still be saying these things. You can’t afford to have any interceptions back there and put our defense in a bind.” He admitted that on the pass to Cruz, “with guys grabbing me,” that he needs to “tuck that one away or throw it in the ground. Is Manning pressing? “Well, you’re trying to make plays and you’re trying to win,” he said. Manning went for the trifecta when he was picked off on the Giants’ next series in what had quickly became garbage time. This time, it took four plays before Foles completed a five-yard TD pass to DeSean Jackson to make it 36-21. He stiff-armed Cox and threw to Cruz, but cornerback Brandon Boykin won a tug-of-war with Cruz at the Giants 38 and replay upheld the interception. On the third play of the Giants next possession, Manning was running to his right and was being chased by 300-pound defensive end Fletcher Cox. Tom Coughin says Eli Manning is ‘way, way too good a player’ to have these interceptions. Next play, of course, backup quarterback Nick Foles hits tight end Brent Celek for a touchdown. It’s just unfortunate that it gets tipped up and intercepted.” I’ve got to be smarter and if I feel pressure, I can’t throw the ball in there. “It came out of my hand funny and the offensive lineman was kind of fighting for it, and then the hit to the helmet, but that’s on me. “I don’t know exactly how it happened,” said Manning, who has 12 interceptions this season. It was the definition of a desperate quarterback trying to make a play for a desperate team. Instead, it appeared Trent Cole hand’s swiped Manning’s helmet - no penalty was called - and then Manning’s pass bounced off the helmet of center Jim Cordle and was intercepted by linebacker Mychal Kendricks, who returned it 18 yards to the Giants 25. On a first-and-20 from their 41, Manning stepped up and was surrounded by Eagles. Manning tossed two third-quarter touchdowns to Rueben Randle to give the Giants a 21-19 lead and they trailed 22-21 when they got the ball on their own 20 with 13:07 left in the game. “He’s way, way too good a player to have these kinds of things happen.” “I just grabbed him a moment in the locker room,” Coughlin said. “Two of them were just almost unbelievable.”Ĭoughlin, who often has done his best work when times were most hopeless, has been unable to come up with answers to solve the riddle of the flawed roster handed to him by GM Jerry Reese and work his way around the lack of a running game and shutdown defense.Įven Eli Manning can’t believe his three-interception performance Sunday.Ĭoughlin made a point of talking to Manning after the game. “It all comes down to the interceptions,” Coughlin said. They ultimately sabotaged the Giants’ chances of avoiding their first 0-5 start in a non-strike year since 1979. It was clearly painful for Coughlin to criticize Manning - they’ve been together for 10 years - when he said his three interceptions, all in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 36-21 loss, and his two intentional grounding penalties, were demoralizing. Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning will forever have the two Super Bowl trophies they won together, securing their place in team history, but now even Coughlin is so fed up with Manning’s interceptions that he not-so-subtly blamed him for the dreadful loss to the Eagles, which effectively ends the Giants’ season.
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