Different year, same Eli Manning. The Giants quarterback threw for a career-best 510 yards and three touchdowns to rally the Giants (1-1) to another fourth-quarter comeback to defeat Tampa Bay (1-1) 41–34 Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium.
“Second half I thought our guys fought, we were confident we could get going—we were very much still in the game; just had to go down and score a couple touchdowns,” said a modest Manning, according to a report on the team’s website.
Manning, who put himself on the map with a string of clutch performances starting with the Super Bowl run in 2007 and continuing to last season’s encore championship performance, engineered three fourth-quarter touchdown drives Sunday after the Giants trailed 27–16 entering the final quarter. Two of those drives were punctuated with long touchdown throws by the two-time Pro Bowl selection including an 80-yarder to Victor Cruz followed by a 33-yarder to Martellus Bennett that put the Giants up 34–27.
Cruz, who had three drops in last week’s uneven loss to the Cowboys, atoned for his previous performance with 11 catches for 179 yards and that score.
After Josh Freeman connected with Mike Williams for a 41-yard score to tie the game at 34 with just 1:58 remaining, Manning connected with Hakeem Nicks with a 50-yard bomb that put the ball at the Buccaneers’ 11-yard line with just a minute and change remaining.
Nicks, who is only able to practice one day a week because of a foot injury, might have had an even better day than Cruz, with 10 catches for 199 yards and a touchdown. “You can’t say enough about what he was able to do. He goes out one there with one day’s practice and made an awful lot of plays in the game,” said coach Tom Coughlin.
Realizing the Giants could either run the clock down and kick a relatively easy field goal to win or force Tampa Bay to use all of their time outs the Buccaneers, led by former Rutgers coach Greg Schiano, opted to “let” the Giants score on the next play. Alert Giants running back Andre Brown, after running the ball untouched to the two-yard line on the next play though, sniffed out the strategy and downed the ball right there to run more clock. Brown ran it in the next play for the game-winning score.
Brown’s performance, 13 carries for 71 yards and the game-winning touchdown while catching both passes that went his way, may have paved the way for some more playing time. With Ahmad Bradshaw leaving the game in the first half with a neck injury Brown, an undrafted third-year pro from N.C. State—not first-round pick David Wilson—came in and picked up the slack and went 23 yards on his second carry of the game.
Brown did more than just find the holes that the line provided. He protected the ball well, fought hard for yardage, and perhaps most importantly always fell forward gaining more yards as he went down. Could he be in the mix for more time? “I thought he did very well. Now I don’t know what it looks like exactly from a pass-protection standpoint yet. He did catch the ball well, run with the ball, protect the ball,” said Coughlin.
Wilson did get in the game early, and had three carries for six yards, but also had a short pass go right through his hands—one of a number of Giants’ mistakes that dug them into an 11-point halftime deficit. Chief among their miscues were three Eli Manning interceptions, including one right before the half that Tampa Bay cornerback Eric Wright returned 60 yards for a touchdown.
“Just bad decisions. A lot of times a decision made with a bad pass and it leads to a bad result,” said Manning of his early-game picks.
Fortunately for the Giants, Manning makes his best passes when the game’s on the line. He always does.
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