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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Someone told Eli Manning it had been 42 days since the Giants had won a game.
“It has felt like it, too,” he said.
Six weeks is an eternity in the NFL. It is just long enough for one’s confidence to erode. Just long enough to get the feeling that the season is sinking away.
Manning and the Giants took the field against the Falcons at the Meadowlands Sunday needing to do something they hadn’t done in 42 days – win a game. They needed to win for their own mental health. They needed to win to have any hope of making the playoffs. They needed to win to salvage the season.
The Giants had to work overtime, but they got the job done, beating the Falcons, 34-31, in OT. They did it on the strength of Manning throwing for 384 yards and three TDs (with one interception). It was the first time in his career that Manning threw for over 300 yards at Giants Stadium.
“I hope to get a few more,” Manning said. “It’s definitely a game that I’ll remember for a while. Hopefully this will keep us going, get us going on a little rally.”
Manning couldn’t have picked a more appropriate time to have such a superb game. The Giants had hit a four-game slide and it looked like their season was heading over a cliff.
It is not overstating matters to say that a loss to the Falcons would have doomed the Giants’ playoff hopes. After suffering a crisis of confidence during their losing streak, they needed Manning to step up and be the man, to be the kind of leader that could push the team forward.
He did that against the Falcons yesterday. Now the Giants will need him to light it up for the next six games, beginning against Denver on Thanksgiving evening after a short week of work.
The Giants hadn’t seen this version of Manning in six weeks. This is the Manning who led the Giants past the Patriots in the Super Bowl two years ago – the quarterback who is poised under pressure, who always seems to be smart with the ball, who always seems to make the right decisions about what to do.
The last few weeks it seemed Manning was running for his life half the time he took the snap from center, making you wonder whether the offensive line had slipped. Part of his problems may have been physical. He injured his foot during a game against Kansas City in Week 4 and that may have hampered him, altered his throwing motion, affected his timing. Who knows? The guy was operating on a bad wheel.
The week after he hurt his foot the Giants beat the Raiders (Oct. 11). After that they didn’t win again until yesterday.
The Giants had a bye week to step back from everything and reflect. Tom Coughlin said everyone had been doing a lot of soul-searching the last two weeks, but even more so during the bye week.
A lot of players said they had the best week of practice they have had this year heading into the game. Manning said he pulled all the receivers together on Friday and they viewed 20 cutups of film on the Falcons’ defense. He said it isn’t something that they customarily do, but he did it because Atlanta is not a team the Giants are too familiar with.
It worked because Manning and his receivers sliced up the Atlanta defense. On the Giants’ last touchdown drive, in the fourth quarter, Manning completed big third-down passes to receiver Mario Manningham (23 yards on third-and-1 at the Atlanta 46) and tight end Kevin Boss (18 yards on a third-and-4 at the 21) before hitting Madison Hedgecock on a 3-yard pass for the score.
“When he is playing with that kind of confidence, the whole team really rides right along with that confidence,” Coughlin said.
Manning was locked in so much that there was no doubt that he would be able to lead the team down the field for the game-winner in overtime. It was just a matter of whether the Giants would win the coin toss. They did when Atlanta called tails and it came up heads. His 29-yard pass to Manningham put the Giants in range for Lawrence Tynes to kick the winner.
Tackle David Diehl called Manning’s performance “awesome.”
“He did a tremendous job today of identifying blitzes, switching plays, making alerts,” Diehl said. “The best thing is that he’s not satisfied. He’s going to do whatever it takes to do this week to get even better, to make sure he’s ready to go against Denver because it’s going to take an even better fight from us and better football. It’s going to take that all season.”
Tim Smith: tsmith@nydailynews.com
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