Monday Morning Manning: Week 9
By: Marco Imperati
It wasn’t always pretty, however, a win’s a win. The giants traveled to humid Tampa Bay and were able to finally finish out a game and get a win to bring their record to 5-4. It was refreshing to see the Giants use the clock to their advantage at the end of the game and run the ball for chunks at a time.
Quarterback Eli Manning finished the game with a stat line of 26-40, 213 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. In the process, Eli passed Phil Simms for the most regular season wins in franchise history (96).
The interceptions came at interesting times for Eli and the offense. The first pick was the first throw of the game. It was a bad pass that Odell Beckham Jr. couldn’t adjust to and it went off his right hand. The second pick came in the second half as the Giants were moving down the field and the Giants desperately needed to stay on the field.
One area that I was really focused on was the offensive line. They were able to keep Eli upright pretty much all night and played as close to mistake free football as you could while the Buccaneers constantly beat themselves with penalties and dropped passes.
I was also pleased to see OBJ targeted 17 times in the game. It has been brought up many times to Ben McAdoo over the last several weeks that Beckham has gone quiet in the second half of games. Manning was looking his way all night.
Up next: The Giants will return home after two straight weeks on the road. They will return and welcome an old friend in the New England Patriots. The Patriots are undefeated at 8-0 and have played a great brand of football this year, as most would expect. Brady, Belichick, Gronkowski, and company will be looking to score, score, score on the Giants and stomp out a few ghosts from the past (XLII, XLVI).