Eli Manning Must Deliver More Than One-Liners to Get the Giants Past the Packers

It’s time to talk about how poorly Eli Manning has played this year and what the Giants need to do about it if they want to beat the Packers and advance in the playoffs. 

Before we begin, let’s acknowledge that criticizing Manning is a literary subgenre with a history almost as long and rich as the Elizabethan sonnet. Some Manning arguments, pro and con, are more than a decade old.

Over five years of “elite” debates have resulted in a hung jury. Everyone knows he’s not Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady or his own brother. Everyone also knows he’s not Brock Osweiler.

It also goes without saying that the Giants have a pair of awful pass protectors at the tackle positions and that their running game sometimes appears to consist solely of shotgun inside zones for three yards. Neither of these things helps a quarterback.

Finally, we don’t need to dwell on the Timberlands-on-the-poop-deck wide receiver party-boat photo from Sunday, nor Manning’s news conference zingers in response. Yes, Manning found a funny way to defuse a silly controversy. Great stuff. But we’ve milked that whole affair for much more than it’s worth already.

Now that the boilerplate conversations are out of the way, let’s get to the meat. Manning’s vital stats (yards, yards per attempt, touchdown rate, interception rate) are all down from recent years, and he never posted Brady-Rodgers vitals in the first place.

The New York offense hasn’t cracked 20 points in five weeks. Manning has made wild throws and some mind-bending decisions in games that mattered, including his three-interception train wreck against the Eagles two weeks ago, highlighted by a pick-six to the double-covered Will Tye that would fit perfectly into the Blake Bortles blooper reel.

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Manning went 18-of-35 for just 199 yards and one late-game, back-of-the-end-zone miracle touchdown to Odell Beckham Jr. against Green Bay in Week 5. That game was full of blatant misfires, including an overthrow to a wide-open Beckham on a deep corner route.

Independent of the protection and running game, Manning hasn’t been a playoff-caliber quarterback for most of the season. The Giants need to do something about that, fast. Based on some film study and a dive into the statistics in the Football Outsiders database, here are some things they should try.

Scrap the OBJ Bombs

Manning-to-Beckham bombs sound like a great idea in theory. But against real-life opponents, Beckham brings both his defender and a deep safety with him on every vertical route, forcing Manning to attempt a pinpoint pass into a tight window that rarely finds its target.

As the table shows, Manning has been much more effective throwing deep (25-plus yards) to Sterling Shepard and Victor Cruz than to Beckham. Generally, the coverage is looser and the margin for error a little greater on those passes.

Unless the Packers or some later opponent falls asleep and leaves Beckham isolated in one-on-one coverage against a cornerback who cannot handle him, Manning should look elsewhere on his deep passes. But no playoff team is going to fall asleep and give Beckham many of those opportunities.

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