Manning’s streak to end as Smith gets start for N.Y. Giants
Benching Eli Manning to see what Geno Smith and a green-as-grass rookie can do instead, is like benching Eli Manning to see what Geno Smith and a green-as-grass rookie can do instead.
Yes, that shocking. That logic-twisted. That head-scratching. That unnecessary. The New York Giants slapped both a question mark and three exclamation points on their grim fairy-tale of a lost season Tuesday when, in a blockbuster newsbreak many believed at first to be a fake Twitter prank, the 2-9 club announced that 14-year starting quarterback Eli Manning has been benched — just so the team’s talent evaluators can better gauge their two backup QBs over the team’s meaningless final five games: Smith, an epic failure with the New York Jets from 2013-16, and rookie Davis Webb, a third-round draft pick (87th overall) who has yet to take a pro snap.
Any NFL observer could save the Giants the time. Smith will flash competence but mostly screw up, while the youngster Davis will prove he’s not yet ready. Ask the Buffalo Bills how poorly a middleround rookie QB can play when rushed into game action.
Manning, the 36-year-old younger brother of superstar QB Peyton Manning (who retired early last year), has started the Giants’ past 210 games in succession, since supplanting Kurt Warner about midway into Manning’s rookie season of 2004.
Manning is one of his iconic franchise’s most accomplished players, likely to become a hall of famer sometime next decade. He led the Giants to a pair of unlikely Super Bowl victories, after the 2007 and 2011 seasons, both times against the heavily favoured New England Patriots. Each time Manning delivered a long completion-for-theages to help snatch victory.
When was the previous time an NFL club benched its multi- Super Bowl-winning quarterback for no great reason? Good question.
Yet Manning could have kept starting. Embattled GM Jerry Reese and head coach Ben McAdoo gave Manning the option of starting the remaining games before giving way to his backups after halftime. Manning declined.
Here’s how he explained that decision, as well as how he was informed of the benching.
“Coach Mac called me in. Told me that we were going to start splitting some time and thought it was best to give Geno the start, and I’ll back him up,” Manning said. “I’ll be a good teammate. I don’t like it, but it’s part of football, you handle it. I didn’t do my job.”
He hasn’t played anything close to terribly this season, which not many teammates can say. Manning has completed 63 per cent of his throws for 14 TDs against seven interceptions.
On being given the chance to keep his consecutive-starts streak alive, Manning said: “I just didn’t think that you start, knowing that you’re going to come out of a game to keep a streak alive, maybe. That’s not what it’s about. It’s not a preseason game where you’re going to play the start to the half, what’s the next week? A quarter? A series? That’s not fair. That’s not fair to me, that’s not fair to Geno, that’s not how you play. You play to win.”
Manning said he didn’t see the benching coming. Nor is it his place to make like the rest of us and try to make sense of it. Was it his hardest day as a Giant? “It’s up there, yeah,” he replied. Manning said he spoke to Reese, but not to either co-owner, John Mara or Steve Tisch.
McAdoo, of course, was grilled at his news conference, especially after saying off the top that “our No. 1 job is still to win football games.”
“We’re confident that we can put a plan together to put Geno in a position to be successful and go win the game,” McAdoo said.
The head coach said the decision was jointly made by him, Reese and ownership. “We have three quarterbacks on the roster,” McAdoo said. “We have two that we have yet to see in significant game action for us, and we want to go take a look at both of those players.”