FUTURE IS NOW FOR JETS, GIANTS
8-PAGE NFL DRAFT PREVIEW
Don’t try telling Eli Manning he’s old.
A day after Pat Shurmur called the Giants quarterback the “fittest 37-year-old I’ve seen,” Manning was asked if that felt like a reminder he is climbing up the ladder in age.
“Thirty-seven is not old,” he said with a grin. “I think 37 is young, so it’s all perspective.”
However they want to frame it, 37 is, in fact, old — for football. Manning enters the 2018 season as the third-oldest starting quarterback in the league behind Tom Brady and Drew Brees.
His age has become a focal point of the future of this franchise and a major reason why Thursday’s NFL Draft is so significant as fans wait to see if the Giants will indeed draft his successor with the No. 2 overall pick.
Yet the Giants appear to be putting lots of faith in Manning, who looked a little sharper in Wednesday’s voluntary mini-camp practice indoors than on Tuesday when he was air-mailing receivers left and right.
“This guy’s a pro,” Shurmur said. “You only have to run a play or two and he gets the drill calibrated and he gets his feet right and he makes the throw. I quickly, after being with him one day on the field, see why he’s been so successful for so long. He’s a pro. And I admired what he did yesterday in the first time out.”
Manning is adjusting to a new offense for the second time in five years after spending his first 10 years in the same system under offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride and head coach Tom Coughlin.
The Giants quarterback said it is a combination of things he already knows, so it is not as drastic as the last change, but he did acknowledge there are some new features he still needs to learn under Shurmur and offensive coordinator Mike Shula’s offense.
Manning also spent the offseason analyzing film of himself and recognized he needs to improve on his footwork, something that will be key, especially if the Giants consider installing run-pass options into the playbook — something that helped Nick Foles thrive with the Eagles last season.
“Most of the work is on just getting my feet moving fast,” he said. “Just keep my fast twitch movements in line with where they need to be. As you get older, those can decrease, so just work hard on working on my fast twitch movements.”
Of course, the concern about Manning’s age and the future of the Giants could be eased if Davis Webb proves he is worthy of being
the successor.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” Webb said prior to practice. “All I’ve got to do is show what I’ve got and that’s up to them. I try to do the best I can in the meeting rooms, the weight workouts, the practices especially. Just kind of show what I have and let them make a decision.”
Webb certainly showed what he had at times on Wednesday, throwing four touchdown passes (one on a screen) during red zone drills.
GM Dave Gettleman said last week that there is not anything Webb can really do to change the top of their draft board, though, but Webb is on board with whatever the Giants decide.
“Mr. Gettleman gets paid a lot and he’s very high up on the chain and his job is to make a decision that’s going to help the Giants,” Webb said. “So, if that’s a quarterback, or if that’s another position, whatever. As long as it helps the New York Football Giants, and that’s all I’m about.”