GRINCH, NO CLINCH
Eli turns into a lump of coal when needed
PHILADELPHIA — It isn’t always Santa who is standing between you and your first playoff berth in five seasons.
Sometimes, it is The Grinch who steals Christmas.
Sometimes, there are 53 Ebenezer Scrooges dressed as Eagles, chanting “Bah humbug” at Eli Manning and the New York Football Giants and their playoff dreams.
Manning used to win games like these.
Not Thursday night.
This was one for the Birds from Manning (three interceptions) and the undisciplined, penaltyplagued Giants, 24-19 losers who didn’t deserve to barge back into the playoffs again on this night, and will have to be content backing into the postseason with cooperation from the Packers or Bucs or Falcons or Lions … unless the football gods demand they beat the Redskins at FedEx Field on New Year’s Day.
When you kick field goals instead of scoring touchdowns, you usually don’t win.
When your playcaller abandons the run in crunch time and your dinkand-dunk quarterback throws a franchise-record 63 times, unless your quarterback is Tom Brady, you usually don’t win.
After all these weeks when Big Blue had carried Manning’s offense to the brink of the playoffs, it was the quarterback’s turn, because on this night, it had to be his turn.
He was either going to finally remember how to be the two-time Super Bowl MVP, or he was not.
The Giants were either going to clinch a playoff berth, or they were not.
The scoreboard read 4:15 left when Manning, down five, took over at his 27 with all three timeouts.
“We expect to be able to go out there and score touchdowns and win the game in those circumstances,” Manning said. This isn’t 2007 and it isn’t 2011. Manning began matriculating his way down the field, Paul Perkins here, Odell Beckham Jr. there. Beckham caught a short third-and-4 pass and reached with the ball in his right hand for the first down and the Eagles challenged the ruling and won, and now it was fourth-and-1 at the Philly 32 at the two-minute warning. False start, John Jerry. Fourth-and-6. Manning looked for Sterling Shepard, and Nolan Carroll knocked it from the rookie’s grasp.
One last gasp, only because Carson Wentz inexcusably threw incomplete deep instead of forcing the Giants to call their final timeout.
The scoreboard read 1:31 left when Manning took over at his 15 with that one timeout left.
Again he began marching, to the Philly 34, where the Giants called that timeout. The scoreboard read 0:25. On second-and playoffs, Manning overthrew Beckham in the middle of the end zone. “Kind of out it on the line so the safety couldn’t recover, and just missed him a little bit,” Manning said. “It was there, and we didn’t make it, and could have been a winner.”
Beckham provided cover for his quarterback. “It was put where it needed to be, I just needed a little more gas in me to just go get it,” he said. “It wasn’t really overthrown. I need to do a better job.”
On third-and-playoffs, Manning floated one deep and short under duress for … Will Tye. Not for Beckham. For Will Tye.
Who upset Ben McAdoo because he didn’t attack the ball to try to prevent Terrence Brooks from intercepting it.
“Just getting hit as I was trying to throw it, and the ball just didn’t get out how I wanted it to,” Manning said. Grinch instead of clinch. “A couple of plays away from winning that football game,” Manning said.
He used to win games like these in the fourth quarter.