Peter King's MMQB: Some Highlights

Eli Manning and the Giants rocked it on Thursday night in Carolina. Here's some highlights from Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column, a must read for any respectable football fan.

Why the Giants win ... at least one big reason.

Patience wins in the NFL. Impetuousness rarely does, and when it does, it doesn't last. The 2009 NFL draft illustrates that well. That spring, the Giants picked Connecticut tackle Will Beatty 60th overall, Cal Poly wide receiver Ramses Barden 85th overall and North Carolina State running back Andre Brown 129th. Until Thursday night, Beatty had been an oft-injured disappointment, Barden got passed -- and lapped several times -- in wideout impact by Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks and Brown had been cut by half the free world. On Thursday, they were three of the 10 most important Giants in a 36-7 rout of Carolina on the road.

That's the strength of Jerry Reese as a general manager. He's not a knee-jerk guy. Last April, I wrote a story on Reese (and, in particular, how well he works with Tom Coughlin), and I sat in his office for a while talking about roster-building. The subject of the abuse he took from the talk-show set and fans came up for letting Steve Smith and Kevin Boss go in the 2011 offseason. He got a smile on his face and played me a couple of, shall we say, interesting, voice mails from critical fans after those players went to Philadelphia and Kansas City by way of Oakland, respectively. He asked me not to report what was said in the voicemails, but let's just say you need to have some blisters on your hide to be a general manager for a New York sports team.

"We don't have a template for how we build here,'' says Reese, and the Giants don't. But the one thing they have no problem doing is saying goodbye. They loved Boss -- loved him. But he wasn't worth a $6 million signing bonus to them. Gone. "Around here, when the money gets above X, we say goodbye,'' John Mara told me in the spring. They figured Barden could slide into Manningham's role and so they let Manningham walk to San Francisco. Brandon Jacobs had worn out his welcome; Brown and rookie David Wilson will have a shot to replace him -- and that looks good so far.
Charting players who have been good Reese picks in his first six drafts with the Giants:

2012: CB Jayron Hosley, Virginia Tech (Round 3, 94 overall)
Precocious and instinctive from day one of camp, Hosley's one of the best rookie DBs in the league. He intercepted a Cam Newton pass Thursday.

2011: LB Jacquian Williams, South Florida (R6, 202)
A top special-teamer from day one, Williams stripped Kyle Williams in overtime of last season's NFC title game, setting up the Giants win.

2010: DE Jason Pierre-Paul, South Florida (R1, 15)
Think the Eagles (Brandon Graham at 13) or Raiders (Rolando McClain at 8) would like to have a draft-day do-over?

2009: RB Andre Brown, North Carolina State (R4, 129)
Tore his Achilles as a rookie, and has been cut eight times since, but Reese brought him back, and Brown finally paid off with his big night against Carolina.

2008: WR Mario Manningham, Michigan (R3, 95)
Made the second-greatest catch in modern Giants history, but the Giants let him walk in free agency. "I don't agonize over anyone,'' Reese says.

2007: RB Ahmad Bradshaw, Marshall (R7, 250)
Troubled in college, he was worth a seventh-round risk, to put it mildly. What I love about the Giants 2007 draft: All eight rookies on this Super Bowl roster not only made the team, but also were active for at least one of the Giants' four playoff wins that year.

The Fine 15:

5. New York Giants (2-1). Sitting in a good position after three weeks. They're the hottest offense in football -- Giants 61, Foes 14 over the last five quarters -- and they now sit back on their mini-bye, three days away from football, while the Eagles wake up after a long trip home from Arizona and a very short night. The Giants will be well-rested when they arrive at the Linc next Sunday night.

Dr. Z Unsung Man in the Trenches of the Week

The award for the offensive lineman who was the biggest factor for his team in the weekend's games, named for my friend Paul Zimmerman, the longtime SI football writer struggling in New Jersey to recover from three strokes suffered in November 2008. Zim, a former collegiate offensive lineman himself, loved watching offensive line play.

Will Beatty, T, New York Giants. Except for two late pressures allowed, Beatty, in his first start of the season, provided a safety net for Eli Manning and paved the way for Andre Brown, in his first start in the NFL, to run for 113 yards. More lithe and agile than he seemed as a rookie out of UConn, Beatty's going to be a vital part of the New York offense. He showed against Carolina he's ready.

Coaches of the Week

Pat Flaherty, offensive line coach, New York Giants.

Preparing on a short week, going on the road ... those are problems enough for a team playing on a Thursday night, and playing a team that just beat up the New Orleans Saints. But add this: Flaherty had to prepare an offensive line that would be starting in tandem for the first time ever -- and with a right tackle, Sean Lockler, starting his first game at right tackle for the Giants, and with Will Beatty starting for the first time this season at left tackle.

Flaherty's the unsung hero on the Giants' coaching staff, and he proved it again Thursday night. Eli Manning was sacked once in 51 minutes of play time, and rarely under duress. A first-time starting back, Andre Brown, rushed for 113 yards, and the Giants held the ball for 36 minutes. It shouldn't be this easy, but Flaherty's line made it look that way.

Ten Things I Think I Think

s. Good instincts and intelligence, Jayron Hosley, the Giants rookie cornerback. Hosley, on a blitz of Cam Newton Thursday, wasn't faked out by the nimble Newton. Then, when he contacted Newton as he released the ball, Hosley had the presence of mind to not drive him into the ground, but to slide off him and avoid a possible roughing penalty. That was a five-year-vet play by a third-round rookie.

7. I think, in case you didn't catch my drift about Cam Newton, I objected to three things he did Thursday night, aside from playing his worst all-around game as an NFL player. One: Scoring in the third quarter to make it 23-7, and then pulling the Superman act in the end zone; bush league. Two: Setting himself apart on the bench late in the game when things were going bad, causing Steve Smith to read him the riot act for being a baby. Three: Talking postgame about the loss like his dog just died.

Bernie Kosar once had a great line about a quarterback's job once the game ends. He said the postgame interview scrum is like the fifth quarter, where you help set the agenda for your teammates and, in part, your organization, for the next week. When you do that, you can't be an all-is-lost guy, which is what Newton looked like after the Giants beat Carolina.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. The Triple Crown is a pretty big deal. The last time it was won, 1967, I was sitting on the couch in my living room in Enfield, Conn., nerdily keeping score of the final Red Sox game of the Impossible Dream season. That's the weekend my hero, Carl Yastrzemski, went 7 for 8 as the Sox swept the Twins in a two-game series to win the pennant, and it's the weekend Yaz won the Triple Crown. (Yaz homered in the seventh Saturday, his 44th, and Harmon Killebrew followed two innings later with his 44th.) Yaz won the Crown, tying Killebrew in homers and winning the Batting and RBI titles outright. It hasn't been done in the 45 years since.

If the season ended Sunday, Miguel Cabrera would do the exact same thing -- win the batting and RBI titles, and tie Josh Hamilton for the homer run title with 42. I admire the ridiculous season of Mike Trout, but if the season were over and I had a vote, Cabrera would be my MVP.

c. Happy 63rd birthday (Sunday), Bruce Springsteen.

Peter King's MMQB: Some More Eli

Some more Manning and post-Super Bowl thoughts:

Eli Manning needed to sleep. After three days of revelry, parades, ring-sizing and backslapping, he'd had enough. "We've got to get out of here,'' he told his wife, Abby, and so they left their Hoboken, N.J., nest Thursday and went somewhere. Where, I don't know. But he was good enough to call me Friday and explain two things: how he survived 2004, and how he won the fourth quarter in last week's Super Bowl.

Remember what happened in 2004. The Giants could have stayed where they were on draft day, at number four in the first round, and taken Miami of Ohio's Ben Roethlisberger. But Accorsi traded a bushel full of picks to San Diego to get Manning.

In training camp, Kurt Warner won the starting job. He got off to a 5-2 start, but then lost to Chicago and Arizona, and rookie coach Tom Coughlin went to Accorsi and said he wanted to make a change at quarterback. He wanted Manning to play. He knew Manning was the future, and even though Warner likely would have given them a better chance to beat the defensively strong upcoming foes, Coughlin thought he was going to Manning at some point, and he knew the kid's confidence wouldn't get strafed if he played. That's what Coughlin thought, anyway. "I do recall how desperately Eli wanted to be in there,'' Gilbride said last week. "He was dying to play.''

"I redshirted my freshman year at Ole Miss,'' Manning told me, "and when I was put in there, I was ready to play. My rookie year here, at first, it was an opportunity to watch an MVP play. Kurt was great to me. I would ask him tips about picking up the blitz. And when coach Coughlin went to me, I knew it hurt Kurt. I felt for him. But he was still a professional, helping me. He could have been a lot of things, but I can tell you he was a help to me.''

Warner likes Manning, and vice versa. This was a tough situation, because Warner thought the Giants were throwing away the season -- maybe to justify the trade and the selection of Manning. And Warner looked right for the first month. Manning put up only 23 points in losses to Arizona, Philly and Washington, and then there was the 37-14 debacle at Baltimore, the day Warner had to come in to rescue Manning in relief. "He was overwhelmed by the situation,'' Warner told me on my podcast last week. "It was some of the worst quarterbacking I'd seen at the NFL level.''

The Ravens, Gilbride said, "did everything they could to humiliate Eli.''

Manning didn't fold. He had a huge week coming up, and a short week. The Giants took the train back to New Jersey after the Sunday game in Baltimore. Coming the following Saturday: a nationally televised game against Pittsburgh, at home, with Roethlisberger, who looked like a big star in the making for the Steelers, coming to the Meadowlands to show everyone in football that Accorsi and the Giants made a big mistake in picking Manning and not him.

On the two-hour ride to Newark, Manning spoke with Gilbride and then-offensive coordinator John Hufnagel. Rather than sulk about the disastrous game he'd played, he told them his eight favorite plays. He told them, "If you could put these in the game plan next week, it'd give me eight plays I'd be comfortable with -- rhythm plays, plays I know I'd have an open receiver even if it was just a short gain.''

Notable that Manning could think about the next game 90 minutes after the most embarrassing game of his life. "I was down, really down,'' he said. "But I knew if we could put some plays in the plan for the next week that I liked, I'd feel better about it -- and the offense would see in practice we'd be able to move the ball.''

That week, he met with Coughlin. "I'm better than this coach,'' Manning told him. And Coughlin said he knew that, and don't look over your shoulder; just play. But around the team, this was a big week, and a tense week. Roethlisberger and the Steelers were 11-0. In the New York Daily News, Gary Myers wrote, "So far, it's shocking how inept Manning has looked. The field looks 200 yards long.'' Accorsi told Myers that week: "I don't want to talk about Roethlisberger. This thing will be written over a long time, not, in Eli's case, four weeks."

Now, Manning says: "I didn't read the paper in high school, and I never got the paper in college. I could kind of tell what was being said about me by the questions the reporters would ask. So I didn't read about me. Same thing when I got to the Giants. But I could tell that week was a big week. The media was like a bunch of hungry dogs. They were coming for me. And I hadn't played well, so that's the way it goes.''

Strange game. Willie Ponder of the Giants returned the opening kick 91 yards for a touchdown. Roethlisberger threw a pick on his first drive. The Steelers scored on an Antwaan Randle El shovel pass. Manning followed with a 55-yard touchdown drive ending in a two-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Shockey. The crowd was getting into it.

Back and forth they went, the Giants taking a 24-23 lead at the end of the third quarter on Manning's second touchdown pass of the day, the Steelers coming back to take the lead on a Jeff Reed field goal, Manning driving the Giants 52 yards for another TD (a Tiki Barber TD run) to put the Giants up 30-26 midway through the fourth quarter, and Jerome Bettis burrowing behind right tackle with five minutes left to make it 33-30, Steelers.

Driving to tie or win it, Manning threw a pick at the Steelers 18 with three minutes to play. Ballgame. "You don't like to say losing a game was a big mental boost for us,'' Manning said, "but it was. That was the day I thought I showed our team I could play at a high level.''

Manning that day: 16-of-23 (.696), 182 yards, two TDs, one interception, 103.9 rating.

Roethlisberger: 18-of-28 (.643), 316, one TD, two interceptions, 84.8 rating.

That's the day Manning took the heat off himself. He's never really felt it since.

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A bit more on "The throw":

Now to the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl last week. Much has been said and written about the fateful final drive, and the throw to Manningham in particular, when Nicks and Victor Cruz were lined up to the right and Manningham to the left.

The Giants took over at their 12 with 3:46 to go. Gilbride wanted to take a shot on first down.

"I thought 'Rio' [Mario Manningham] could run by the one corner on the left,'' Gilbride said. "I didn't know if Eli would choose that side, but I thought the play might be there. The thing is, I knew Eli wouldn't make a bad decision there. He's rooted solidly in this offense, and he has a strong belief what's there and what isn't there.''

In a story about this play for Sports Illustrated this week, I wrote that Manningham had gone to Gilbride on Thursday and was blunt about the Giants' playcaller not forgetting him -- or the receivers as a group -- in the game against the Patriots. "We feel we can win this game,'' Manningham said. "You have to understand --we're not nervous. We're excited. The stage is definitely not too big for us.''

On Friday, Manning told me Manningham came to him, too. There wasn't much three-wide stuff in the game plan, Manningham said, so when he's in there, he was going to get open and take advantage of his opportunities. The strong inference: Don't forget me. I'm going to help us win.

During the week, Manning had written notes in his game plan about this play. He wrote about how the New England safeties don't get very wide when they're taking a half of the field apiece. Manning thought, watching tape of the Patriots, "There'll be opportunities to make plays downfield on them.'' But still he didn't think this play was a lock to go right, as he had --according to backup quarterback David Carr -- every time he'd ever seen this play run in practice or a game.

When the ball was snapped, Manning was still thinking Cruz or Nicks first, and that made Chung, the safety who would have responsibility over the top on Manningham, creep over to his left, to provide help if Manning went to that side. "I wasn't looking [Chung] off,'' Manning told me. "I was truly throwing to the right. But the cornerback looked like he was in good position on Victor. I thought the nickel was too close to Hakeem. I didn't like what I saw.''

In his split-second look to the left, Manning saw Manningham with a step or step-and-a-half on corner Sterling Moore, with Chung, hips open to the left and inside the numbers, with very far to turn and run to break up the play if Manning threw left to Manningham.

"It's one of those plays,' Manning said, "where I can't throw it inside, toward the field, or the safety could knock it away. And I can't underthrow it. Those are the two no-nos. If I throw it too far, nothing's lost. It's second down, and we'll be OK.''

The throw traveled 42 yards in the air. As it dropped into Manningham's hands at the Giant 47, Moore's right forearm clubbed Manningham's right shoulder, trying to dislodge the ball; Chung arrived a split-second later and mugged Manningham over the boundary into the Patriots' bench area. Every Patriot but Bill Belichick signaled the play was no good because Manningham surely was out of bounds. But he wasn't. Manningham got both feet in the field of play before the mugging.

Later, Gilbride asked Manning why he'd made that decision. "The other guys got jammed,'' Manning told him. "And I threw it where no one else could get it.''

Eli Manning might play 10 more years and never make a throw better than that one. Sheer perfection ... and thrown to a receiver determined to make a big play in the biggest game of his life.

The audible to the slant to Nicks "was easy,'' Manning said. "I could see the two safeties crowding the line, so it was the only call to make.''

After the completion to Nicks gave the Giants first-and-10 at the two-minute warning at the Patriot 18, Manning looked across the line. "We hit 'em in the mouth,'' he said. "I think they were getting worried then.''

Funny thing about the touchdown, the six-yard score by Ahmad Bradshaw three plays later. Manning thought to tell Bradshaw not to score when he got to the line. However, Gilbride and Coughlin never thought to tell the Giants to beware of the Patriots handing them the touchdown.

Manning saw the Pats being a little lax when he got to the line, and when the snap came, he saw a defensive lineman stand up -- as though he wasn't going to try to make a tackle or rush the passer. So when Manning handed the ball to Bradshaw, he said, "Don't score!'' But Bradshaw couldn't process it in time, and by the time he got to the two-yard line and tried to stop, his momentum carried him into the end zone.

Two takeaways: The fact that Gilbride and Manning have been together for eight years is a huge factor in Gilbride knowing what Manning will execute well in a certain situation. "He completes my sentences,'' Gilbride said. And Manning told me this about Gilbride: "He is what I know about NFL offenses. I can't tell you how huge an advantage it is to be with the same coordinator for so long.''

And Manning's approach to football is a factor in him being so good, late, in such big games. He's been down to the Patriots in the final two minutes the last three times he's played them. And he's driven the Giants 83, 80 and 88 yards in those three games, scoring each time in the final minute to win. How does a person not allow the moment to overwhelm him? Or at least to affect his play? Manning looks like he'd rather play in the fourth quarter, with 116 million people watching.

"I think it comes from the fact I can only do so much,'' Manning said. "And I want to give our team every chance to win, and I want to give myself every chance to compete and to win. I control half the game, and even then I can't control one of our guys fumbling. So I have always had the attitude that if I do everything in my power to prepare, and then I have confidence that we've got a good plan and I know it's good enough to win, then I just go play and whatever happens happens.

"If we lose, will I be mad or upset? Yes. For a few days. But I think after some time, a few days, I'm not going to let it ruin my life for the next two months. I've got a wife and a daughter, and it's not fair to them to ruin the offseason because we lost a football game. I need to be there for them.''

One last thing from that Accorsi scouting report. Something about guts. Manning may not look the part, but someone who plays the way he does late in games has something that Accorsi saw that day in Mississippi, something he'd also seen in his Colts days with Johnny Unitas, something Colts teammate Bobby Boyd saw too. Wrote Accorsi: "BOYD TOLD ME ONCE ABOUT UNITAS, 'TWO THINGS SET HIM APART: HIS LEFT TESTICLE AND HIS RIGHT TESTICLE.' ''

Lots of lessons here. A good organization, with a strong GM, should be trusted above all. Young, Accorsi and Reese have served the Giants extraordinarily well in the last 33 years. Good coaching, with a staff that mostly stays in place, is most often the hallmark of a winning organization. And a good quarterback, with guts, well, that doesn't hurt either.

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