What has been used as an indictment that the Giants aren’t good enough just might be the evidence needed to prove the Giants this time around will have the staying power to keep firm hold of their lead in the NFC East.
Winning ugly, just squeaking by, the need for late rallies simply to escape the upset clutches of inferior opponents: These were reasons to view the Giants as owning a nice record while not really considering them a team to be reckoned with. Heck, if they had to survive colossal scares and produce furious comebacks to beat the likes of the Cardinals and Dolphins, why was there any thought the Giants could stand up to the brutal schedule that awaited them?
It makes sense, but it’s flawed logic. The only way to become comfortable and thrive in tight games is to play in them. Tom Coughlin did not manipulate any game to ensure a taut finish, and sure, everyone would breathe a little easier if the Giants threw a 27-10 victory in now and then. There might not be any relaxing Sundays with the Giants, but winning as they have in fashioning a 6-2 record ultimately will be the reason why they remain atop their division.
The outpouring of raw emotion after the pulsating 24-20 victory over the Patriots at Gillette Stadium displayed what such late-game drama can instill in a team. Last season, the Giants found ways to lose down the stretch. This season, they create ways to win.
Perhaps it is a bit of football karma that the teams involved in last season’s most captivating comeback/collapse have now reserved their fortunes. DeSean Jackson’s punt return touchdown that sealed one of the worst/best (depending on your allegiance) losses/victories imaginable in the Eagles’ shocking 38-31 triumph in the new-age Miracle in the Meadowlands was Exhibit A, revealing why the Eagles were clutch and the Giants were chokers. Barely 13 months later, the Giants and Eli Manning own the fourth quarter and the Eagles own a share of last place, because Michael Vick and his cohorts can’t make a play in the fourth quarter.
“First and foremost in this league, you take wins anyway you can get them,’’ general manager Jerry Reese told The Post yesterday. “It would be great to blow teams out every weekend, but the teams are so evenly matched regardless of record, that’s seldom the case. Being able and confident to make comebacks in the fourth quarter is a good thing, but you don’t want to make your living off late game comebacks every week either.’’
Reese isn’t one to get all sweaty behind the collar during these down-to-the wire affairs, but that doesn’t mean he’ll mind seeing a Giants victory secured at least a few minutes before the final play.
The Giants have won four times this season when trailing in the fourth quarter, and they beat the Bills after rising out of a fourth-quarter tie. They’ve won their last four games by four, three, three and four points.
This is historic stuff. The last time the Giants put together four consecutive victories by four points or less in a single season was back in 1986, which turned out to be a pretty good year for the franchise — culminating in a Super Bowl XXI win over the Broncos.
This season’s heroics start with Eli Manning but don’t end with him. He’s put the ball into the air more than once and players with nothing on their resumes — most notably Victor Cruz and Jake Ballard, neither of whom had an NFL reception before this season — have come down with it. The defense has been burned for big plays but not when the game is on the line, and the pass rush has sustained and even flourished late in the fray.
Coughlin can preach “finish’’ all he wants, but these real-life lessons are worth more than any words or encouragements.
“You put yourselves in that position enough times and people know that they’ve been there before and do know what it takes,’’ Coughlin said. “It has to do with winning the fourth quarter, being the stronger team in the fourth quarter. It has to do with finishing better than we did a year ago because that has been a main objective of ours.
“These experiences that we have had in these very close games, they will help going forward. There’s a belief on the sideline, a confidence if you will, that we can get it done, no matter what. If the opportunity is there, then the belief is that somehow, some way, we can find a way to do this.’’
Somehow, some way they have.
Don’t be so fast to anoint Eli as ‘elite’ quarterback
The pendulum of course has swung too far lately extolling the virtues of Eli Manning. Now, after eight games this season, it is as if he’s been awakened from his cocoon, all grown up into — drum roll, please — an elite quarterback! What the heck does that even mean?
He’s developed each year, from overmatched to decent to good to very good. This year he is playing great. Players have been known to come up with a career year, but that doesn’t define who they are. A career .290 hitter who bats .330 one season still is a .290 hitter with one breakout season. Manning this year is as effective — or more so, factoring in his fourth-quarter comebacks — than Tom Brady and Drew Brees, both considered top-echelon quarterbacks. No one is in the stratosphere of Aaron Rodgers, who is other-worldly.
For Brady and Brees, this is the fourth time they are fashioning a season with a rating hovering at or near 100. Peyton Manning did it eight times. Eli is at 98.8, and only in 2009 did he achieve a rating in the low 90s. There’s more to judge in a quarterback than cold-hearted statistical data, but the eyes don’t lie. Eli, at 30 years old, for the first time is a legitimate MVP candidate. The true mark of the truly elite is doing it once, then again, then again.
* It has been a while since the Giants were able to walk off a field following a dominating outing from more than one of their linebackers. They got that in New England from Michael Boley and Mathis Kiwanuka, and there is no better sign of things to come with the run-heavy 49ers up next.
Kiwanuka had 12 tackles and his third career interception, and Boley had 10 tackles plus a strip-sack of Brady.
Boley also deflected the pass that Kiwanuka picked off. Boley, in his third year with the Giants, is having the best season, making the defensive calls after Jonathan Goff was lost in preseason to a knee injury.
Kiwanuka, a natural defensive end, doesn’t always look completely comfortable at linebacker, but he’s so rangy he makes up for unfamiliarity with athletic gifts. If these two can flourish down the stretch, the defense could turn into something special.
