“There was no doubt that we would get back on the same page,” wide receiver Hakeem Nicks said after the Giants’ 38-10 win over the Green Bay Packers. “We got our confidence back.”
Manning played that night at the level he has touched often throughout his nine-year career, though he has rarely been consistent. He plays in New York, and his last name is Manning, so bad games, or even average ones, are magnified and scrutinized. It doesn’t help that a belief had worked its way through the Giants organization and into the conversation: that Manning’s right arm was tired, that he was unable to make passes with the necessary power or accuracy.
Before last weekend’s win, Manning was on pace to throw the fewest touchdown passes since his rookie season, and he hadn’t found the end zone in three games. He had four interceptions during that time, and the mistakes amplified talk that something must be wrong, though he and others denied it.
When the Giants began their bye week earlier this month, Manning took a vacation from football. He returned with his family to Mississippi, where he attended college at Ole Miss and still has a home. Though he had downplayed the talk, he rested his arm anyway. His mind was on sabbatical, too; Manning said he didn’t even take his laptop to Mississippi, indicating he didn’t watch film.
It was a gamble, and a loss to Green Bay would have set up a matchup Monday night against the Washington Redskins for first place in the NFC East. Manning said later that he was aware of the stakes.
“A big game,” he said after the win against the Packers. “We needed to come out and play well.”
When Manning returned to practice after the bye, teammates noticed a difference. Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said Manning told him that his arm felt as strong as it had before the season. Then the Packers game arrived, and Manning further impressed his teammates. The gamble had worked.
“It was good to see his arm come back alive,” wide receiver Victor Cruz said.
A moment later, Cruz clarified that he didn’t mean to imply that Manning’s arm had seemed tired before the bye, only that the quarterback returned with new energy and had been sharp in his first game since the break.
“I’m not referencing that his arm was faulty before or anything like that,” Cruz said. “I was just saying that he was definitely out here and he was playing with some excitement and he was completing some footballs, which was good to see.”
The idea that Manning could be having arm problems is a sensitive subject around the Meadowlands, not just because it suggests Manning isn’t himself, but also because of what it would mean for New York’s hopes for a third Super Bowl in six years. As Manning goes, so go the Giants. When he is sharp, the Giants win playoff games. When he is sloppy, the team struggles and talk resumes that maybe Manning isn’t an elite quarterback, and that Coughlin should be fired because he’s unable to consistently pull greatness from his most high-profile player.
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