Eli Manning stays grounded but learns to adapt

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Eli Manning didn't speak to the media on Monday, because the Giants had won the day before. That's how it works here. That's the way Manning does things, the way he has done them since he became the team's starting quarterback 10 years ago.

When the Giants win, he's quiet the next day. He doesn't talk until Wednesday. When they lose, though, he stands in front of his locker the following afternoon and talks until his interrogators have nothing more to ask him. His answers might be trite and rote and as interesting as the instructions on the back of a board-game box, but he provides them nonetheless, so that his teammates don't have to.

After Ryan Nassib, a Malvern Prep alumnus, joined the Giants last year as their backup quarterback, it didn't take him long to pick up on Manning's media-availability schedule and its significance.

When Nassib was growing up, the name Eli Manning might as well have been four letters long among him and his buddies. But Manning will enter Sunday night's matchup with the Eagles playing some of the best football of his career, and Nassib has since come to see him as a quarterback defined less by his statistics or even his two Super Bowl rings and more by the manner in which he carries himself and the effect it has on his teammates.

"I didn't really know what to expect coming in, but he's just another guy," Nassib said Wednesday. "I think that's one of his best traits. The players all relate to him. It's so great because he's just one of the guys, and it makes guys want to play for him.

"He does a good job of taking all the blame. Guys inside these walls know it might not necessarily be the truth, but he's the epitome of what you ask for in terms of humility and taking care of the players."

People think of a lot of things when they think of Eli Manning: the up-and-down nature of his career, the droopy-dog facial expressions he makes that are so easily mocked, the contrast between his laconic personality off the field and his daring (or careless, depending on the result) playing style on it. His leadership skills are often omitted from that list, but they exist, and they matter, and they have helped to keep the Giants competitive, to keep them from falling too far too fast, throughout his tenure as their quarterback. They went 7-9 last year. It was the first time in Manning's nine full seasons as their starter that they had a losing record.

This year, the Giants are 3-2, having won their last three games. Playing for the first time in a West Coast offensive system - implemented by new coordinator Ben McAdoo - Manning is in the midst of what could be his finest season, or maybe his most grounded one. His completion percentage (66.3) and quarterback rating (95.6) would be the highest of his career. He's on pace to throw 16 interceptions, a falloff of 11 from last season, when he led the NFL for the third time.

The Giants' previous offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, preferred to have Manning throw the football deep, to run a conventional offense at a conventional pace, as if Manning were a holdover from the American Football League of the 1960s. Play one way long enough, and people begin to think that's the only way you can play. Now McAdoo has him taking three-step drops and using a hurry-up approach more frequently, and Manning is proving pretty adaptable.

"We've shaken some things up," Manning said Wednesday. "Guys are playing well. Offensive line's playing well. Receivers are getting open. Defense is doing a good job of getting us turnovers, and we're staying in games and not falling behind and having to change the offense to get back into it. Worked hard this year. That's just football. Every year's different. Every year, circumstances are different, and you just go out there and compete, work hard, and hope to make the plays that are there."

Notice the content of Manning's answer. He touched on just about every aspect of a successful football team save one: the quarterback. And the truth is that Manning may have had the furthest to go in mastering McAdoo's offense, if only because it was so different from the one he'd settled into under Gilbride. There had been concern this offseason that the system was an ill fit for him. There isn't much concern anymore.

"I never thought he was going to have any trouble with it," Nassib said. "He's got the skill set to play any offense, really. Would it take a little bit of time? Sure. But he's a vet. Guys like him, it doesn't take that much time to adjust."

It looks as if it's already happened, so this will be some kind of challenge Sunday for an Eagles team that, even at 4-1, is wobbling just a bit from injuries and sloppy play. The New York Giants have done a lot of things with Eli Manning as their quarterback. They've done a lot of things because he's their quarterback. What they don't often do is go away.