Sep 5th 2008 10:10AM by Tom Mantzouranis (author feed)
Filed under: Giants, NFC EastEli Manning has won over Giants fans. For now. I could tell after his third-quarter interception, when boos would normally rain down from the cheaps in East Rutherford. Instead, the crowd was silent. Eli was spared. And this coming from a crowd who would boo anything (OK, maybe not Santa, but still).

But Manning was not the guy we saw in the postseason. Though the numbers don’t back it up entirely, he looked a lot like the guy who maddened fans for years with inconsistency, lack of accuracy, and poor decision-making, even during the admittedly amazing-to-watch first drive, in which he completed a few clutch passes and then made Rocky McIntosh the butt of every joke in the Redskins’ locker room this week.

And yes, let me say it again, that drive was . He hung in the pocket and made some outstanding throws under pressure. But even during that drive he looked anxious, whipping simple screens with force when finesse was called for. And after that he regressed, failing to lead the team to the end zone on three subsequent red zone drives. He only completed 54.3% of his passes. He, of course, threw that interception, and he could have had two more if Redskins defensive backs knew how to catch.

The thing about the one interception that counted, too: it came at a pivotal time in the game. The Giants’ offense was slowing and the Redskins were gaining confidence on both sides. They had scored near the end of the second and the offense was beginning to gain some yardage. Against a better team, that interception could have led to the score narrowing to 16-14, with a complete reversal of momentum. The Giants were lucky that they were only playing the Redskins, but not every opponent will just lay down like the Redskins, and Manning still has some things to work on.