Manning struggled in the Giants' 20-14 loss to the Eagles, completing 13 of 27 passes for only 123 yards. And he wasn't even that effective; those stats were padded when he went 6-for-6 for 57 yards against a prevent defense in the final minutes, a drive that ended with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Darcy Johnson with 15 seconds left. He never got into a flow and had trouble with the 21-mph winds all game.

"Well, obviously, it was windy out there and tough to get the ball down the field," Manning said. "We had to try and throw underneath a little bit and throw in the middle. When you start throwing stuff down the field and outside, the wind will affect it. We still could've thrown it better than we did. I didn't throw the ball well; our passing game wasn't effective. We didn't convert on third downs and it just made it tough for us."

Of course, not having his go-to receiver probably didn't help. The Giants won the other two games Plaxico Burress didn't start this season, but that wasn't the case against the Eagles.

Burress' presence forced the defense to roll coverages to his side of the field, creating avenues for others. But the Eagles didn't have to do that yesterday, although Manning said he didn't see much deviation from what Philadelphia did in their meeting down the Turnpike last month.

"I don't think the game was planned differently," Manning said. "They might have done a few different things, but it didn't stop us from running our offense and doing what we can do. Today wasn't a matter of game plan. It was a matter of us not executing when we had the chance to."

Manning certainly didn't get much assistance from his receivers, who had several key drops. Domenik Hixon let a bomb slip through his hands on the Giants' first offensive play of the second quarter. Three plays later, Madison Hedgecock was all by his lonesome and failed to make what should've been an easy grab.

"He was making good throws," said Steve Smith, who had a fourth-down drop. "We just weren't catching the ball like we usually do."

"That's just Football," Manning said. "You have off games sometimes. Obviously, the conditions don't help things, but for us, we're not going to make excuses. We just didn't play our best Football today ... Our goal and objective for now is to grow and learn from this. Let's see what we can do better, but we have to get back to playing Giants Football. That's being consistent in the run game and the pass game and converting on third down, which we didn't do today."