Eli Manning Autobiography

by Ben McCormickonJune 1, 2013
"All these years at the center of the NFL, with the help of our wonderful
guys, I realize I put together this record-breaking offense that somehow
went through a process of losing a bunch of players and a lot of
integrity to it, and looking for a way to do our jobs – pretty
ridiculous because I'm the quarterback, and I didn't have a chance of
passing under my own power – not what you want, but what you want is
running this system for not just a game but for a show that they wouldn't
stand for me doing my job the way I usually do it."
During the 2012 season (which became Eli's second rushing campaign of his
first three years in San Francisco) the Giants were at their lowest point in
their existence, with a 6-7 record, a 9-7 final record, and an 8-8 record as
the defending champion. On October 28, 2012, the Giants defeated the Tampa
Bay Buccaneers with 28.3 seconds left in the game to earn their first
start—an all-time high in Giants’ history. While it was
all-but certain San Francisco would win, a dramatic 33-33 overtime game
ending in a FieldTurf football field with 42 seconds left finally had them
on the brink of failure. The Giants’ backup quarterback Nick Cross scored
the winning touchdown with 1:05 left after a Giants’ defender fumbled the
ball and the Buccaneers recovered his own fumble to force overtime.
A year later with two major changes for San Francisco, the team failed
to win any regular-season or playoff games, and the worst portion of their
season could be chronicled in 2011 as a Super Bowl drought. The team’s
legacy can be attributed to a “don’t shoot, don’t kick” mentality that
dominated their games for most of the season. In his first year as head
coach, his offensive philosophy of running the ball on all plays and running
only 1:52,093 of time for a total of 78 carries was similar to his approach
of 2013.