E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer
for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he is one of
only four sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls.
Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

HOW MANY GIANT FANS ARE STILL UNHAPPY WITH ACCORSI'S TRADE FOR ELI?

By Dave Klein
A couple of months ago I had lunch with former Giants' general manager Ernie Accorsi at a midtown Manhattan location.

We talked about a lot of things, most of them pertaining to football and his two loves - the Giants and the old Baltimore Colts. It was an educational three hours.

There was no question that we would discuss the biggest trade Accorsi ever made, the one that brought Eli Manning to the Giants in April of 2004, when according to many experts, he "sold the farm" to convince San Diego general manager A.J. Smith to make the deal.

In return for getting Smith to draft Manning with the first overall pick and trade him to the Giants for their fourth overall choice (mandated by the Chargers to be Philip Rivers of North Carolina State), the Chargers also received the Giants' third-round pick that year and their first and fifth picks in 2005.

Rivers is a quality quarterback, but is he as good as Eli? Certainly not. The third pick that year was placekicker Nate Kaeding, who spent most of the past two seasons on Injured Reserve. The first round pick in 2005 was linebacker Shawne Merriman of Maryland, who subsequently was released and is now on the Buffalo Bills' Injured Reserve list. That fifth round pick was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for former Giants' offensive tackle Roman Oben.

So who won? Silly question.

Still, that early autumn afternoon when we had egg-white omelets did produce this question.

"Ernie, Eli is still struggling. He is still throwing too many times off his back foot. The fans are upset. Do you still think it was the right trade to make?"

The answer: "Tell the fans not to worry. Eli hasn't even started yet."

Clearly, one can now assume that Elisha Manning has started. He is on a roll, not quite an Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees roll, but he is having one of those hallucinatory seasons that most quarterbacks can't even envision. It is, of course, a season-best for him, and by the time he's done he will probably have shattered all the team's passing records.

There are a few league records in his sights, too, and to put things in their proper perspective, the all-time, all-world record for passing yardage in a single season is held by Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins, who threw for 5,084 yards in 1984. Is that out of reach for Manning? Well, he has three games to go and he has passed for 4,105 yards. That's roughly 315 per game, and if that extrapolates to the end of the season, can you believe he'll finish just short of Marino at 5,040?

But in how many games has he exceeded that 300 figure? If he has two of his "average" games and one of 330, he'll beat Marino by a year. So, too, will Rodgers and Brees, but they are expected to do such things.

Eli? Not so much.

As we sat talking, the tape recorder whirring, a third cup of coffee (decaf, of course) being poured, I had to ask one more question.

"Why Eli? Why not Rivers? Why not [Ben] Roethlisberger? Or Larry Fitzgerald or Steven Jackson? Or Robert Gallery, or Vince Wilfork?"

Ernie just smiled. "There was no other choice," he said. "Eli was the one we wanted. He had that "look' about him on the field and off the field. Can I say his attitude reminded me of [John] Unitas? Well, it did. And when we scouted him at Mississippi, we were amazed at how many games he won in the fourth quarter."

So there it is, and those fourth-quarter rallies have begun to emerge with greater frequency this season.

Is part of the problem, part of the lack of excitement by fans, because he is the little brother of Peyton Manning, the living, breathing but no long playing quarterback? Was more expected of him than he could produce? Or is part of the problem his public persona, about as exciting as vanilla ice cream, about as exciting and sitting in the sun watching a marigold grow?

Some of the players laugh at that. "You should hear him in the huddle," one of them says. "He yells and screams and, my goodness, he uses bad words, too."

Manning has made better receivers out of the team's two stars, Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz, the team leader although both have already surpassed 1,000 yards."He tells me to just run the pattern and the ball will be there," Cruz says, "and it is, it always is."

Cruz, incidentally, is just 194 yards short of breaking the team's single season record (Amani Toomer had 1,393 in 2002) and his current total of 1,150 is already the seventh highest in team history. Those ahead of him are Del Shofner (1181), Toomer (1,183), Homer Jones (1,209), Plaxico Burress (1,214), Steve Smith (1,220) and finally Toomer's record-setting 1,393.

So with just 71 yards against the Redskins on Sunday, Cruz will vault past them all except the Toomer gold standard. Not bad for an undrafted free agent from Paterson, N.J., out of the University of Massachusetts.

EXTRA POINTS - According to the NFL's broadcasting department, the Giants' final game of the season - against Dallas in the Meadowlands on New Year's Day, has "an excellent chance" of being flexed and moved to either the 4:15 slot "or to NBC," which means an 8:20 p.m. start. ... Since the Giants and Jets are both scheduled for a 1 p.m. kickoff (the Jets are in Miami), that seems destined NOT TO HAPPEN. ... Rather, it will depend on the playoff implications and the wishes, to a large part, of the competing networks. ... "We'll wait until after Week 16," the NFL spokesperson said, "and then we'll make an announcement."

The Giants' offensive line, injured and rebuilt as it is, won last week's John Madden Protection Award. ... Safety Kenny Phillips (knee) says he's sure he'll play Sunday vs. the Redskins. ... Head coach Tom Coughlin said he does not expect defensive end Osi Umenyiora to play Sunday, and he said it with just the hint of impatience.

We've got a new puzzle here, Giant fans. ... When Dez Bryant caught that 50-yard touchdown pass against the Giants last Sunday night, he was so clear and had so much separation he could have sat down to open a picnic basket before continuing his journey to the end zone. ... The two obvious culprits, cornerback Corey Webster and safety Antrel Rolle, both of whom appeared to have made a glaring error in communication since neither one was close enough to Bryant to read the back of his jersey.

But both insist they were in the right spot, and now defensive coordinator Perry Fewell adds this: "They're wrong, but everybody else made a mistake, too," he said. "All 11 defensive players are responsible for being in the right spot and we didn't execute the call, so nobody was right." ... At best, that is a startlingly creative way of explaining something that cannot be explained; at worst, Fewell is playing strange music in his head.

Regardless of Fewell's creativity, the Giants became the first team in the NFL in 25 years to allow four touchdown passes in three consecutive games, so go play that on your resume, coach. ... Redskins' safety LaRon Landry has been placed on the Injured Reserve list (hamstring) and he will be replaced as a starter by rookie DeJon Gomes, a fifth-round draft pick out of Nebraska. ... He played with Giants' rookie Prince Amukamara (a first round pick) last season.

Check out Dave's website at E-GIANTS where you can subscribe to his newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here.
- Team Giants

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