A few years ago, I interviewed Jim McMahon about the transition from college to NFL quarterback.

“Everything they tell you,” he said, “all that crap about ‘the pros are so much more sophisticated, defenses are so much harder to read, yada, yada’ – all of it is just crap. I didn’t see a damn thing in the pros that I hadn’t been looking at for at least two years at BYU. Sure, all the guys you’re facing on defense are better and faster than in college, but all the guys on your side are, too.”

McMahon played for a team and in a conference known for its passing sophistication, but on the whole, allowing for some exaggeration, I’m inclined to believe what he says. Almost all major college teams now use three and even four wide receivers, and almost all defenses counter with extra defensive backs and double coverage on the best two wideouts. By the time a quarterback has played major college ball for three years, he has as much seasoning as a baseball player with three years of Triple-A experience, probably more.

That said, Eli Manning is having a horrible first season with the Giants. After yesterday’s nightmarish stint in the Giants’ pathetic 37-14 loss to Baltimore, Eli has now completed just 42 of 109 passes for 516 yards with just a single touchdown against six interceptions. His completion percentage is only 38.5%; his yards per pass average is 4.7.

Archie Manning had a terrible rookie season with the Saints in 1971, but right now it looks like a season Eli would give back his signing bonus for. Archie was 86 of 177 for 1,164 yards with six TDs against nine interceptions; he completed 48.6% of his passes and averaged 6.6 yards per throw, all for a team that was 4-14.

Could Eli be as bad as his numbers? Kurt Warner, playing with almost the same personnel, has gone 174 for 277, 2,054 yards, six TDs and four interceptions. Warner’s 7.4 yards-per-pass average isn’t bad at all.

The differences in Warner’s and Manning’s numbers are a bit deceiving. For one thing, yesterday Warner didn’t get into the game until it was out of reach, when the Ravens were putting in their subs and the Giants had nothing to lose by airing it out. Warner hit on six of nine, including a 38-yarder to Jeremy Shockey and a 41-yarder to Amani Toomer, both on soft coverage, the kind a defense gives when leading by three or four TDs. On no other pass play did the Giants gain as much as 12 yards.

For another thing, the kind of offense that Manning is being given to run isn’t quite the same one that Warner had early in the season. There is a distressing tendency, even with smart coaches like Tom Coughlin, to pull in the sails and play conservatively when things are going poorly. The aim, in theory, is to avoid giving the rookie too much to handle, to protect and coddle him, and to ease him into the offensive scheme. But as yesterday’s game showed, this often creates as many problems as it solves.

Leading 10-0 early in the first quarter, the Ravens could afford to either blitz Manning or put in extra defensive backs and wait for him to throw. For the most part, they chose the latter scheme, perhaps wary after having being burned on blitzes in their defensive collapse the previous week in their game with Cincinnati.

In any event, the Ravens guessed correctly that the Giants’ horrendous offensive line couldn’t provide much protection for Manning, regardless of what plays they ran. The Giants chose, on most occasions, to run conservative pass plays, keeping the tight end and fullback in to block. This merely compounded their woes; unable to gain significant yardage on first or second down, it simply left them bigger holes to dig themselves out of on third-and-long.

This lack of imagination was summed up very neatly in the second quarter by the former offensive lineman turned Fox color man, Brian Baldinger, on an ineffectual 3rd-and-12 pass from Manning that sailed out of bounds.

“They sent both their wide receivers to the same side of the field,” observed Baldinger, “down the sidelines, both of them double covered. That doesn’t leave Manning with much of a chance to hit anybody. About the best thing he could have done was throw the ball out of bounds.”

On that play, Shockey was tied up at the line of scrimmage, helping out with the blocking. Shockey is an excellent blocker, but when he’s cutting over the middle about 5 yards past the line of scrimmage, he’s likely to take more pressure off the quarterback than by fighting someone off 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage.”

Shockey, like all great tight ends when used properly, can give you a wide receiver’s payback on a short receiver’s investment. (Mark Bavaro, for example, was the Giants offensive MVP in their 1986 Super Bowl season, averaging better than 15 yards a catch.) Because a great tight end can slide off the line of scrimmage and catch a pass in the open for a sizeable gain, throws to him are less likely to be intercepted than to a wide receiver.

But Shockey’s effectiveness declines sharply when Manning is quarterbacking. With Warner, he averages 12.5 yards per catch; with Eli he gets just under 8.The reason isn’t that Manning can’t throw as fast or far as Warner – quite the opposite. The reason is that when Manning takes the snap, Shockey isn’t allowed to go straight out for a catch but has to fight off a pass rusher first; he’s usually catching the ball three to four yards closer to the line of scrimmage.

In other words, Manning-to-Shockey, which is potentially one of the most electrifying batteries in the league, is negated by the strategy of turning Shockey into a ordinary dump-off receiver. Yesterday he caught just one pass from Manning for 6 yards – and four passes from Warner for 77 yards.

The Giants’ 2004 season is not only over, but hope for 2005 is rapidly dying. They have nothing to lose at his point by giving Manning the ball and a chance to do what he does best, namely, putting it downfield. The NFL isn’t showing Eli Manning anything he didn’t see against Tennessee and Alabama. The problem is that the Giants’ offensive game plan is less than the one Manning ran at Ole Miss.