Manning Is Excelling at Mental Side of the Game

Tom Coughlin has always hated mental errors. From his early days coaching at Boston College to his tenure at the helm of the Jacksonville Jaguars and now, as the head coach of the Giants, the one thing that has always aroused his anger was having players who committed turnovers, missed assignments and generally made mistakes.Who ever thought that would make Eli Manning the perfect quarterback for Coughlin?For much of Manning’s NFL career he’s faced criticism that he wasn’t consistent enough, wasn’t accurate enough, turned the ball over too often and lacked the intangibles of the great NFL quarterbacks. But starting with the Giants’ playoff run last season, continuing through Manning’s Super Bowl Most Valuable Player performance in February and through three games this season, there’s a new and improved Manning leading the Giants. And Eli Manning 2.0 might be the most mistake-free quarterback in football.Through three games this year, Manning has thrown just one interception; he hasn’t fumbled, and he’s only been sacked four times. Extrapolating three games’ worth of statistics for a 16-game season can be dangerous, but at this point Manning is on pace to have the highest completion percentage and the lowest rate of interceptions, fumbles and sacks in his career, all by a wide margin.The most important improvement Manning has made is his avoidance of interceptions. After throwing 20 in the 2007 regular season, Manning threw just one interception in four postseason games, and he’s now thrown just one interception in three regular-season games in 2008. A stretch of seven games with two interceptions would have been unthinkable for Manning just a year ago.The reason Manning is avoiding interceptions is that he’s finally figuring out how to avoid pass pressure. During last season’s playoffs Manning began to look more confident under pressure than he ever had before, culminating in the final minutes of the Super Bowl when he escaped from the grasp of three New England Patriots to complete a pass to David Tyree. But while a play like that is a once-in-a-lifetime highlight, what has been particularly impressive this season is that Manning makes complete passes while under pressure look ordinary.In Sunday’s win over the Bengals, Manning got good protection from the offensive line, and he was never sacked. But he was hit as he passed four times, and the way he dealt with the pressure on those four plays showed how far he’s come. The younger version of Manning might have taken four sacks on those plays, or been pressured into an interception or two. But of the four times Manning got hit, he safely threw the ball incomplete twice, and completed the pass on the other two plays — one of which was the 31-yard deep ball to Amani Toomer that set up the Giants’ game-winning field goal in overtime.The younger version of Manning also might have held the ball too long and fumbled when pressured by the Bengals. Last season Manning fumbled 13 times, the second most of any player in the NFL, and he has fumbled at least nine times in each of his three seasons as the full-time starter. To have a quarterback who doesn’t fumble at all — as Manning hasn’t this season — is the kind of thing Coughlin dreams about.Manning’s one interception this season came on one of the few plays when he didn’t respond well to pressure. In the third quarter of the season opener against the Washington Redskins, Manning rolled to his left and didn’t have time to set his feet as Andre Carter came bearing down on him. Manning was out of the pocket and could have thrown the ball out of bounds without taking an intentional grounding penalty; but instead he fired the ball downfield just as Carter drilled him, and the ball sailed over the head of tight end Kevin Boss and into the arms of Redskins cornerback Fred Smoot.But mistakes like that have become very rare for Manning. More common are plays like that 31-yard completion to Toomer in overtime, when he threw the ball where only Toomer could get to it even though the Bengals came with a fierce blitz in Manning’s face.Coaches like Coughlin always have to be careful, when they demand that their players avoid turnovers, not to go overboard and prevent the kinds of risks that can yield big plays. But while Manning isn’t making a lot of big plays (he doesn’t have any passes of 40 or more yards this season), he has become particularly efficient at leading the Giants on long, steady scoring drives. On Sunday the Giants’ six scoring drives lasted between seven and 11 plays. If Manning can march the Giants down the field like that consistently, without turning the ball over, the Giants don’t need him to throw any 40-yard passes.Manning’s consistency has extended beyond his production on the field and includes the mere fact that week in and week out, he takes the field. Manning has now started 58 consecutive regular-season games, the third-longest active streak in the NFL. Only Brett Favre, who was slated to start his 256th consecutive game for the Jets last night, and Eli’s brother Peyton, who has started 163 consecutive games for the Indianapolis Colts, have longer active streaks. For the first time, it’s starting to make sense to compare Eli Manning to those two future Hall of Famers.Mr. Smith is a writer for Fanhouse.com.

Manning Is Excelling at Mental Side of the Game

Manning Is Excelling at Mental Side of the Game

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