Giants News | New York Giants – Giants.com

Eli Manning made a discovery in the 2011 season that every NFL player craves: Winning a second Super Bowl can be significantly different than the first, but the euphoric feeling of holding the Lombardi Trophy is exactly the same.Manning was one of 16 Giants to win a second championship in five seasons when the Giants defeated the New England Patriots, 21-17, in Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. To further extend the symmetry, Manning was voted the winner of the Pete Rozelle Trophy, awarded to the game’s Most Valuable Player, for the second time.“It's definitely special the second time,” Manning said. “I think the first time it was all brand new. We came out of nowhere. (I) really hadn't proven myself as being as good a quarterback as I wanted to be. I knew I had a lot of improvements to make. This one, I thought I played better overall all season, played more consistently, played well throughout the playoffs. I was pleased with how we dealt with everything all season. We had young receivers who hadn't really proven a lot and got them to step up, new tight ends and in the Super Bowl losing two tight ends (Travis Beckum and Jake Ballard) and not worrying about it.“The second one you're thinking about the guys who are getting their first Super Bowl - you think of Hakeem Nicks and Antrel Rolle and Rocky Bernard, people who have been playing a long time who never had that opportunity and the emotions that they must be going through with that first one. I was thinking about my first one and you realize you’re world champions and all the different things that are going through your mind. So it was an exciting time for myself and those guys that are going through it for the first time, what that feeling is, and smiling for them.” The Giants’ 2011 title was unique both in their history and in the NFL’s. After all, the Giants were not a regular season powerhouse. They finished 9-7 and didn’t clinch the NFC East title – and a postseason berth – until the season’s final night. Five weeks later, they became the first seven–loss team to win a Super Bowl. The Giants were also the first team to take home the Lombardi Trophy after finishing the season with a negative point differential (394-400), enduring a four-game losing streak and having the league’s fewest rushing yards. They overcame those shortcomings for many reasons, none more vital than Manning, who had the best statistical season ever by a Giants quarterback. He set Giants records for pass attempts (589), completions (359) and yards (4,933). The yardage total was the fourth-highest in the NFL in 2011 and the sixth-highest in league history. Manning’s 29 touchdown passes were the second-highest total of his career (he had 31 in 2010) and his 16 interceptions were nine fewer than he threw the previous season. His passer rating of 92.9 was the second-highest of his career (he had a 93.1 rating in 2009). In the Giants’ four-game postseason, Manning completed 106 of 163 passes (.65 percent) for 1,219 yards, nine touchdowns and only one interception. Read those numbers and it’s hard to fathom that the season began with Manning answering questions about whether he was an elite quarterback. He had said so in response when asked a direct query during a radio interview, sparking an unintended and unnecessary mini-controversy.Manning said he was “definitely” surprised it became such a big issue. “I usually think back after I do an interview, ‘Did I say anything that might cause any attention or anything that I wish I could take back,’” Manning said. “In that interview, there were a lot of questions about Plaxico Burress at the time and how I wasn't going out after him and recruiting him and I was getting some heat about that. I made some comments about that, so I said, ‘I bet that makes it in the paper tomorrow, but I you know I will get asked more questions the way I responded to that.’ The whole elite thing, I never thought anything about it. I thought I gave an honest answer to a question and told people how I thought and I didn't think that would be made into a whole deal that it was. I don’t have any regrets about what I said, I still felt like I was answering the question honestly.” He certainly did. The Giants’ running game sputtered. The offensive line was revamped. The wide receiver corps was largely unheralded. The defense ranked 27th in the NFL. But the team kept winning, largely because Manning was so brilliant. It’s easy to forget now, but the Giants receivers were viewed as a liability when the 2011 season began. Steve Smith had departed for Philadelphia and the team had declined to bring back Burress after a two-year absence. Hakeem Nicks was a splendid former first-round draft choice and Mario Manningham had caught 60 passes the previous season, but the rest of the group all but had question marks next to their name on the roster. And the Giants fielded perhaps the most anonymous group of tight ends in the NFL. But the dire predictions proved to be baseless. Victor Cruz set a franchise-record with 1,536 receiving yards on 82 receptions while making big play after big play – most notably a franchise-record 99-yard catch-and–run in a key victory over the Jets. Nicks had 1,192 yards to give the Giants a pair of 1,000-yard receivers for the first time. Manningham missed four games, but contributed 39 receptions and made a 38-yard catch for the ages that was the key play in the Super Bowl. Ballard came out of nowhere to grab 38 passes. Manning admits he came out of training camp uncertain how the unproved players would respond to their opportunity. “I was hoping they would; I don't know if I was totally confident,” he said. “I knew Hakeem was going to be solid and continue to get better and better and always had the potential to make the big plays and had to work on being more consistent with some of his intermediate routes and knowing the combinations and work on some of the route running. Manningham kind of the same thing, he made the big plays, just work on some of the intermediate stuff and be more consistent. We were still looking for that slot receiver. We lost Steve Smith. The previous year when we lost him our offense really fell down in our production, because we didn’t have that slot receiver. I know we had (Domenik) Hixon coming back and he was going to play some. All of a sudden we lose him early on (to a season-ending knee injury). Victor Cruz had done some good stuff, but hadn't played a whole lot of football, especially in the slot position. I knew we were going to work on some of those things. And sure enough in the first game, first third down, we run Victor on an option route vs. Washington and he drops it. So it was not a good start to the season when you want that slot guy to step up. We go out and get Brandon Stokley and try him for a little bit. He gets hurt and that’s really when Victor stepped up and has run the slot position better than anyone we've had here. He knows how to get open and he's so good after he gets the ball in his hands and at making guys miss. With those three receivers, Jake Ballard stepping up at tight end, we did have some guys who stepped up and played a big role for us.” The offensive line was also a unit defined by uncertainty in training camp. Long-time stalwarts Shaun O’Hara and Rich Seubert had been jettisoned when the lockout ended. The inexperienced Will Beatty was given the task of protecting Manning’s blind side at left tackle. A new center, David Baas, arrived from San Francisco without benefit of an offseason program. “It was a little different,” Manning said with typical understatement. ‘Anytime you get a new center, that’s a big deal and now you have to worry about getting the snaps, the ball coming to the right place, the shotgun snaps, going over all your cadence stuff and getting on the rhythm with that, making your calls, being on the same page. The center-quarterback relationship has to be great just to get everybody else on the same page. With Baas coming in and not being able to practice for awhile (because of the post-lockout rules on free agents), we're trying to sneak around for awhile getting snaps in the hallway and in the meeting rooms, so when he does get in during the practices, we aren't fumbling snaps. That’s what drives a quarterback and a coach crazy, the fumbled snaps during training camp. But he did a great job learning everything.” The Giants pushed through all of their issues and won the division title, in large measure because they took their cue from Manning and played so well late in games. Manning threw an NFL-record 15 fourth-quarter touchdown passes in 2011. The previous record of 14 was set by Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas in 1959 and tied by Peyton Manning (2002). Manning led the Giants to five victories in 2011 in games in which they trailed in the fourth quarter (not counting a comeback in the NFC Championship Game), plus one in which they were tied. The Giants’ five victories after trailing in the fourth quarter tied the franchise record set in 2002. “It’s something we work a lot on, that two-minute drive at the end of games,” Manning said. “During practice we do it, during training camp we work a lot of two-minute drives. The way I look at it, if you have a successful two-minute drive at the end of practice you kind of feel, ‘Hey, that was a good day, that was a win for us.’ If you don't get into field goal range or you have a turnover or you don't score the touchdown you kind of treat it as we lost that practice. That’s the mindset that we work on. We work on it during the season, every Thursday and it’s competitive; we are going live against the defense and we are getting after it. I think that in practice that's your most competitive and only time you get to go full speed against the starting defense. There’s a full pass rush so we are prepared for it. I think guys have a great understanding of what plays we are going to run, what coverages we should see and how to get open. We were able to hit some big plays and mix in runs and it flows very smoothly for us.” The Giants overcame late deficits to pull out early-season victories against Philadelphia, Arizona and Miami, plus a late tie vs. Buffalo. At New England, Manning threw two late touchdown passes sandwiched around a Patriots score. One of the ironies of Manning’s season – and indeed, his career – is that he plays so splendidly in situations he would be thrilled to avoid. “We told the team late in the season that we have to find a way to get off to a fast start,” Manning said. “I said, ‘It's great to have that comfort and that confidence if it comes down to the fourth quarter and it's a final drive, we are going to go down and score. But sometimes weird things happen. In San Francisco the ball gets tipped. Against Seattle Victor Cruz kind of slips a little bit out of a break, the ball gets tipped up, intercepted and returned for a touchdown, game over. There are always going to be those plays. You don’t want to have to be in that situation all the time. “I told the guys after those circumstances, ‘That was a fluke. If we get into another two-minute drive we are going to go down and score. We got down there inside the 10 both times, we moved right down the field, but that is one reason why you don't want to be in those circumstances all the time. That’s part of football and you have tight games and we won a lot of them. But we lost a couple and obviously Green Bay gets thrown in there, when we had to drive to get down there but we left just enough time for them to go down and get a field goal. So we just have to find ways to get a lead and try to hold onto it.” A week after the stirring victory in New England, the tipped pass on a fourth down in San Francisco resulted in the first defeat in what became a four-game losing streak. A lesser team might have folded. But the Giants regrouped to win three of their last four games, including victories as visitors against the Cowboys and Jets and the division-clinching triumph over Dallas on New Year’s Night. So why didn’t the Giants fall apart when the chips seemed to be down?“We just thought we weren't playing bad football,” Manning said. “That was the important thing that coach (Tom) Coughlin and (I) tried to get across the players. It's not like we went through a slump and played terrible. Of those games, we had one bad game against New Orleans, who put a good beating on us. But the other ones, San Francisco a great team, we played them tough into the final minutes, Green Bay who was undefeated, played them into the final 50 seconds it’s a tie game, Philadelphia, same thing. We drove down and scored and they did the same thing they drove down and got another touchdown late in the game to get a win so, we played pretty close in all those games. We just couldn’t find that little edge and maybe one or two plays difference to play better. We said. ‘Let’s just turn it up a notch, let’s just turn up the heat a little bit more. Let’s get a little more prepared, let’s work a little harder during the week and make sure we are at our best and we're giving everything we have and all in at this point into this final stretch. We’re not that far off from being a very good team and beating some of the best teams in the NFL. So let’s keep our confidence, let’s turn it up a notch and we'll be a tough team to beat.’” The Giants were all that and more down the stretch. They won their final six games, including four in the postseason. Manning absorbed six sacks and a harsh beating in the NFC Championship Game, but the Giants won in overtime in a return trip to San Francisco. Manning said it was one of the most physical games he’s played in. “Their defense is as good as you get, they have a great front seven, they have good corners, there's not a weakness on that defense,” Manning said. “It's one of those games where we knew our defense was going to play as well. Their offense relied on turnovers and field position to get points. So it was a game where we had to be patient, we couldn’t force things. We didn’t want to give their offense a short field to work with. We said, ‘Let’s stay in the game, let’s give ourselves a shot at the end to win this.’ And of course a couple special teams turnovers in our favor really helped us get the field position and we hit Manningham on a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, which was big. And then (Lawrence) Tynes kicking the end of the game field goal.”Super Bowl XLVI was rated a tossup by many, unlike the game four years earlier in which the Giants were decided underdogs to the undefeated Patriots. The Giants moved the ball in the first half, but went into the halftime locker room trailing, 10-9. They have not led at halftime ni any of their five Super Bowls. “I don't think we were nervous,” Manning said. “We knew we were playing better than what the scoreboard was, so to go into halftime down was a surprise. I thought we moved the ball very well and had opportunities to score some points, but we didn't execute down in the red zone. We had some sacks when we were getting close to scoring and settled for field goals. We had the holding call on third-and-one, underthrew Manningham on a post that could have been a touchdown. We had a great game plan and did a lot of things very, very well. “The second half I said, ‘We should be able to continue to do the same stuff, move the ball down there and score. We started the second half off pretty quickly and got the game to the fourth quarter.” The Giants trailed, 17-15, when they took possession at their own 12-yard line with 3:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. On the first play, Manning threw perhaps the greatest pass of his career, a pinpoint 38-yard strike up the left sideline to Manningham, whose feet were so close to the sideline that Bill Belichick challenged the call. That ignited an 88-yard drive that ended with Ahmad Bradshaw backing into the end zone for the winning touchdown with 57 seconds remaining. “We knew all we needed was a field goal to get the lead, so we were very comfortable in that situation,” Manning said. “We had been in that situation many times during that season. Been in that situation with the Patriots earlier that season and had come through and guys stepped up and I thought we had a great plan for what they were going to do. They had a couple of all-out blitzes that we were prepared for and checked to some plays and runs that we did and really had a good efficient two-minute drive to go down there and get that win. It was actually a lot different from the two minutes drive in (Super Bowl XLII) where the ball was almost intercepted and there were almost some sacks. That was kind of an ugly two-minute drive with a great outcome. The one we had this year was as efficient and well planned and executed as you can have a drive.” When Manning thinks of the 2011 championship Giants, it’s not specific plays, players or games that stand out, but how everyone responded down the stretch. “I think just us coming together as a team at the end of the season,” Manning said. “One of the messages coach Coughlin talked about at the beginning of the year was finish. Let’s finish the fourth quarter, let’s finish the end of the season strong. We may have taken that too literally. A lot of games we were down in the fourth quarter and had to make comebacks. “We won a bunch of games and then we had a little lapse right there in the middle and in the beginning of the second half of the season. The last two games we needed wins to make the playoffs. Then we needed four wins in the playoffs to get to a championship. We definitely finished the season strong.” So strong, they took home another Lombardi Trophy.

Giants News | New York Giants – Giants.com

The 2011 championship season through Eli Manning's eyes