It is called Quarterback Hell, when your 37-year-old franchise icon is reduced to a helpless, frozen statue trapped behind a matador offensive line, more quartersack than quarterback — and Saquon Barkley can’t be your next franchise quarterback.
No one will throw Eli Manning under the bus, out of respect for what he has meant to the Giants.
And no one needs to.
Because he is already under the bus.
And the Giants need a new bus driver.
And this time it is Pat Shurmur who needs to make the painful, franchise-rattling decision of when and where to tell Eli Manning that it’s over.
The wheels in Shurmur’s head are clearly in motion.
“I’m gonna look at everything,” Shurmur said after Redskins 20, Giants 13.
He was asked whether any major changes on offense could include the quarterback.
“I don’t want to go there and I’m not gonna tease that,” Shurmur said. “I just want to look at everything, just see what we have to do moving forward.”
What he must do during this upcoming bye week is elevate rookie Kyle Lauletta to No. 2 and let him get enough first-team reps to be able to function comfortably, and sooner rather than later.
Because what do he and the Giants have to lose at this point?
They are 1-7 making their case as the worst team in the NFL, and the recent fire sale means this is now about the future.
Manning cannot get his team in the end zone until the last minute of Garbage Time. The offense is a dead, dysfunctional disgrace out of the Dark Ages.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Odell Beckham Jr. said.
Shurmur should let Lauletta get his feet wet in San Francisco next Monday night and get him up to speed in time for the Nov. 18 game against the defensively challenged Buccaneers.
It would save Manning from the “What have you done for us lately?” MetLife boobirds, who are now targeting their once-beloved No. 10.
Derek Jeter got booed at the end. Mariano Rivera got booed. Joe Namath was booed. They all get booed.
And Manning’s a big boy. He knows it comes with the territory. He knows better than most there is no better place to win than New York.
And no worse place to lose.
No matter who you are.
“I want to stay here,” Manning said.
Which means that barring some unlikely trade offer he can’t refuse, he won’t waive his no-trade clause before Tuesday’s deadline.
Which means that his final days as a Hall of Fame Giant appear destined to be spent on the sidelines.
Manning sometimes makes the bad decision or throws to the wrong man or holds the ball too long on those infrequent occasions when the offensive line (seven sacks) resembles Five Blocks of Granite.
“You can’t score 13 points in any game at any level and expect to win ’em. … We gotta unlock that,” Shurmur said.
His most egregious moment came in the second quarter after a pair of passes to Barkley gained 40 yards, when he looked for Beckham from the Washington 11 and found D.J. Swearinger instead.
“I thought Odell was gonna be able to kinda run by him, and the guy passed it off a little better than I thought,” Manning said. “I thought he might run with the corner route, and he came off right away and just drove on it, and I thought Odell was gonna be able to get by him.
“Bad decision by me.”
Manning was asked if he was concerned that the decision-makers might decide for the second straight season that it was time to give another quarterback a look.
“I gotta worry about just doing my job, and trying to play, and prepare, and … that’s not my decision,” he said.
Big Blah offense.
Third-and-6, 5-yard completion to Bennie Fowler.
Third-and-15, 3-yard checkdown to Barkley.
Third-and-6, 3-yard checkdown to Barkley. Field goal.
Third-and-18, interception deep down the field.
Fourth-and-3 following an Olivier Vernon 43-yard fumble return, a pass through Evan Engram’s hands.
Third-and-16, a 3-yard checkdown to Barkley.
Second-and-goal at the 3, incomplete fade for … Fowler!
Third-and-goal, incomplete to Barkley. Field goal.
Asked if he was getting enough out of the quarterback (2-for-14 on third down) in the red zone, Shurmur said: “I think we gotta get more out of everybody.”
Twilights of careers can be unforgiving — ask Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, ask Willie Mays, ask most of them. Eli Manning, too.
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