“Play smart against San Francisco 49ers,” New York Giants’ Eli Manning tips his teammates – NFL News
The resurging New York Giants are just one step away from becoming the National Football Conference (NFC) champions, and qualifying for the Super Bowl mega event, but overcoming the San Francisco 49ers will not be as easy as falling off a log.
New York’s quarterback, Eli Manning, who is also a contender for the Most Valuable Player (MVP) title this season, is well aware of what is in the offing for the Giants and tipped his teammates on Monday, January 16, 2012, regarding controlling the 49ers.
While recalling the meeting between these two teams in the National Football League (NFL) regular season, in which the Giants lost after failing to score the game-tying touchdown at the end of the final quarter, Manning urged the players to play smart against
the 49ers to get a victory this time around.
The key difference between the two sides in that game was the sturdy and meticulously prepared 49ers’ defence.
The 49ers did not give away any touchdown until the third quarter. Besides that, they restricted Manning from finding the accurate targets for his passes and forced him to throw two interceptions.
“We know we’re going to have to play that same way [as the 49ers do]. We’re going to have to play smart. Offensively, we’re going to have to be very consistent. Everybody is going to know their assignments. It’s just about execution”, Manning said.
As per the overall regular season statistics, Manning completed 359 passes of 589 attempts for 4,933 yards. He also had 29 touchdowns and 16 interceptions to his name and got a quarterback rating of 92.9.
However, in the playoffs where Manning has received a lot of support from the defence and rushers in two games, he completed 44 passes of 65 attempts for an impressive 607 yards, while throwing six touchdowns and only one interception.
Manning was of the view that there is one more aspect where the Giants needed to work on.
He pointed out that the defence, despite the improvement, is still unable to force turnovers, which sometimes leads to a touchdown score as well.
The quarterback hoped that the defence would pressurise the opponents, block their ways and mark them perfectly so as to get the turnovers.
“We can’t turn the ball over. Hopefully our defence can continue to get some turnovers for us and continue to play well. If we’re going to continue this thing, it’s going to take both sides of the ball playing to the best of their ability”, Manning added.
After defeating Atlanta Falcons and getting their first victory of the postseason, Giants signalled vicious intentions for the Packers, who had also defeated them in the regular season.
The Giants not only took revenge, but eliminated Packers from the race, to be the best. One wonders, if the 49ers will face the same fate!
Tags: