Eli Manning Benched as Giants Name Daniel Jones the Starter
The team’s coach, Pat Shurmur, informed both quarterbacks of the decision on Tuesday.
After 16 seasons, 234 games, more than 8,000 passes, 362 touchdowns and, most important, two Super Bowl victories, Eli Manning has lost his job as the Giants’ starting quarterback.
With the Giants off to an 0-2 start, the team announced on Tuesday that Manning, 38, would be benched in favor of the rookie Daniel Jones. Coach Pat Shurmur delivered the news to both quarterbacks on Tuesday morning, and suggested the decision was part of a transition away from the Manning era: 16 seasons that produced two Super Bowl championships but only six playoff appearances.
“Eli and I spoke this morning,” Shurmur said in a statement. “I told him that we are making a change and going with Daniel as the starter. I also talked to Daniel. Eli was obviously disappointed, as you would expect, but he said he would be what he has always been, a good teammate, and continue to prepare to help this team win games.”
He added, “This move is more about Daniel moving forward than about Eli.”
Manning had hinted Monday that he knew a change might be coming.
“We’re 0-2 and you are looking for answers,” he told reporters. “I get it. We drafted a guy early and you are not winning games, these things are going to come up. I just have to keep working and do whatever my job is.”
Shurmur, too, had declined to affirm his commitment to Manning, saying only that “he’s been our starter to this point.”
The Giants started the season with losses to the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills. While far from abysmal, Manning did not sparkle in those games, completing 56 of 89 passes for 556 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He put up those numbers without his best receiver in recent years, Odell Beckham Jr., who was traded to the Cleveland Browns in the off-season, and critics of the decision to bench him — including his center on the 2007 Super Bowl champions, Shaun O’Hara — noted the Giants’ defense had allowed a combined 63 points in the team’s season-opening losses.
Manning’s malaise has lasted for several seasons, though, and it has coincided with the decline of the team. Since his second Super Bowl win, after the 2011 season, the team has made the playoffs only once, losing in the first round in January 2017.
The Giants drafted Jones this year with the sixth overall pick out of Duke, a selection that puzzled many fans and prognosticators since he had been projected to be selected later. The Giants vigorously defended his selection at the time. “He’s going to have to spit on my shoes when he comes in for me not to want to draft this kid,” General Manager Dave Gettleman said.
Though Jones’s numbers at Duke did not pop off the page, scouts loved his arm, mobility, intelligence and intangibles, as well as his height, 6-foot-5.
Manning’s benching comes in a season in which more than a half-dozen teams are already on their second quarterback — the Jets are on their third — and at a time when several are wrestling with decisions about the future of aging Super Bowl-winning leaders. Just last week, two veterans sustained significant injuries: Ben Roethlisberger, 37, of the Pittsburgh Steelers, will miss the rest of the season after elbow surgery, and Drew Brees, 40, of the New Orleans Saints, will miss at least several weeks with a hand injury. (Tom Brady of the New England Patriots still leads one of the N.F.L.’s highest-scoring offenses, but at age 42 he may not have many years left as an active player.)
Manning was benched in midseason before, in 2017, in a decision that stirred controversy. The team was 2-9 at the time, but Giants fans — loyal to Manning for his Super Bowl wins — felt he was being disrespected. They scorned his replacement, Geno Smith, and Manning soon returned to the starting job.
Initially, Manning had been asked to play only the first half of games for the rest of that season, but he rejected the plan. Smith played all right in his one start, but the Giants’ owner John Mara disagreed with the way the benching was handled, and Manning was back as the starter the next week.
Regardless of how many more games he plays with the team, Manning always will be remembered for the two dramatic Super Bowl wins.
In 2008, the Giants beat the 18-0 Patriots after Manning eluded a seemingly certain sack and hit David Tyree, who caught a pass by pinning the ball to his helmet. The play is often cited as one of the greatest in N.F.L. history. The Giants won, 17-14.
Four years later, they again won a close game against the Patriots, 21-17. Manning was the most valuable player in both of those Super Bowls.
Though those titles forever locked Manning in the Giants’ pantheon, his overall numbers never matched the very best quarterbacks of his generation, including his older brother Peyton, who retired in 2015. Eli Manning never led the league in a major passing category, and his career record as a starter when he was benched was 116-116.
Still, his longevity and durability mean his cumulative statistics with the Giants are monumental: 56,537 passing yards and 362 touchdown passes.
The Jones era will begin on Sunday in Tampa, Fla., against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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