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As the Giants prepare to leave for their week off (players will be absent from Wednesday), Pat Shurmur gave a vote of confidence to the first position that interests everyone.
"Eli is our quarterback," he said of Eli Manning, Super Bowl MVP twice.
But what about when the Giants come back early next week?
On this subject, Shurmur was less unequivocal.
"We'll see," he says. "We will examine all things. I think we have a minute to do it and I think we need to make good decisions for the future. "
Shurmur is well aware of the weight of his words and he tries to be as accurate as possible. He said he did not want to "tease" the idea of a shift change. Since the end of the defeat on Sunday against Washington, however, he has done little to defuse this eventuality.
It's a coach who said two and a half weeks ago that Manning's role would not be on the table when the Giants have a weekend break after losing to the Eagles. It is a coach who, when he wanted to try to crush a scenario on wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. this season, stressed his lack of patience with the subject by declaring it "Finito! Completed!"
This quarterback conversation? His comenzando! Just start!
"At this point, Eli is our quarterback and we are looking at all areas to improve," he said. "That's where it happens."
It's starting to look like a referendum beyond Manning's future on the position he's held since the 11th week of the 2004 season, but the quarterback has said he's not worried about that.
"That's what a coach does," he said. "The week after, you evaluate everything. That's part of his job. "
As to whether this verdict will keep Manning on the ground, he said, "I hope so." If that is not the case, he said he would take care of that.
"I've always been part of the team and I'm doing what I'm told," he said. "I'm waiting and want to be the starter until I'm told differently."
In his weekly radio appearance on WFAN, Manning said that he did not think that he might have arrived at the end of his time with the Giants.
"You try not to think about it," he says. "You understand and I see the big picture. Hey, you understand that when you reach grade 15 and you do not win games, you do not know how many possibilities you have. "
He also said that losing at age 37 was much harder than he was as a rookie when he was 1 to 6 years old as a starter.
"At the beginning of your career, you have a difficult season or difficult games, you need to know to learn," he said. "You learn to win and put everything away, and you know you have the time and you are building something with your core of guys. Late [your career]you do not know if there is another year or what is waiting for you. It makes things difficult. It forces you to give everything and everything to reverse the situation and get that victory or be happy about what will happen. It's a little perspective.
"Hey, I still have eight games left to do something good this season, it does not guarantee that you play the series or that you play next year, that does not guarantee anything, but you can feel good and you can Is fun to win It's fun to win football games, it's fun to win several games in a row These are great feelings and we have the opportunity to do it, to feel good about what we do. "
The debate over Manning stems more from the team's performance than from his own. He has a 91.0 rating this season, with eight touchdowns and six interceptions, and failed to raise an offense that struggles to score points in a league in which younger and younger more mobile are shaking their heads and have touchdowns. to fall from their hair.
With the team 1 to 7 and looking to the future with the trades executed last week, playing at Manning at the expense of training other quarters could be at odds with the long-term goals of the teams. Giants.
Especially after last year, not playing in rookie Davis Webb was considered a mistake.
The Giants' options for playing the quarterback are not necessarily better than Manning, they are just different. Rookie Alex Tanney and rookie Kyle Lauletta total some of the experience in the NFL.
Shurmur insists that even though Lauletta is not yet active for a regular season game, he is recruiting reps for training.
"You always want to make sure that when you replace someone, you replace him with someone who can do that job," Shurmur said. "I think you always take it into account because the team is counting on us to play the best players in all positions."
Changing a quarterback, however, is never a simple decision. The Giants have made many changes this season, but replacing a Super Bowl MVP twice is not a reserved task at the head coach level.
Shurmur stated that he had not yet spoken to General Manager Dave Gettleman or Manning's property. "I imagine it could be part of what we do this week," he said.
And that could determine who plays the quarterback for the Giants this season.
Tom Rock started covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and is the writer of the best Giants drummer since 2008.
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