Eli's Comin'

Attention women of Dallas: Eli’s coming! Hide your hearts immediately. OK, so that might be a little extreme, but lookout, after “upsetting” Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs, the New York Giants are venturing out to Dallas to meet up with the Cowboys for the third time this season. On New York’s last trip out to Texas Stadium, the Cowboys handed them a loss to open the season. Funny thing though, that was the last road loss for the Giants for the entire year. Yep, Eli Manning and the Giants have won eight straight road games. And the biggest reason the Giants will win this weekend: Eli Manning.

Eli Manning in just the last two games has finally left the Ozzie Canseco-Billy Ripken-Harvey Grant-Jonas Hayes-Gerald Wilkins-Jeremy Giambi fraternity of semi-talented professionals living in the shadow of their more talented brothers. Eli is finally trading on his own name now. In the last two games Eli has a 6:1 TD:INT ratio. True against the Patriots, he threw a crushing interception at the end of the game to ice it for New England, but did HE give up the Touchdown bomb to Randy Moss? Was Eli the one that let Wes Welker catch 11 balls over the course of the game? After struggling to get the offense going Sunday, Eli finally put the game away in the second half when Tampa seemed to be rallying. He looked off the defense and hit Amani Toomer for the clinching points. The team really seemed to believe in him there at the end and they were very congratulatory on the sidelines. That didn’t always happen in years past.

With no Tiki Barber and no Jeremy Shockey, this New York Giants team needed its QB to step up and now Eli has Brandon Jacobs, Plaxico Burress and Amani Toomer believing. They said as much yesterday before and after the game.

Eli is ready to continue this run of eight straight road wins. Dallas is a little beat up to boot. TO is still suffering a lingering leg injury. Terry Glenn really hasn’t played meaningful snaps all year. Last time we saw Tony Romo, he was chasing down ANOTHER interception against Washington. Half of the Dallas coaching staff is readying their resumes for when Bill Parcells calls. And should we not forget that Wade Phillips is the head coach of Dallas? I know the guy is the winningest coach, percentage-wise in Atlanta Falcons’ history, but come on. Wade Phillips. Lastly, it is hard for a team to beat another squad three times in one season. After a while the law of averages is going to catch up and flip the switch. And Eli Manning can’t wait. His switch has already been flipped.