No one is going to concoct a magic formula to cure Eli Manning of the turnover plague that overcame him this past season, when he threw a career-high 25 interceptions to severely hurt the cause for the Giants.
Changes in that area have to come from the quarterback himself, according to Giants general manager Jerry Reese.
“When you have a seven-year veteran in the National Football League, you’ve won a Super Bowl, you’ve been the MVP of a Super Bowl. . . . I think he’s going to put the onus on him and that’s where the onus is, it’s on him,” Reese told Kimberly Jones of the YES Network. “He needs to take care of the ball better and he knows that. I think Eli tried to do too much late in the season after we had some of the receivers go out and the offensive line was a mixed bag for a lot of the season. I think he was trying to do too much and I think that cost him some turnovers.”
Reese, in the interview which airs tonight at 6:30 on “This Week In Football” on YES, also said he has spoken with safeties Antrel Rolle and Kenny Phillips about their comments last week on Miami radio station WQAM.
Rolle said the Giants need to have more fun and that a main reason why the Jets made it into the playoffs and the Giants did not was that Rex Ryan fosters better team chemistry than Tom Coughlin. Phillips said he’d love to play for a coach like Ryan and added after three years he was still in a feeling-out process with Coughlin.
“When things go bad and your season doesn’t end like you want it anything you say can be misconstrued,” Reese said. “I talked to both of those players. They’re very remorseful about how it was spun. I think they’re both good people. If we make a couple plays, if Antrel makes a play back there, if Kenny Phillips makes a play back there, we’re not having this conversation. We’re probably still playing and everybody’s saying, ‘Wow, Tom Coughlin’s got a great formula.’ That’s how it goes. Whoever is winning has the best formula for that year.”
The brush with controversy was new for Phillips but not for Rolle, who in his first season with the Giants made headlines more than once with his comments.
“That’s some of the things that [Rolle] and I talked about,” Reese told YES. “Less is more with the media. You let your plays do the talking. He said he was 200 percent in, and I believe him.”
Reese also reiterated he would not shut the door on a return for Plaxico Burress, who is scheduled to be released from prison in June.
“Well, you know my standard answer to that. . . . We investigate everything and we’ll definitely investigate that,” Reese said. “But you know Plax, when he gets home I think the first thing he’ll want to do is just spend time with his family and we’ll be in contact at the appropriate time. So we’ll just let that unfold. Absolutely we will not rule that out.”
*
No Giants were selected to the All-Pro first team, but four — defensive ends Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck, guard Chris Snee and Rolle — were named to the second team.