During Monday night’s “ManningCast” of the Dallas Cowboys’ 31-14 wild-card win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Eli Manning discussed the advice he gave to his successor with the New York Giants.
Manning said Giants quarterback Daniel Jones reached out to him before his first playoff game Sunday, and Manning kept it brief with a “little pep talk.” The Giants went on to upset the Minnesota Vikings 31-24 and Jones drew plaudits for his performance.
“With Daniel, I never reach out to Daniel,” Manning said. “I told him, ‘I’m always a resource for you. I’m here for you. I’m not going to be the annoying guy like calling you and telling you what you should do or shouldn’t.’
“But he reached out and was kind of like, ‘Hey, first playoff game. Anything I need to know about?’ And I said, ‘Just play the way you’ve been playing. You don’t all of a sudden get to the playoffs and say I’ve got to try to change something or do something new.’ I said, ‘You’ve been playing great all year.'”
Manning said Jones asked if the old adage that the playoffs are “faster” had any truth behind it.
“I’m like, ‘That’s just something people say because they’ve got to say something,'” Manning said. “The speed’s the same. No one all of a sudden gets faster all of a sudden for this game. It’s just if people are playing harder, you’re going to play harder. … People are just going to the whistle.”
Jones completed 24 of 35 passes for 301 yards and two touchdowns and added 78 rushing yards. He became the first player in NFL history to reach 300 passing yards, two passing touchdowns and 70 rushing yards in a playoff game.
Sunday marked New York’s first playoff victory since 2011, the second of two Super Bowl runs by Manning’s Giants. Manning was the MVP of both Super Bowls (XLII and XLVI) and started 234 games at quarterback for the Giants until his retirement following the 2019 season, the same year New York drafted Jones sixth overall.
The sixth-seeded Giants will visit the top-seeded Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday night in the divisional round.
–Field Level Media