Eli On Eli – 2011 All About Eliminating Mistakes

ELI. ELIminate mistakes.

The quote of the 2011 season has just been uttered by Eli Manning — it’s so dead on you’d think it was a script written by Coach Coughlin and handed to him. Check it out:

"“It’s about putting the team in situations to hit big plays and avoid the bad plays, the bad decisions. When things go wrong, hit the check down, throw it away, avoid the bad play. Last year, that was part of the problem. We did a lot of great things, but our bad plays were very bad. It wasn’t just an incompletion, it was an interception or a fumble or a turnover or something. We eliminate those things and we have the talent to make a lot of plays and score points. We have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.”"

This has been my mantra all offseason, START CHECKING THE BALL DOWN. The Giants have RBs that can catch, TEs that can catch, and now FBs that can catch the ball. Kevin Gilbride has installed so many options for every position that if players simply make their reads and execute their role on any given play — the Giants have an outlet for Manning to go to. Now Manning simply needs to make his read, and deliver the ball to the safest place and not try and force things into triple coverage. Batted balls and tipped passes are things you can’t always control, but relying on the checkdown to advance the ball and likely move the chains needs to be a more common occurrence in 2011. Sounds like Eli is on that same page as well. Glad to hear it.

[quote via NFL.com]