New York Giants: Top 5 Eli Manning career wins against Cowboys

5. 2016 Week 1: 20-19 Giants win

The toughest part of compiling this list was attempting to find a somewhat-recent game deserving of being on it. Obviously, 2016 is almost all I had to choose from, as the New York Giants are currently in the midst of an awful few years of football, especially against the Dallas Cowboys.

2016 will go down as the last time Eli ever led Big Blue into the playoffs, and starting off the year with a critical one-point win in Dallas was a big-time catalyst for that. While you could certainly argue that the December 11th, 2016 game had more playoff ramifications to it, that was a low-scoring affair and battle of the defenses (and one monster play from Odell Beckham Jr.). While this 20-19 game wasn’t exactly a barn-burner, Eli was on point, to the tune of 19-28 passing for 207 yards, three touchdowns and only one interception.

His overall stats don’t tell the story of how well he played, as the Giants took their foot off the gas in the second half after rallying to a 13-9 halftime lead, as well as the team only having 23-total minutes of ball control. The biggest stretch of the game took place with 4:00 left in the first half, with the Giants now trailing 9-7. Starting on his own 25-yard line, Eli led the Giants on one of his masterful late-half drives, switching into different looks several times en route to a 16-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, as he found Sterling Shepard in the end zone with just seven seconds remaining the half to leave the home crowd stunned.

After Dallas fought back and scored at the beginning of each of the third and fourth quarters to take a six-point lead, Eli got the ball back once again with ten minutes remaining and sealed the deal. In what was probably the last big moment of Victor Cruz’s career, Eli hit the ‘salsa king’ on a sharp three-yard pass to finish off the drive to give the Giants a 20-19 lead with 6:19 to go that they would never relinquish.