Eli Manning, 09.13.09

Can you talk about how much more comfortable you and Mario Manningham are now?

Mario did some really good things today.  I hit him on an in-cut, that was good.  He has a lot of talent, a lot of ability.  Really the touchdown pass was all him.  I checked to the play, it didn’t work as planned, but he improvised and it turned out well, he made a guy miss and got the touchdown.  That is something that it is good to see some of these receivers do.  Make some plays after the catch, make some guys miss, and that was great to see that.  I thought all the receivers played really well.  Everybody was on the same page.  We had a third down kind of late where we had a curl to Mario and it ended up being offside on the defense, but it would have been a tough catch.  A guy was trying to sit on it.  Besides that, I thought the receivers played really well and we just have to build from there.

What was the original call on the Manningham touchdown?

It was just a check.  We had a run play.  They came with the blitz, an all-out blitz, it was really a check that wasn’t in the game plan.  We went into the check and just kind of improvised.  It popped into my head and he did a good job of seeing that.  I think it is good that these young receivers are really in tune with what is going on.  It was something that we hadn’t really talked about in the past, it was something we did in training camp and we have in our package, but he got the call and made it work.

Is it always good to get that first divisional opponent out of the way early in the season?

Yeah.  When you play Washington in the first game of the season it is always tough.  We know the defense is going to be tough to play against.  They are great at stopping the run, they are going to play a lot of man-to-man and mix up different coverages and different pass rushes.  I like playing a good team to start the season because you know you have to come out and play great football from the get-go.  You don’t have time to mess around.  We did a good job of starting fast.  Really the first two drives were almost perfect.  We got down there close, we had two third and shorts, and we couldn’t convert.  We had a fourth and short and couldn’t convert so that is frustrating and that is something we have to fix.  You convert those and hopefully you can score touchdowns and that was keeping us from getting in the end zone.  We did a lot of things well.  I thought the drive at the end of the game was really clutch.  We needed to run off some clock, we needed to get some points on the board.  I would liked to have gotten a touchdown, we had a penalty that kind of stopped us from getting a touchdown, but we got points on the board and also ran off about five or six minutes and that was nice.

Did you feel like your receivers wanted to come out and prove something?

Yeah, I think they wanted to come out and play well.  They read the papers and see what all the reporters are talking about and what is on TV.  They don’t like hearing that, they want something to prove.  I thought they did a great job all training camp of making plays and doing things well.  Some guys really made some clutch plays.  Steve Smith helped the team on the last drive with a huge catch, taking the hit.  Kevin Boss on a scramble kept us going on the last drive.  I was excited for them to come out and play well, but there are things we can improve on and we have to keep getting better.

Were you happy to get the receivers involved early in the game?

Yeah I think it was good to kind of get off to a fast start throwing the ball.  The first play I hit Mario for a few yards, but then we had a third down and I hit Mario on an in cut and he made a guy miss and got up the field.  We did some good things; we were very crisp, very sharp, to start the game, which was good to see.  It was a great game plan, we started seeing what the Washington defense was doing, and they were throwing some different looks at us.  We had to adjust and get in some good plays and guys were recognizing what was going on.

Is it important that some of the receivers build on this performance?

I think it is something we can build on.  We can’t start thinking we are invincible and everything.  We have to keep working.  There are things that can definitely get better.  We have to look at the film and go from there, but they definitely did some very good things today and we just have to keep trying to get better.

What did you do differently on the interception?

You know, it was just tough.  I can’t roll right and then kind of throw.  If I could have stepped up in the pocket and really gotten something on the ball, I maybe could have got it there in time.  It was a thing where you are rolling right and throwing an in cut.  I know Landry likes to sit on things.  I can’t afford to throw the ball there. Either throw the ball away or run or do something.  When you have a lot of things going well you can’t afford to give a turnover there.  Our defense stepped up and held them to only three points and that was huge.