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The beard, like the Giants' winning streak, is going away

Eli Manning said Monday he is "probably" getting rid of the beard he has been sporting in recent weeks.

By Ed Valentine
Elsa

Say goodbye to the new 'Manning Face.' New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning indicated Monday that with the team's four-game winning streak out the window, the beard he has worn during the streak is likely headed down the drain.

Manning knows that at 4-7 the Giants' playoff hopes are hanging by the tiniest of threads.

"I think we know we have to win these next five games to give ourselves a shot," Manning said. "It's still just a shot, nothing is guaranteed, but there's still hope and we know all we can do is worry about us trying to win each game and win the next game and that's what we're going to do."

The Giants ran for 202 yards and averaged 6.7 yards per carry Sunday. Manning was asked if he felt the Giants should have run the ball more.

"At times, you kind of say, let's just keep running it. We were getting 9 to 10 yards a pop, let's just keep doing it. We needed to throw the ball better. I think our passing game wasn't where it needed to be, a lot of it versus man coverage. We didn't take advantage of that like we needed to," Manning said. "We just didn't make some plays. Missed Jernigan on a little wheel route, I had Cruz on another wheel route. I missed those guys by a little bit. They made some plays, they covered us pretty well at times and we didn't win some of the battles."

The Giants settled for field goals twice in the first half when they had first-and-goal situations.

"We got down in the red zone a few times and tried to run it, that one time losing 5 yards on a run hurt us on one green zone trip, then we had a fourth down we didn't convert, some third downs where we got into the green zone that we didn't convert. A few of those things hurt us and our execution wasn't as good as it needed to be. That's kind of what the game came down to," Manning said.

"I thought yesterday we just didn't' quite get the looks that we wanted. They played some things differently than what we expected."

  • In the beginning vs. the Vikings [Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports]
  • The beard vs. the Eagles [John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports]
  • The beard beats the Raiders [Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports]
  • The Packers couldn't deal with the beard [Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports]

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