PHILADELPHIA — It took Eli Manning four years to win his first playoff game, and it has taken Daniel Jones four years to even get the chance to win his first playoff game.
The Giants didn’t draft Josh Allen to be Manning’s successor. They drafted Daniel Jones to be Manning’s successor.
And so now, as the sixth-seed Giants set their wild-card sights on the Vikings in Minneapolis, here is the mandate for Daniel Jones:
Go be Eli Manning.
Bring on the Vikings and go lift your Giants the way you have lifted them all season. Go lift them the way you did (30-for-42, 334 yards, one touchdown, one interception and 34 rushing yards) on Christmas Eve in that 27-24 walk-off 61-yard field goal defeat.
Go lift your 2022 Giants the way Eli Manning lifted his 2007 and 2011 Giants.
Jones was wisely rested on Sunday against the top-seeded Eagles, 22-16 survivors over the Replacement Giants, along with Saquon Barkley and virtually every other starter on a day when Davis Webb started and balled out, and so Jones goes into the playoffs armed with confidence and self-belief.
No one thought Manning could win three playoff games on the road and upset Brett Favre in the NFC Championship game at arctic Lambeau Field to get to Super Bowl XLII.
This is where legends are born and legacies can be created.
“We’re a confident group,” Jones said. “I think we’re playing good football right now.”
The Giants who did play fought like hell to scare Jalen Hurts and the Giants who didn’t play believe they would have beaten the Vikings last month if not for a rash of self-inflicted wounds. Asked if he likes the matchup, Dexter Lawrence said: “I like us over anybody furreal.”
Manning lost his first playoff game in his second season, was rattled (10-for-18 for 113 yards, 3 INTs, 1 fumble) by the Panthers in a 23-0 loss at Giants Stadium. “I didn’t play well, and I made too many mistakes for us to win today,” he said. “It was not the way I wanted to come out and play. I look forward to coming back and getting better.”
He got plenty better (six touchdowns, one interception) during that 2007 playoff run that ended with him beating Tom Brady and the Perfect Patriots and winning Super Bowl XLII MVP.
I asked Jones if he had one favorite Manning playoff memory.
“Not one necessarily that sticks out besides the obvious ones,” he said. “I think the clutch throw to [Mario] Manningham down the sideline [Super Bowl XLVI], the clutch throw to [David] Tyree obviously [Super Bowl XLII], and just how big he was in those games at the biggest moments when the team needed him the most and he delivered and made plays.”
Jones was 10 years old when Manning first shocked the world. He was 14, when Manning defeated Brady the second time. He is 25 and all grown up now with a head coach in Brian Daboll who abruptly halted the cycle of the franchise doing everything possible to screw its franchise quarterback up.
Center Jon Feliciano was a Bill from 2019-21. I asked him if the belief in Jones is similar to what it was in Allen.
“Hundred percent, yeah,” Feliciano said. “They’re different quarterbacks. Obviously Josh is probably a little more athletic running the ball. Daniel I think is definitely a little more accurate. I know people always want to compare them just ‘cause Daboll coaches both of them, but they’re different quarterbacks. … Josh has been killing it the last few years. I have no doubt that Daniel could do that.”
Do what?
“Be up there with the top-name quarterbacks,” Feliciano said.
So you think he can be this team’s Josh Allen?
“Yeah. Or whoever you want to say,” Feliciano said. “I think he can be our team’s Daniel Jones. I think he can be a top-five quarterback in the league.”
Jones has shown he is every bit as unflappable under the New York microscope as Easy Eli was every day for 16 years. His breakthrough this season is a testament to his physical and mental toughness. Through all the adversity, he never flinched. First one in the building, last one to leave. Same guy every day.
He resembles a more athletic Manning, who never summoned his legs as a weapon. But now it is his time for him to channel his inner Manning: the bigger the game, the bigger he will be asked to play.
I asked him if he thought the Giants would see the Vikings again. “Yeah, we thought so,” Jones said.
He had five game-winning drives this season. Manning had five postseason playoff drives.
“I have a ton of belief in our team, in our guys, and what we can do, what we can accomplish,” Jones said. “I think it’s important that we believe in one another.”
His media-scrum persona is Manningesque. And like Manning, a raging competitive fire burns on the inside.
“I think ever since he was a walk-on at Duke he’ll light that fire in himself to get going and it never stops,” Nick Gates told The Post. “He always has something to prove.”
He’s proved that he’s earned his new contract from the Giants. But that’s for tomorrow. “It’s a one-game season now,” Barkley said.
Be Eli Manning today.
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