You may have heard that Daniel Jones had the same college coach as Peyton and Eli Manning. You probably have also seen the Spider-Man memes dedicated to the physical similarities of Jones and Eli, who were teammates during Eli's final season with the Giants.
Because of the David Cutcliffe connection and at least one epic Hoboken flip cup matchup, the two Manning bros have been staunch supporters of the turnover-prone, still-proving-himself quarterback. That is, until the Giants played on Monday Night Football at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Barry's plea for the NFL to stop putting the Giants in primetime has fallen on deaf ears, and this game was just another exhibit in that well-supported argument.
Jones threw two very bad interceptions in the 30-10 loss, and each time, Peyton and Eli looked totally pained in holding back their disgust. "He went colorblind for a little bit and threw it to the wrong jersey," Eli suggested when Jones threw a pick directly to Buccaneers defensive tackle Steve McLendon, who was shocked to find his first career interception in his hands at age 35. There wasn't an eligible receiver even remotely in the vicinity of Jones's throw; McClendon was blocking Giants center Billy Price when he found himself called into duty as Jones's target.
On his second pick, Jones's throw doinked off linebacker Devin White and bounced off into the hands of safety Mike Edwards. Peyton shook his head back and forth and Eli uncomfortably scratched his forehead.
"Geez," Eli said.
"He hit him right in the helmet," Peyton said.
"Yeah, it hit one defender in the helmet—," Eli stopped himself mid-sentence to grimace in secondhand embarrassment.
New York is 3-7, and while quarterback play certainly isn't the only reason for that—"We have to do everything better," acknowledged head coach Joe Judge—you know things are going badly for Jones when his two most prominent apologists can't come up with any excuses for his play. To paraphrase LBJ, when you've lost the Manningcast, you've lost America.
