5 More Years of Eli Manning Will Only Bring the Giants Buyer's Remorse

Maybe it's not too late for the Giants to take back that $84 million contract extension they gave Eli Manning two weeks ago. 

Maybe Manning pulled a Jason Pierre-Paul and left the contract on the table unsigned, figuring a few extra days wouldn't make a difference. Maybe there's a typo somewhere in the fine print that voids it—on page 7, it says "Roethlisberger" or something. Maybe the fax machine in Giants headquarters pulled an Elvis Dumervil. Or maybe Tom Coughlin went old-school and snail-mailed it to the league office: Odell Beckham Jr. could take the train to Manhattan, sprint to Park Avenue and make a leaping snatch of the stamp from the notary's hand.

No? How about some other technicality? Or a time machine? Stop, Jerry Reese! I am Jerry Reese from two weeks in the future. You are making a terrible mistake!

The Giants recently extended Manning's contract through 2019. Manning has responded with a pair of games guaranteed to cause buyer's remorse. He hasn't been awful; he has just defeated the purpose of spending $65 million guaranteed in cap space on a veteran quarterback by playing like a wide-eyed rookie late in close games: mismanaging the clock, missing open receivers, coughing up the football at inexcusable moments.

The Giants cannot endure five more expensive years like this. Manning is confident that he can turn things around. History suggests that he needed to turn things around three years ago.

Captain Comeback Sets Sail

Let's put the "Don't Score That Touchdown, Rashad" incident in its own special category. Manning's confusion about whether Rashad Jennings should score a touchdown at the end of the Cowboys game is one of those unique blunders of pro football history, like Jim Marshall running the wrong way for a touchdown or "kick to the clock." If Manning's only sin was a senior moment in the final seconds of an important game—a moment compounded and confounded by a sudden reversal from "kill the clock at all costs" to "throw out of the end zone" in the course of two plays—it could be written off as an isolated incident.

But then came last week's fumble in the red zone. A veteran quarterback like Manning should see Preston Parker flash open in the middle of the field. He should throw through the back of the end zone. Heck, he should curl up in the fetal position around the football and call for the field-goal unit. Manning hesitated, scrambled and fumbled: a Geno Smith type of play.

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The fumble was followed by late comeback drives that weren't really drives. Manning had the ball stripped from his hand on a third-down attempt, but a lucky bounce into Larry Donnell's arms yielded an unearned first down. Manning drew a delay-of-game penalty when he failed to call for the snap in time. Manning overthrew a wide-open Donnell up the seam. Last-ditch passes to open receivers along the deep sidelines wobbled and tailed away from their targets.

When big brother Peyton has series like those, we call the assisted-living facilities. Eli calls his broker.

Manning, with a Super Bowl ring for each finger and quarterback DNA that should be preserved in some vault in Norway, acknowledges the mistakes without worrying about them. "My confidence comes from [knowing], Hey, I've made plays," he said on a Monday conference call. "I've made comebacks, and I know I can do it."

Manning engineered a remarkable seven fourth-quarter comebacks in 2011, the year the 9-7 Giants squeaked into the playoffs, made the conference championship game, squeaked through that and kept squeaking all the way to beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Since then, Manning's comeback totals fell to three in 2012 and one each in 2013 and 2014. In addition to failing to come back from many deficits in the last few years, there have been late leads the Giants could not hold (this season's twin debacles, plus the Jaguars last year) and close games that devolved into fourth-quarter routs (Cardinals and Seahawks last year).

The rest of the Giants, from Tom Coughlin to Manning's supporting cast to the defense and special teams, bear some of the blame for the fourth-quarter woes. But Manning deserves a big share. He has thrown three touchdowns and six interceptions in the fourth quarters of games within seven points since 2013, completing just 56.3 percent of his passes (stats compiled from CBSSports.com). He has taken eight sacks in 135 pass attempts in such situations; a veteran quarterback should find ways to avoid such devastating sacks, even behind a shaky line.

Football Outsiders uses advanced metrics to analyze offenses in late-and-close situations. The Giants ranked 28th in the NFL in late-and-close offense in 2014 and dead last in 2013. Remarkably, they are 17th this year, but then Manning's fumble came with a 10-point lead, not technically a "late-and-close" situation.

Yes, Manning was Captain Comeback four years ago. But those Giants are gone: Justin Tuck, Antrel Rolle, Hakeem Nicks, Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Snee, Aaron Ross, Corey Webster, David Diehl—all the other leaders on both sides of the ball.

What happened in 2011 might as well have happened during the Bill Parcells era for nearly everyone in Manning's huddle this season. If Manning's Super Bowl savvy isn't helping the Giants close out tight games, then what are they paying for?

Reconstruction Delayed

Veteran quarterbacks of the non-Tom Brady class receive eight-figure extensions because organizations don't want to play rookie roulette. They don't want to suffer through 6-10 seasons. They don't want to lose games because of mental mistakes, dumb penalties and costly turnovers at the end of games.

Kathy Willens/Associated Press

They don't want to have to put up with all the things the Giants are currently putting up with.

If a team has to live with late-game blunders, it should at least save a little money. The upside of a quarterback youth movement nowadays is that young quarterbacks are cheap. Manning's cap number for 2016 is a whopping $24.2 million, according to Over the Cap. The salary cap is expected to increase, and the Giants are not on the hook for many long-term contracts, but that's a massive wad of cash. Even if Manning doesn't reach the final two years of his new extension (hefty roster bonuses kick in starting in 2018), he will define the Giants' budget for the next two seasons.

The Giants, who never splurge in free agency anyway, won't start splurging in 2016 or 2017. The current roster will only be significantly reshaped through the draft. His contract extension promises three more years of a Giants team much like the one we have seen since 2013.

Maybe Reese and John Mara still think rookie quarterbacks cost Matthew Stafford or Sam Bradford bucks. Maybe they don't care that fans would rather see Connor Cook fumble away a fourth-quarter lead than the guy they weren't crazy about when he was leading the team to glory. At least the youngster has a chance to get better.

Most likely, the Giants brass no longer recognizes when comfort ends and diminishing returns set in. See the head coaching situation for another example. This isn't about impatience after two starts; it's about too much patience after two years.

Just days after Manning's extension was announced, Jay Cutler and Tony Romo went down with injuries. A shoulder injury may claim Drew Brees. Meanwhile, Johnny Manziel, Jameis Winston, Derek Carr, Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles all notched wins, most of them impressive in one way or another. Symbolically, it was the wrong week to double down on a veteran quarterback, and it was really the wrong week for that veteran quarterback to once again play like a rookie.

The Cutler injury represents a bleak possible future for Manning and the Giants. The contract extension becomes an albatross, the team struggles to build around Manning like he's Old Man Fredricksen from Up, an injury forces some no-longer-a-prospect, not-yet-a-journeyman type into the lineup while the Internet sings a chorus of "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead!"

Manning deserves better than that. But he doesn't deserve $84 million over four years. The Giants missed an opportunity to chart a new course when they took the "safe" approach and extended the trusty veteran who really isn't trusty in any way.

It's only been a few days, but it's already too late for takebacks. The Giants are Eli Manning's team for the foreseeable future. Hunker down and make the best of it.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.