New York Giants: Eli Manning Stepped Up with 31-27 Comeback Win over Cardinals

A lot of people thought the Giants might be suffering from the hangover of beating the Eagles last week.

They called the Week 4 game against the Cardinals on the road a possible letdown game.

But Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning have a history of playing well at University of Phoenix Stadium, considering it was the site where the Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII back in February of 2008.

Early on, it looked like the Cardinals might get out to an early 14-0 lead by getting into Giants territory in the first and second quarter.

The Giants defense held their ground and held Kevin Kolb and company to just two Jay Feely field goals, and instead of being down 14-0, they were only down 6-0 in the second quarter.

A 13-yard touchdown run by Ahmad Bradshaw made it 7-6, and a 30-yard field goal before halftime by Lawrence Tynes made it 10-6 at halftime.

At that point, there was no letdown. Not yet.

In the third quarter though, it looked like the Giants were losing control of the game, as they were letting the Cardinals offense drive down the field and Beanie Wells scored two touchdowns, which made it 20-10 at the end of the third quarter.

But the fourth quarter is where Eli Manning shines and plays his best football.

We saw it last week when he rallied the Giants to beat the Eagles in the fourth quarter.

Now against Arizona, the pressure was on his shoulders.

The Giants were able to move the ball and drove down the field and got a one-yard touchdown run from Brandon Jacobs to make it 20-17 Arizona with 12:07 left.

The Giants defense let Kolb drive the field on them again, as Wells scored his third touchdown of the game with 5:16 left, making it 27-17.

With five minutes to go and two timeouts, the Giants and Manning had some work ahead of them.

Manning worked down the field very quickly, got seven plays and 80 yards in just 1:39, which resulted in a great two-yard touchdown catch by Jake Ballard, just getting two feet in bounds in the back of the end zone.

Manning to Ballard's touchdown cut it to 27-24 with 3:37. Now, the Giants defense, which had struggled to stop Arizona all game, had to make a stand so Eli could get the ball back.

Surprisingly, Arizona quickly got stalled and stopped on offense and Aaron Ross returned a punt to near mid-field, giving the Giants great field-position to make a rally.

The Giants caught a break when Manning's pass to Cruz was good, but then Cruz went down un-touched and let go of the ball, which got recovered by Arizona.

The referees ruled that Cruz gave himself up on the field and was down where he dropped to the ground, and the play was not allowed to be challenged by Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt.

The Giants caught a break there. It looked like they had fumbled away their chance for a comeback, but got a major reprieve there.

On the next play, Manning lobbed the ball down field to Hakeem Nicks and beat two Arizona defenders and scored a 29-yard touchdown to put the Giants ahead, 31-27.

With 5:16 to go, the Giants trailed 27-17.

Now, with 2:39 to go, the Giants were up 31-27, all led by Manning.

The Giants defense had to make one more stop of the Cardinals.

They got a huge third-down sack of Kolb by the returning Osi Umenyiora, his second of the day, and Corey Webster knocked away a fourth-down pass to Larry Fitzgerald and the Giants had completed the rally.

For the second week in a row, the Giants rallied in the fourth quarter and the Giants won their second straight road game, knocking off the Cardinals, 31-27, and moving to 3-1.

With the win, the Giants are now tied with the Washington Redskins for first place in the NFC East. The Dallas Cowboys are at 2-2 after a collapse to the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles are 1-3 after losing their third game in a row, this week to the San Francisco 49ers.

For a team that hardly anyone picked to be a contender for the playoffs (and yes, even I picked them to go 8-8), the Giants right now look like they could be an early contender.

After the first week of losing to the Redskins and barely getting by the Rams in Week 2, the Giants have stepped up and knocked off two very tough teams on the road.

And for all the criticism Manning has taken early on, he's stuck it right to those same critics by having back-to-back victories where he engineered the rally and didn't throw it away.

He's also played the last two weeks with very minimal mistakes and thrown six touchdown passes with no interceptions.

The defense can't play like they did every week, but they did make a lot of key plays; like with the sacks of Kolb, the forced fumble by Umenyiora, the interception by Antrel Rolle, and most importantly, getting the final two stops of the Cardinals late in the fourth quarter.

Next week, the Giants will come home to play the Seattle Seahawks, a game the Giants are expected to win. Seattle plays pitiful on the road and overall, the Giants are the better squad.

For a season many thought would be a wasted one filled with injuries, question marks and blame, the Giants are battling adversity, and they are beating the odds.

Can it last all year for them?

Right now, it's one game at a time, and now, their attention will turn to Seattle.

But after four weeks, the Giants are positioning themselves for potential success in 2011.