Eli Manning had one of his worst games of the season against Tennessee. Manning was 21 of 44 for 229 yards, no TD passes. he was sacked three times and intercepted once. Photo by Andy Lewis

EAST RUTHERFORD: The Giants had been trending up over the last five weeks, winning four of five games, and holding a slight glimmer of hope to run the table and sneak into the playoffs.

That glimmer was dashed on Sunday when the playoff hopeful Tennessee Titans came to MetLife Stadium and shut down Big Blue 17-0 under a driving rain that kept many fans home or in their recreational vehicles in the parking lot to watch the game.

The loss left New York at 5-9 for the season looking for directions to go in 2019.

The Titans improved to 8-6 and a three-way tie for the sixth and final playoff spot on the AFC.

Eli Manning, who was 21 of 44 for 229 yards and obviously no scores, was not offering much in the way of what went wrong with the offense that had been playing so well recently.

“It was just tough to get things going,” said Manning, who sacked three time and finished with a quarterback rating of 54.1. “Give credit to the Tennessee defense. They played well. They did a good job stopping the run on some early downs. The few times we actually got some things going, we had negative plays, we had penalties where we just could not sustain the drives and keep things going. They played well and we didn’t. We didn’t execute well enough or make the plays we need to make. They just outplayed us.”

Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 170 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown last week against Washington, 31 yards on the same amount of carries against Tennessee.

The rookie sensation was asked what did the Titans do differently from the other teams in the last couple of weeks?

“They did a lot of different things,” Barkley said. “They gave us some different looks, different movements to try to create movement up there to try to confuse us. We have to execute, that’s the moral of the story. We didn’t execute as a team, especially on the offensive side of the ball.”
The entire game was played under a steady rain. Barkley was asked if it was a factor for his poor outing.

“That’s football,” he said “Any given Sunday, it could be raining, snowing, it could be sunshine, it doesn’t matter. We all have been playing football since we were eight years old, probably in worse conditions. I don’t really think that was a factor.”

Titans running back Derrick Henry proved his point rushing 33 times for 170 yards and two touchdowns.
Titans center Ben Jones said the Titans want to be a running team. He said their core of what they do starts with rushing the football.

“That’s what we want to do, we want to run the ball,” Jones said at his locker after the game. “With the weather and all that, we had a guy that was rolling and we just kept giving him the ball. He was making plays. As an offensive linemen, that’s what we like to do.”

Jones continued. “I know we ran it over 20 times in the first half and we have to give it to our coordinator and coaches that trusted us and we just grinded it out.”

Tennessee made a commitment to the run from the start. Tennessee offensive tackle Dennis Kelly, a former Eagles who was traded to the Titans after the 2015 season, was asked if the weather was a factor or the idea to keep Barkley off the field as much as possible.

“I think it’s a combination of other things,” Kelly said at his locker after the game. “We were able to run the ball really well. The added bonus was keeping their offense off the field.”

Kelly chuckled when he was reminded that if the Titans knock off the Redskins next week, they will have swept the NFC East, making the Titans the NFC East champs in a way.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Kelly said. “That would be nice.”

Marcus Mariota managed the game, that was it. Not wanting to turn the ball over in the rain Mariota threw 20 passes, completing 12 for just 88 yards. He was sacked once.

Mariota’s biggest contribution came in the second quarter when he delivered a wicked block on Giants linebacker Alec Ogletree springing Henry for a big gain.

The quarterback was asked how good of a shot he delivered?

“I just tried to get in the way to be honest,” Mariota said. “And Derrick did the rest.”

Jones said they knew the Giants were feeling it, having won four of their last five games. He said when you are on the road, in tough environment, you mindset is key.

“You have to have the right mentality,” Jones said. “You have to start fast, you have to bring your own energy and that’s what we did. We’ve been talking about it all week. We knew they have a great team and we knew we didn’t want to play from behind.”

When asked what he thought about winning the NFC East with a win over Washington, a result Eagles fans would welcome, Jones laughed…”That’s funny,” He said. “That’s good. We’ll take any wins we can get.” *
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