standing a few yards away
on the sidelines, you have no sense of him doing something so
considered as making a decision. The monsters charging at him from every
direction are in his face so quickly that you flinch and stifle the
urge to scream, ''Watch out!'' There is no way, you think, that he can
possibly evaluate which of these beasts is most likely to get to him
first, and so which of them he should take the trouble to evade. At that
moment any sensible person in Manning's shoes would flee. Or, perhaps,
collapse to the ground and beg for mercy. Yet he is expected to wait . .
. wait . . . wait . . . until the microsecond before he is crushed.
He's like a man who has pulled the pin from ayards across the middle, to midfield. With
six seconds left and the clock ticking, Manning ran over to the
official and called timeout. From any other point of view except for his
-- and the Giants' long-term future -- stopping the clock was deeply
annoying. The game was over. The news media -- along with Accorsi and
the rest of the Giants management -- had streamed down to the interview
rooms. The Redskins cheerleaders, freezing in their leather
micro-shorts, were hurrying to pack up. Most of the 90,000 fans were
gone, and the few who remained booed. But Tom Coughlin wanted Eli
Manning to see as much as he could of this very good N.F.L. defense. He
wanted Eli to make one more decision, and throw one last pass against
the Redskins blitz -- incomplete, as it happened. It