NFL teams
Matt Williamson, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

Rejuvenated Eli Manning has Giants on promising path

NFL, New York Giants

New York Giants offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo and I were graduate assistants together at the University of Pittsburgh. I have never been around anyone in any walk of life who worked harder than McAdoo. He slept under his desk with great regularity, despite having an apartment less than a mile from Pitt's facility. His hard work is now starting to pay off for New York's offense.

Before last season, when McAdoo joined the Giants, he was with Green Bay. In New York, McAdoo has transformed the Giants' offense very much in the image of the Packers' system. Anyone who watched QB Eli Manning and this offense during the 2014 preseason could see that Manning & Co. were basically relearning everything they had been taught up to that point from a system standpoint.

There were growing pains. But now Manning appears extremely comfortable with his footwork, timing, audibles and this passing attack that stresses getting the ball out quickly to allow receivers to make plays after the catch. With a quarterback rating of 100.2, Manning is much-improved from the QB we saw in 2012 and 2013. Only seven quarterbacks boast a better QBR than Manning's 66.7 mark after five weeks. And few realize that Manning took his game up several notches during the second half of the 2014 season.

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