Coughlin’s 11 years of Eli Manning trust backfired colossally

So that had to be an imposter wearing blue No. 10 Sunday night at AT&T Stadium. That could not possibly have been Eli Manning, among the best and brightest we have had in our midst, our football Jeter, as flummoxed and confused and disoriented at the end as cool and calm and poised as he was at the end of Super Bowls XLII and XLVI.

Except it was Eli Manning.

It was Eli Manning who mistakenly thought the Cowboys had just one timeout instead of two once he got to the Dallas 4-yard line.

It was Manning who instructed Rashad Jennings not to score on first and second down at a time inside the two-minute warning when a touchdown would have given the Giants a 10-point lead.

It was Eli Manning who chose to throw the ball out of the end zone on third-and-goal at the 1 instead of eating clock with a running play. It was Eli Manning who absentmindedly failed to take the sack that would have kept the clock running down on Tony Romo. It was Eli Manning who could have left Romo with 49 seconds to win it but left him with 1:29 instead.

Twice now

A must win tonight