The Giants no longer have two young quarterbacks battling to be Eli Manning's successor.

In a stunning move one day after strangely keeping four quarterbacks on their 53-man roster, the Giants cut Davis Webb, a person with knowledge of the transaction confirmed to NJ Advance Media. ESPN first reported the news.

The move is a clear sign the Giants are looking at Manning as the starter beyond just the 2018 season. His contract expires after the 2019 season but the Giants are going to have to do some major salary cap navigating with four players each accounting for $17 million or more in 2019.

Webb, a third-round pick of the former Giants' front office and coaching staff in 2017, looked like the best quarterback (Manning included) at times during the spring and summer. He hit a slump during the middle of camp but rebounded in his one preseason start against the Lions in Week 2.

Suddenly, it makes more sense why the Giants gave such a long look to fourth-stringer Alex Tanney during the preseason. The 30-year-old veteran with one career game played (for the Titans) bumps up to become an emergency third-string option with experience.

Giants coach Pat Shurmur was reluctant to name Webb the No. 2 quarterback all preseason despite taking his reps ahead of Kyle Lauletta and Tanney.

Webb finished the preseason 28-of-53 for 283 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions but did not play against the Patriots as the Giants took a long look at Lauletta and Tanney.

"We felt like he's had lots of reps this year," Shurmur said. "Whether it be practice, and really he had the most of anybody in the games, as well.

"It had less to do about Davis and more to do about Kyle. We wanted to see what we had in Kyle. Because we were going to start Kyle, I didn't want to put Davis back in there at the end. And we also wanted to take a really good look at Tanney."

When the Giants passed on a franchise quarterback like Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen or Josh Allen with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft in favor of running back Saquon Barkley, it looked like a sure indication that Webb was the quarterback of the future.

Then the Giants drafted Lauletta in the fourth round and set up a potential situation where neither of Manning's two backups was going to have taken a regular-season snap in their careers. That's risky, even with an iron man like Manning at the top of the depth chart.

Webb built good relationships with the Giants' young cast of skill players, like Odell Beckham, Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram and Saquon Barkly.

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.