The Giants, minus Victor Cruz, have had a carousel of wide receivers due to various injuries. Eli Manning, however, has continued playing at a high level without a blip and is perhaps off to the best statistical start of his career throwing to an assortment of targets.

Manning, who leads the NFL in passing yards (2,109), credits the stable success on establishing a confidence and a comfort level with each of his weapons from Hakeem Nicks on down to rookie Rueben Randle.



"As a quarterback you always want to trust your guys and I tell them that I don't have favorites, I'm not going to force it to one guy," Manning said today. "I've got a read and a progression. If you want to know what my progression is, I'll be happy to tell you. And I'm going to stick to that. If you're my first read, it's your job to get open. If you're not, then I'm going on to the next guy. I'm going to stick to those progressions and have faith that if you're the first read that you're going to get open for us."

It has not always been as simple for Manning. Early in his career, he was tasked with pleasing mercurial veteran personalities such as wide receiver Plaxico Burress, tight end Jeremy Shockey and running back Tiki Barber, who once questioned Manning's leadership qualities.

Manning hinted that his attempts to satisfy others were detrimental to the team's success. Now, he is the veteran in control.

"I think early on we probably had receivers who in practice, you'd try to force them to get them balls so they don't get down or you keep them happy, and I think you create bad habits doing that," Manning said. "As I got older and we got younger, new guys in, it evolved to doing it the correct way, going through the reads, saying you’ve got to earn the right to get open. It's all based on the coverage and on the reads and I’ve got to do that to make sure I'm doing the right things and not getting into bad habits."

Jorge Castillo: jcastillo@starledger.com; twitter.com/jorgeccastillo