EAST RUTHERFORD — Two signature moments of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning's career — both literally and figuratively — have come in road victories at Dallas.

He was superb in leading the Giants' 33-31 triumph nine years ago in the grand opening of Jerry World, ruining the coronation of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' $1.2 billion palace now known as AT&T Stadium with his play and a pen.

Manning's autograph - with the date and the inscription "First win in the new stadium" - remains, as Jones puts it, "memorialized" on the wall inside the visitors' locker room.

Two seasons earlier, the Giants would not have gotten to Super Bowl XLII and their subsequent monumental upset had Manning not found a way to bury the Cowboys in their old building in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Dallas had a 14-7 lead late in the second quarter and all of the momentum until Manning and the offense covered 71 yards in a staggering 46 seconds to pull even at the half.

The Cowboys never recovered and Manning was greatly responsible for that.

"It's all about being ready and being prepared for the situations that are thrown at you," Manning told me back in 2010, repeating a mantra that he has undoubtedly uttered hundreds of times before and since then. "A lot of times you make your own luck or make your own bad luck."

That quote came on the heels of a 2010 Sports Illustrated poll that listed Manning as one of the league's most overrated quarterbacks back then — before he went on to win his second Super Bowl the following season.

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No Giants fan should need those history lessons, but sometimes a reminder or two can provide great context to the task at hand.

Now at 37, Manning has heard and seen it all. Well, just about.

Whether he pays attention to any of that is another story.

The Big Apple tabloids and sports radio talk airwaves have essentially turned the town over to rookie quarterback Sam Darnold and the Jets after one impressive victory Monday night in Detroit, in turn revving up the narrative that the Giants made a mistake passing on Darnold for Saquon Barkley back on draft night.

And that, of course, mostly has to do with Manning.

Truth be told, no matter how well Barkley plays moving forward, Eli Manning is the only one right now who can stop the Darnold talk, at least in regard to the Giants' role in that.

"I think the mindset is keep working, keep grinding," Manning said Wednesday. "The way you look at it, it’s the first game of the season with a new coach, new players, new schemes. Not everything is going to be perfect. There’s some good things. Obviously, a lot we’re cleaning up as well. We just got to play better ball. We got to make some plays here and there, clean some things up, get on the same page with how we’re doing things. So, I think each week we’re going to learn a lot. We’re going to learn how to clean up this offense, how to clean up the mistakes that were made, and we’ll get better. There’s enough good things to build off, and know we can go out there and play better football."

Hall of Fame quarterback (and Manning predecessor) Kurt Warner believes Manning has a good chance to be at his best this season as a complementary piece within an offense of featured playmakers Beckham, Barkley, Sterling Shepard and Evan Engram.

"He's a guy that makes big plays in big moments, so when they've been great, play defense, keep the game close, give him a chance at the end and he's been phenomenal," Warner said recently. "And that's where I think Eli is at his best."

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Problem is, with the Giants' offensive line still not where it needs to be collectively, Manning will have to do more to compensate for those shortcomings. There was a time when the Giants could count on that happening, but despite the renewed faith in Manning from team brass, that remains somewhat uncertain at this point.

It's not a shot at Manning — he certainly has enough in the tank to win, at least from this perspective. It's more of a statement with how the Giants are constituted, especially against strong defenses like Jacksonville who will put enormous pressure on Manning and his weapons to make the most out of their chances when they get them.

"I just think Eli's a great player, he has been for a long time, certainly the leader of that football team and still capable of making so many plays," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. "He's so smart, he knows how to use his weapons. He's just been an outstanding player for a long time and a great challenge for us every time we face him."

The Giants can't overcome what looked to be a non-perfect snap from Jon Halapio late in the first half when, with the Jaguars on an all-out blitz, Manning's heave to Beckham — who beat Jalen Ramsey — fell incomplete in the end zone.

Or in the third quarter, when Beckham won on his route and Manning's throw sailed a bit too far in the back of the end zone. Manning said the missed post to Beckham was thrown off just a hair when safety Barry Church made contact with Beckham on his break at the top of the route, and video would seem to confirm that.

But either way the Giants can't survive — especially not against good teams, and they face a bunch over the first half of their schedule — if they don't connect on those plays.

"We had a couple opportunities to score points that we didn’t, but I think the fact that they’re producing, that that’s a good thing," Giants coach Pat Shurmur said when answering about the Week 1 chemistry between Manning and Beckham, who caught 11 of 15 targets for 111 yards. "Scoring points is what you want to do."

The Giants have not scored 30 points since Tom Coughlin's last game in 2015, and against Shurmur, then the interim coach of the Eagles.

Their lone touchdown against Jacksonville resulted from a spectacular play by Barkley, who raced 68 yards for his first career score in the fourth quarter.

"I’ve played in a lot of those buildings in Dallas, Philly, Washington," Manning said. "It’s about being in the division, and you got to win those divisional games."

For Manning and the Giants, now operating strictly in the here and now, there's no bigger game than the one against the Cowboys this Sunday night.

All things considered, they are going to need another signature Manning performance to get it. The question remaining is whether that is something he can deliver.

Email: stapleton@northjersey.com

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