Call it extreme confidence if you will but New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning believes that his team will make the playoffs this season.
After a massive spending spree in the offseason, the Giants appear poised to improve on a dreadful 2015 campaign and Manning is a firm believer in just that. Eli Manning was asked Wednesday at a football camp at Kean University in New Jersey if he believes the Giants will return to the postseason in 2016 and he didn’t shy away from responding with confidence.
“Yeah, definitely,” Manning said, via the New York Post. “We added some great players in the offseason. We were aggressive in free agency, but still have a lot of our core guys, especially on offense, back and I think we made some good moves on defense. We’re getting some guys back healthy. It’s just a matter of, hey, the talent is there, can we put it together, can we find a way to win the games and play our best football when we need to?”
Manning has plenty of reasons to be excited. The Giants added Olivier Vernon, Janoris Jenkins and Damon Harrison in free agency and also re-signed Jason Pierre Paul. The Giants added exciting prospects cornerback Eli Apple and wide receiver Sterling Shepard in the draft.
“I guess I’m always optimistic, always feel good about our squad,” Manning said. “I don’t remember feeling differently in the years that we made the playoffs, the years we won the Super Bowl, thinking: ‘Oh, I definitely think this is a Super Bowl team.’ You never know how it’s all going to play out.
“You don’t know what the injury situation is going to be and how you’ll respond in critical situations in games. That’s something it’s hard to know until you’re in those fourth quarters. Does the level of play rise or does it go get uptight or nervous? Hopefully we have guys who know how to make the plays and rise to the occasion.”
Whether or not the Giants have improved enough to make a return to the playoffs remains to be seen, but Manning is feeling really good about their chances.