The end of an era has arrived in New York. Daniel Jones will take over as the starting quarterback for the Giants, with Eli Manning becoming the backup after a dismal start to the season.
Benching Manning is a move Giants fans have been waiting on for a few years, as they’ve watched his decline coincide with some extremely lean years in the Meadowlands. Manning’s two Super Bowl wins in New York will always make him a legend there, but there comes a time when past accomplishments can’t paper over present issues, and that point has finally been reached with the Giants.
In Carolina, another franchise quarterback who went to school in the SEC is going to miss some time. Cam Newton continues to battle injuries — he currently has a foot problem — and Kyle Allen may end up starting in Week 3. On Wednesday morning’s edition of Get Up!, they asked Paul Finebaum to talk about Manning and Newton, and he had very different takes on the two, which sent Ryan Clark off on a tirade about how ridiculous it was to say Newton had dragged down the Panthers franchise immediately after heaping praise on Eli Manning.
Ryan Clark was not having it from Paul Finebaum this morning when he praised declining Eli Manning and trashed declining Cam Newton. pic.twitter.com/URoN0yxwmO
— Billy Michael Honor (@BillyMHonor) September 18, 2019
It’s pretty great to see Finebaum squirming off on the side while Clark and Dominique Foxworth rip into his lazy takes on Cam Newton. Also, Clark is objectively right, as you can’t laud Manning and anything he’s done recently if you’re going to come after Newton in any way, shape, or form. Finebaum thinks of himself as a provocateur of the highest order, but he’s recently found himself in hot water with colleagues for takes that are, at best, extremely lazy and, at worst, a bit racist, from his comment on Miami’s “third-world” program that drew the ire of Dan LeBatard to this Manning-Newton bit.
