It was state the obvious day for Pat Shurmur.
The New York Giants coach announced Tuesday that Eli Manning would continue to be Big Blue's starting quarterback on Monday Night Football against the San Francisco 49ers.
Shurmur added that he expects Manning, and the rest of his team, to play better coming off the bye week.
With no other legitimate options on the roster, sticking with Manning was the clear path, despite the veteran QB's continued struggles.
Backup Alex Tanney is no coach's idea of a starting NFL quarterback. Rookie Kyle Lauletta hasn't even been active for a regular season game, and last we saw was coming off an arrest for traffic incident -- Shurmur added the fourth-round pick will not be suspended for the episode, but there were internal consequences. Until Lauletta dresses for a game and perhaps gets his feet wet in mop-up duty, starting the rookie isn't a realistic option.
Therefore, despite the proclamation before the bye week that New York would evaluate each position, the verdict came back as expected. The immobile Manning will continue to start for the 1-7 Giants behind an offensive line that would struggle to block trash emails with a spam filter.