The best 4th quarter QB this season did it again Sunday. You might have seen the graphic that NBC put up last night showing that Eli Manning tied Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning for most 4th quarter touchdowns in a season. That was before Victor Cruz Mario Manningham broke the record for him on a great throw for the game-winning touchdown. Scratch that. Manningham dropped it.

Manning has had to deal with more than his share of drops over the last two years, but the Giants scored anyway with less than a minute left to complete a 37-34 victory over Dallas. Thankfully, Brandon Jacobs did not expound on his earlier celebration after scoring from a yard away with less than a minute left.

With that, Manning again showed why he is the clutchiest clutch player that ever clutched in 2011. He is also having the best season of his career at age 30 (though the interceptions masked how much he had otherwise improved in 2010), and has been amazing late in games, even ones the Giants have lost, like the Packers game. In a year where everyone is falling all over themselves to proclaim who the runner up to Aaron Rodgers will be in the MVP race, Manning’s combination of overall quality and late game heroics should have him in consideration.

With the 2011 season on the brink, and New York down by 12 with 5:41 – a Dallas win would have required only a home victory over Philadelphia to win the East for the Cowboys thereafter, and the G-men would have been 2 back of a wildcard – the Giants went on two touchdown drives surrounding a Cowboys’ three and out.

On those final two drives, Manning was 8 for 11 for 122 yards. The Dallas defense continued to come up small in the biggest spots. Tony Romo will get heat because he is the quarterback and the quarterback is responsible for whether kicks go through, and for the defense, but if you are looking at a star, all-pro DeMarcus Ware had two offside penalties in those final two drives, including a killer one that negated a sack on the Giants’ final possession.

Dallas has had a team-wide case of doing enough to lose, from Garrett’s late game stumbles to Ware’s errors to Romo’s interceptions earlier this year. Romo just missed a third down throw to Miles Austin against the blitz that would have ended the game, though I think it’s fair in Romo’s case to ask just how much he has to do, if you put this on him after playing a mostly brilliant game. In many cases, the dagger he delivered to Dez Bryant when the Giants blew the coverage with less than 6 minutes should have been the decisive throw. Blowing that lead is mostly on the defense. Then Romo drove the Cowboys down the field in a drive reminiscent of what Rodgers did to the Giants last week, with no timeouts. He just doesn’t control the kicker, and Jason Pierre-Paul, New York’s best defender in 2011, made the play that the Cowboys all pro defensive end did not. Pierre-Paul block, Giants win, and massive shift in the NFC East.

The end result is this: the NFC East now comes down to the replay of that wacky game on the season’s final day in New York in all likelihood, and Dallas can still repent for all their failures by mustering a win there. Both teams are 2-2 in the division now. The only way that the division is decided before that game is if one team goes 2-0 and the other 0-2 in the next two weeks, if Dallas loses at home to Philadelphia while the Giants win the next two, or if Dallas loses both and the Giants beat Washington. New York cannot be eliminated from the division title before hosting Dallas again, so long as they win one of the next two. Dallas cannot be eliminated so long as they do not lose at home to Philadelphia.

It may not have always been pretty, but it was back and forth exciting, and compelling. I have a feeling we will be doing this again in three weeks, and it will officially be a playoff game where winner goes on and loser goes home.

[Photo via Getty]