By IAN O'CONNOR
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

PHILADELPHIA - Go ahead and burn the season tickets. Hold them up like candles in the Jersey marshland winds. Start a parking lot vigil, right now, in the name of Eli Manning, because these New York Giants will have no redeeming value until they give the kid the ball.

He can take a hit, this much we already know. A 6-2, 264-pound ball of raging Miami Hurricane fire named Jerome McDougle blindsided Manning with everything he had Sunday, including a welcome-to-the-NFL forearm shiver, and the rookie born of golden-armed privilege wasn't seen crawling on his hands and knees in search of his mouthpiece, his chinstrap, or his silver spoon.

"Eli was fine," said the Giants' ageless Angelo Dundee, Ronnie Barnes. "We didn't even have to see him."

This was the one and only favorable diagnosis on the visiting side of Lincoln Financial Field. The Giants needed a mere four quarters to suggest that this transition year promises to repeat the folly of Jim Fassel's final season, with one notable exception: Ron Dayne gets to run the ball.

Whoop de damn do.

Tom Coughlin unearthed Fassel's fossil, Dayne, sending him into the line 13 times. The strategy might've worked if it was designed to bore the Eagles into oblivion. But Philly wasn't about to fall asleep, not in a season where it is desperate to reach the Super Bowl. So the Giants couldn't catch Donovan McNabb, couldn't cover Terrell Owens, and couldn't tackle Brian Westbrook, all for a good reason.

They stink.

"Our football team was very excited about playing today," Coughlin said.

Rich Kotite used to say the same things.

Only Kurt Warner is more shot now than Neil O'Donnell ever was with the Jets. Warner is one jarring hit away from full-fledged mummification, so the Giants should embrace the inevitable and do what they did with 2:37 left to play in what would be the most lopsided 31-17 game on record:

Tap Manning on the shoulder pads, and send him into the game.

"Whenever we can," Coughlin said, "we'll play him."

Play him against the Washington Redskins next week then. Introduce Manning to the home fans the way McDougle introduced him to the unforgiving business of professional football.

Hit the Meadowlands crowd from the blindside. Give Giants fans a reason to believe this year will be something more than a cruel affirmation of Warner's dizzying decline, of his freefall from two-time league MVP to a broken-down quarterback who has lost his last nine starts.

The Giants should accelerate their own return to competence. There's no time to wait in the NFL anymore, not when champions are made and dismantled overnight. The Giants won't matter again until Manning is under center, honoring or betraying his team's faith.

Why junk a season, or even half a season, when it can serve as the education of a $45 million prospect? Athletes have always learned more by playing than by watching. Sunday, Manning learned that he can take a big-league punch.

"I never saw him," the quarterback said of McDougle.

Manning had stepped into the wrong end of a blowout, this after breaking the news to Warner that he was done for the day - a bulletin Coughlin hadn't bothered to deliver. Tiki Barber ripped off a 72-yard touchdown run on Manning's very first play from scrimmage, giving the rookie a read on the speed of a regular-season game.

McDougle would give the No. 1 pick something else entirely. Manning threw a few nice balls under a soft prevent defense, moving the Giants deep into Eagles' territory, before dropping back as the clock bled dry. Manning stepped up to avoid the rush, veered right while peering into the end zone, and then absorbed a crushing hit from McDougle that separated the quarterback from the ball.

"It was kind of inconsiderate of me," McDougle said, "but that's the game."

The second-year defensive end kept a straight face at his locker when he said, "I was trying not to hit him that hard, just because he didn't see me. I mean, you play the game ... for fun. We're not trying to hurt anyone."

In fact, McDougle cocked his right arm and delivered his blow with the kind of hit reserved for bonus baby quarterbacks with all the right bloodlines.

Asked if Manning said anything to him after the fumble-forcing, game-ending blast, McDougle said, "Oh, he was out. I don't really think he knew what was going on."

As the man who signed him, Ernie Accorsi, studied the quarterback through binoculars from his distant press box seat, Manning never lost consciousness or confidence. "It was a good shot, but I feel fine," he would say. "As a quarterback you're going to get hits. That's part of the deal."

Warner has already taken enough hits to cover his next lifetime, when he comes back as a grocery store clerk. Giants fans don't need to see Warner end up a battered and bloodied Y.A. Tittle mess.

One year after 4-12, those fans don't need to see a wretched football team hobble through a pointless season.

"He's a Manning," McDougle said of Eli, "so he had the look of a quarterback. ... He'll be a good one."

Maybe Eli will be a better one than Peyton and Archie, but there's only one way to find out. Sunday, the Giants shouldn't finish pre-game warmups without tapping the kid on his shoulder pads.

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