ALBANY, N.Y. -- I asked Eli Manning about it Wednesday morning at Giants training camp, and thought I saw the slightest wince cross his face.

Who can blame him? Looking back at his game from hell in Week 14 last December, the numbers are almost too painful, too galling for anybody named Manning to comprehend: 4-of-18 for 27 yards, two interceptions, and the most un-Manningesque statistic of all, a mind-boggling 0.0 quarterback rating and a fourth-quarting benching.

But to his credit, the Giants' second-year quarterback occasionally reflects on that lost day in Baltimore, if only to remember just how humbling the NFL can be and how easily things can go terribly awry.

"I hope that's as low as it gets,'' said Manning of New York's 37-14 loss to the Ravens. "It's something I never want to go through again. Let's just say it was a long train ride home, but maybe I needed that time.''

On that train ride back to New Jersey that the crestfallen Manning and Giants quarterbacks coach Kevin Gilbride had a heart-to-heart talk that seemed to turn an ugly season around for the league's No. 1 overall draft pick. Manning was 0-4 as the Giants' starter, and each performance had been worse than the last. In his two prior games, road tests at Washington and Baltimore, Manning had gone a combined 16-of-43 for 140 yards, with two interceptions and no touchdowns. New York had been outscored 68-14 when he was in the game.

During the ride home, Gilbride sat down next to Manning and challenged his young protégé to speak up and let the coaching staff know what he wasn't comfortable doing in the offense. The problem was fixable, Gilbride contended, but only if Manning took charge. Only if Manning began to lead.

"I just told him I needed to run some plays I felt comfortable with, the plays I was running during training camp over and over again,'' Manning recalled. "I hadn't played in the season's first nine weeks and I hadn't gotten many reps since the preseason. So all the plays we were running, I didn't have a great feel for them.

"So I came in the next day and talked to coach [Tom] Coughlin about some of the same things, and we put some of those plays back in. I wouldn't say we simplified things, but we condensed things and ran plays I felt good with, so I didn't have to think quite so much and could just react. After that I was back to playing fast, playing fast football.''

For Manning, playing fast football meant playing pretty good football. During the season's final three games, his play finally resembled that of the franchise quarterback the Giants knew they were getting when they acquired him from San Diego on draft day.

The Giants nearly upset mighty Pittsburgh in Week 15 at the Meadowlands (falling 33-30), then lost a squeaker at Cincinnati (23-22), and beat visiting Dallas 28-24, as Manning threw a career-high three touchdown passes and led a dramatic last-minute, game-winning touchdown drive. In those three hope-building games, Manning was a combined 53-of-87 (60.9 percent), for 527 yards, with five touchdowns and three interceptions.

After the ugliness of early December, Manning had turned the corner.

"I guess I like just how I handled the tough times,'' he said. "I didn't fall apart. I didn't get down or complain or point fingers at anybody.''

Manning's teammates noticed the resolve in their prized but under-performing rookie, especially during his most brutal stretch of play.

"I think that Baltimore game was probably the best thing that happened to him,'' Giants center Shaun O'Hara said of Manning. "You never know what kind of person you have when he's riding on the clouds, while he's on top. You really get to see what kind of player you have and what kind of person you have when everything is stripped from him, and he's at the bottom looking up.

"In the long run I think it turned out to be a great thing for him, because he never gave up, and he never stopped playing, and he never said 'I can't do this.' He went back to square one and did what was comfortable for him, what was easiest and most natural. And that's going to help him in the future.''

Manning's future is now, and what has people both inside and outside the Giants organization excited about the 2005 season is how far the team's main attraction has come in terms of his leadership quotient. Last year, Manning admits he rarely opened his mouth except to call a play. This offseason, he stood up and implored Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey to get with the program and take part in the team's spring workouts.

"Last year, he just got the play in his earpiece, said it, and ran the play,'' Giants running back Tiki Barber said. "Now he's giving direction and telling guys what to look out for and to expect this or that. There were a couple times I distinctly remember yelling at him last year. He'd have a bad play, and he'd be walking back with his head down, and I was like, 'Eli, your posture. Body language matters more than anything.' Now he knows he's got at least 10 sets of eyes on him at all times.''

Manning still isn't comfortable talking about his increased leadership role on the Giants, perhaps because he knows it's an intangible that can't be forced, or turned exclusively into a pithy preseason story line. In the NFL, leadership is largely earned via production, and it's acquired over time.

"I never said, 'Hey, I've got to start talking more or doing this more,' '' Manning said. "It's just part of being a quarterback. You've got to talk to your teammates when they need talking to, and when they don't need anything said, you don't have to say anything.''

A lot of times, Manning said, he kept quiet last season because he wasn't sure if he would be giving correct guidance to any of his teammates.

"You don't want to go and tell someone they're doing something wrong, and [especially if] they were doing something right to begin with,'' he said. "You have to have 100 percent confidence in your offense and know exactly what's going on before you tell other people what to do. And I didn't have that.''

This much is clear: Manning has far more going for him than he did when he entered his first Giants training camp a year ago. More confidence, more command, more idea of when and how to lead. He even looks more mature, sporting a scraggy reddish-brown training camp beard.

It might be the only thing about Manning this summer that hasn't drawn rave reviews.

"I don't even see a beard,'' said O'Hara, for a change making Manning his favorite target. "It's like an Amish Fu-Manchu or something.''