Eli Manning's arm being put to the test by Ben McAdoo

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who turns 36 next month, obviously isn't getting any younger.

So it was somewhat surprising to see Manning throw the ball 63 times in the Giants' 24-19 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles Thursday night, five days after he threw 28 times in a win over the Detroit Lions.

Manning finished Thursday night 38 of 63 for 356 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions. Several of his incomplete passes seemed to come up short, which raised questions about the wisdom of putting so much on Manning's shoulders.

"When you look at it, we had 22 third-downs and a few two-minute drives, about 40 of those snaps (out of 88 plays)," said head coach Ben McAdoo. "We got a lot of plays, 40 of the snaps were either third down or two-minute drives."

Still, the notion of asking Manning to throw almost 100 passes in a span of five days seems to be a bit extreme, though McAdoo did reveal that they played it smart with Manning in the days leading up to the Eagles game.

"We take precautions there in our Wednesday practice; we're smart with what we ask him to do," McAdoo said. "We minimize the throws there, he doesn't throw on Friday and we cut down what we do on Saturday as well as Thursday.

"And last week he didn't throw a ball after the (Lions) game until we got to the game (against the Eagles) Thursday."

When asked if such a tactic is normal, McAdoo said, "Yeah, especially going in and it's your 15th game of the season. You're not doing a lot of full speed work or full speed activity. You have to be smart with all your players on how much full speed stuff you ask them to do."

Regardless of the reasoning, Manning was not sharp with throwing the ball or with his decision making, which would understandably call into question the decision to not only rest him during the practice week but to ask him to throw the ball 63 times, a new career high for the veteran quarterback.

Manning, as he has always done in his career, didn't complain after the game about his workload or the effect his arm.

"It feels fine," he said of his arm after the game. "(I'm) just disappointed that we weren't able to pull it off. (We were) a couple plays away from winning that football game."