With Tiki Barber gone into retirement, Tom Coughlin has laid the mantle of leadership at the feet of Eli Manning, who can either kick it aside or reach down and embrace it the way all Giants fans desperately want him to do. Manning says he's ready to accept the challenge. "It's a matter of kind of holding the team together and controlling the offense, that's my job, I think," Manning told The Post yesterday. "You lose Tiki, a guy who kind of did that, I look forward to that opportunity to take it over and be in charge of having our offense mentally and physically ready to go out there and be prepared for every game."