So as I understand it, the lack of pressure and focus on underneath coverage forced him to take the longer ball opportunities where (1) his accuracy is less and (2) wind was more of a factor. Good "Rocket Scientist" thinking.
Disclosure: I have a JPL Rocket Scientist T-shirt.
Here is what I have seen so far.
First, we played some zone, but I almost dismiss that from the analysis because I think it was used simply to vary things up a little. It should be noted that their first TD drive was a drive we played quite a bit of zone on, btw.
Otherwise, mostly, we came up and played their received man on man. We had the extra LB roaming in the short are, and McCourty free. Jamie Collins had a lot to do with the success in this scheme. He played man on the RB, on the TEs, and in some cases on the slot.
IMO, this scheme was based upon film study. In the first quarter (I assume we did it all day, but havent gotten that far) we were sliding the DTs to WEAKNESS. The strong DT was in a 1 tech and the weak DT a 3, which I have never seen us do before. This had to come from film study and it worked. I think what they saw in Manning is that he looks for 1) the supposed mismatch 2) the quick hitters and/or the pick play creating an open receiver 3) the downfield WR.
He threw at Collins a ton of times, especially when it was clear he was in man. He threw to Hillman, Tamme, Welker and I think Sanders once, when Collins was man on them. (also at least once did the same with HT).
We took away the quick hitting stuff he likes by playing up on the recievers, and by the way, doing a great job of it. This led to a lot of throws up the sidelines to WRs in man, which he was not very efficient at.
I think the basis of the gameplan was understanding where Manning wants to go with the ball, and trying to force him to the type of throws he struggles the most with, through scheme and understanding his progressions and preferences.