It’s a contract worthy of the best passer in the National Football League. The problem is that Eli Manning isn’t the best. He isn’t even close, no matter what yardstick you measure him by.
The money makes you wonder. In August, the New York Giants signed Manning to a six-year contract extension, making him the highest-paid quarterback in professional football. He’s guaranteed $35 million with a potential $97.5 million. For the 2009 season he’ll be paid $16.3 million — or $2.25 million more than older brother Peyton of the Indianapolis Colts.
The NFL’s quarterback ranking system rates him 24th among active players and 11th so far this season, slightly behind the Arizona Cardinals’ Kurt Warner, the man he replaced as the Giants’ starting quarterback back in 2004.
Manning is only ranked this high because of his sensational performance on Nov. 22 against the Atlanta Falcons, a career- high 384 yards and three touchdowns. It didn’t hurt that the Falcons went into the game with the 28th worst pass defense among the NFL’s 32 teams.
If the NFL system isn’t persuasive, try this: In the statistic that best correlates with winning in the NFL — yards per pass — Eli is tied at 23rd among 33 active quarterbacks. No matter what yardstick you use, Manning, now in his sixth NFL season, stacks up as close to mediocre.
Two years ago I talked to former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, the man who brought Eli to New York, about his statistics. “I could care less about the numbers,” said Accorsi, who retired at the end of the 2007 season. “Years ago I saw some stats which placed Milt Plum ahead of Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath. Who do you want to take the ball for you in the big game: Plum, or would you rather have Unitas or Namath? All I care about in a quarterback is can the guy win.” Super Bowl Ring Fair enough. In addition to being blessed with the illustrious Manning name and enough down-home boyish charm to carry a road company production of “L’il Abner,” he has a Super Bowl ring.
Still, in the wake of the Giants’ belly flop in last season’s playoffs against the Philadelphia Eagles and this year’s 6-4 record, it’s fair to ask how much of the 2007-2008 Super Bowl-winning season was due to their blitzing defense and how much to Manning, who ranked only 25th among the league’s passers that year.
What’s undeniable is that the Giants’ three playoff victories at the end of the 2007 season and their 17-14 upset over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl are not only Eli’s best postseason wins, they are his only postseason wins. In Manning’s three postseason appearances, the Giants have been whipped by an aggregate score of 69-34.
Defensive Trouble If the Giants’ triumph two seasons ago was mostly attributable to their defense, they are now in deep trouble. Only eight teams in the league have given up more points than the Giants, who have surrendered an unhealthy average of almost 33 points in their last five games.
In a must-win situation against underdog Atlanta, New York blew a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter. If Manning hadn’t chosen Sunday to have the best day of his career, there’s no way the Giants could have escaped with a 34-31 overtime win.
Tomorrow night, the Giants begin a crucial three-game stretch that probably will determine the success of their season. In this game they face the 6-4 Broncos in Denver, who traditionally enjoy the biggest home-field advantage in the NFL. After that, there are brutal back-to-back games with division rivals Dallas and Philadelphia, who now have the same 6-4 record as the Giants. The Giants need to win two out of three to keep their playoff dreams alive.
Making Comparisons Manning will not only be playing under pressure to win, he will be compared by press and fans during the last six weeks of the season with two men that the Giants could have had as their quarterback, Arizona’s Warner and San Diego’s Philip Rivers, whom the Giants drafted in 2004 then traded for Manning. Both Warner’s and Rivers’ teams are 7-3, a game better than the Giants; both have passed for more yards this season than Manning, and both have beaten him in head-to-head matches.
Eli Manning turns 29 on Jan. 3 and a lot of Giants fans are still talking about his potential, as in “He has the potential to be as good as Peyton.” When Peyton Manning was 28, though, he had already thrown 216 touchdown passes — Eli has 116 — and people weren’t talking about Peyton’s potential, they were talking about whether he was going to be the greatest quarterback of all time. It isn’t likely anyone is going to ask that question of Eli.
