Wow, it must have been a long sleepless night in the Zoltan and Reinitz households. Eli won a playoff game and looked damned good doing it against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yesterday. Of course guys like Andrew and Josh will give everyone else credit on the team; like the defensive backfield, who played extremely well, or the wide receiving corpse for actually catching passes (something they didn’t do most of the regular season, leading the league in dropped passes), but alas they will have to give Eli some credit.
Not only did Eli play well, and look poised, he did it all after having an atrocious start to the game. Yes in the first quarter Eli looked nervous, pensive and under threw a myriad of receivers. The Giants lead the Bucs 14-7 at the half and got a quick FG to start the 3rd quarter. Then as the third quarter was winding down Manning had a signature drive, taken over on his own 8 yard line with 1:40 to go in the quarter he lead his team on a 15 play 92 yard marching eclipsing 7 minutes off the clock. One of the key plays on that drive was the last play of the 3rd quarter on a third down and 7 on the 11 yard line Manning found veteran Amani Toomer for a first down. To start the 4th quarter the drive continued with timely throws by Manning and solid rushing by Ahmed Bradshaw. Then on the only other third down of the drive Manning found Toomer again this time in the end zone. The drive and the TD basically put an end to any comeback thoughts the Bucs were having. Manning didn’t throw another pass in the game, he didn’t need to.
Now of course the naysayers will tell me how its only one game and Eli will blow it in Dallas against the best team in the NFC. Well maybe he will, maybe he won’t let’s see how it plays out. But of course I will still provide some context on Eli’s win, and yes I give all the credit to Eli because the haters would be blaming it all on him if the Giants had lost.
Let’s compare Eli to say, ummmm, some guy named Peyton Manning. Now I will throw out each of their rookie seasons; Eli split time with vet Kurt Warner and Peyton was admittedly thrown to the wolves his rookie year. In each of their second seasons they both won their divisions, Eli with an 11-5 record and Peyton with a 13-3 record, both lost in their first playoff game. In season 3 Eli went 8-8 finishing 3rd and Peyton went 10-6 finishing in 2nd, both again making the playoffs and losing immediately. Then in season 4 (current for Eli) Eli went 10-6 and finished 2nd and Peyton went 6-10 and finished in 4th, but Eli went on to win a playoff game, Peyton didn’t. So after three seasons as a starter Eli is 29-19 the same exact record as Peyton over the same span, except Eli won a playoff game. Do you know how many seasons it took Peyton to win a playoff game? Six. I also went back and looked at all 32 starting NFL quarterbacks (opening day starters) to see which ones had won a playoff game on the road. Here is the list: McNabb, McNair, Brady, Peyton, Favre, Delhomme, Pennington, Bulger, Culpepper and Big Ben. This year Eli and David Gerard added their names to that list.
Again I am not trying to tell anyone the Eli is the greats QB of all time, but seriously people stop with all the undeserved hatred. The guy is a good solid quarterback and he has the ability to lead his team to great things. It doesn’t happen overnight, the only time it really happened overnight was with John Elway and Tom Brady and those are perhaps the two greatest QB’s of all time. Yes Big Ben got out of the gate quick fast, but even the Big Ben fans (and I am one) knows that year he was a game manager, but he is talented. Eli is talented and is doing good things with the New York Giants, I am happy to have him as the QB and hope he continues to grow.
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The problem I have as an Giant fan, who likes to think he is somewhat knowledgeable about football is the bad times he has. Yes, overall he had a good game, he took what was given to him, did a good job of checking down to the receivers that were open and most importantly won the game. My problem is exactly what you are pointing out. He is not an outstanding quarterback, and I am not quite sure he is ever going to be. Now I understand that there are only a handful in the league at the time, but for what we gave up to get him he is not paying dividends. He was a number one pick who we had to give a ton of money to and a collection of draft picks to get, he needs to become excellent for all of that. I am worried that the first quarter he had , in which he and the entire offense sucked big sweaty rhino balls (that includes Gilbrides' play calling)Will always be a second away. For what he was projected to be, and what the Giants need him to be, he cannot have quarters, or weeks like that in a row. His lows cannot be that low he will never last here. We could have saved the picks and got an adequate game managing quarterback and focused on becoming a run based team like we were years before.
The Regulator
Again I am not totally disagreeing with you Keith about Eli maybe not living up to being the number 1 overall pick. But again we must deal in context. First of all he was basically traded for Phillip Rivers who's career path is on about the same track as Eli's (and well let's be honest he has one of the best running backs in the history of the game in his backfield, Eli has Brandon Jacobs & had Tiki Barber).
Since 1990 9 QBs have been chosen with the first overall pick in the draft. Jeff George, Drew Bledsoe, Peyton Manning, Tim Couch, Michael Vick, David Carr, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, and Alex Smith (not including JaMarcus Russell from this year). Take that list and where would you put Eli? Now all the Eli haters are going to put him 7th or 8th, but realistically he is 3rd on that list behind his big brother and Drew Bledsoe. Nobody else on that list has done anymore than Manning has done in his young career.
Now people are going to say Carson Palmer, and I will say look it up. Palmer has been a four year starter leading his team to one playoff appearance and losing in the first round at home and his record as a starter is 34-28 (54%) and Eli is 30-25 (54%). But again Eli has 3 playoff teams under his belt and a road playoff win.
And one more time in summation, I am not trying to say Elis is the greatest QB of all time, I am just saying if you are willing to blame him, degrade him and outright dislike him because he doesn't or hasn't performed you need to re-examine what he has done in his career and begin to appreciate the accomplishments of his young career. I mean seriously I just keep putting facts out there, I am not sure what else you need, maybe fancy lawyer tricks like Whitey and the Jew because their arguments are going to sound smarter than mine.
But maybe that is the point, 9 times out of 10 it is not worth it to pick a quartedback first overall. If that is then true then it is definately not worth it to trade for him and give up picks (whether the pick began Roid head out in SD or not) that is somebody valuable you could've got, and cap money you could have spent elsewhere. Perhaps an upgrade at fucking middle linebacker. Yes he did win the game, and yes at times he shows growth but there are to many times he shows regression. Just because he is the most viable option right now does not mean I have to be happy ith that is all I am saying!
The Regulator
I am not saying you have to be happy, I am just saying credit is deserved. And as I pointed out in the original blog I don't think all that much regression is shown, moreover progression has actually been shown.
Yes Eli does take up the third highest cap space among QB's but the Giants (depending on where you read) are anywhere from $14-19 million under the cap, so that is plenty of room to make sounds football moves.
The regression is not the high balls that get away from so much anymore. now it is balls at the feet of receivers. In addition it is throwing to the wrong side of a receiver, or not leading a guy on a third and 7 when they run a quick foru yard out. If you are going to throw a three or four yard pass you must let your receiver catch it in stride, this is an area he is particularily week in.
The Regulator
Wow.
Did he just go 20-of-27 and win a playoff game against the No. 1 pass defense in the league?
Was he throwing passes to a core of recievers who led the league in drops?
Why is Elisha supposed to be great every game, every snap? Just because we gave up a bunch of draft picks to get him?
The only argument I'll concering that would be because we sent San Diego so many picks, we couldn't go out and get a quality second or third reciever.
The defense is fine. The linebacking core aren't world beaters, but they do the job more often than not thanks in large part to the D-line. The secondary, which deservedly gets all the blame, is really really young.
Webster, Ross, Dockery, Michael Johnson, even Wilson at safety - None of them have over five years of experience.
Long story short, this is a young team (think about it) on the rise with a quarterback to match.
And you're right, they could have drafted a game manager, but instead Ernie saw the need for a guy with a big arm that has pretty good accuracy deep downfield.
Yes, we all know he needs to work on his accuracy with the short passes, but if you're going to blame him for losses, you have to give him credit for wins (Where did I hear that before).
Look, let him look horrible against Dallas. Let him throw for 3 TD's and a pick or two in a 35-28 loss and you can feel free to jump back down his throat and look to who exactly to take his place?
Andrew, you will like this tidbit of information since the other day you were talking about how Giants fans always fawn over Phil Simms our franchises most heralded leader.
Simms obviously is most noted for his Super Bowl record performance agains the Denver Broncos, where he was accurate beyond belief. Simms is looked at as one of the all time great "game managers" and clearly when people (like Keith) and others talk about what Eli can't do they inevitably come back and say why can't he be like Phil Simms was?
Well in Simms best three year stretch 1984-86 (years 5-7 of his career) he threw 66 TD's and 60 INT's now compare that to Eli's stretch of 2005-07 (years 2-4 of his career) he threw 77 TD's and 55 INT's. In that same span Simms completion percentage was 54.7% and Eli's 55.4%, ironic when you consider Simms career completion percentage was 55.4% only once completing over 60% of his passes and that was in his last season. Eli is completing 54.7% of his passes threw his first 4 seasons.
Eli played okay. If you have a good defense (and play against a lousy offense like Tampa's) you can win a game, even a playoff game, if your QB plays okay.
To say that "Eli won the game" is going overboard. QBs get too much credit for wins, and too much blame for losses. Like in your Carson Palmer example - how many more games would the Bengals have won over the last few years if their defense wasn't so horrid?
All you can say about this game is that Eli didn't lose it for them with costly turnovers and bad decision making.
Eli, on the other hand, has lost the Giants plenty of games. Like the Vikings game this year.
When things start to go wrong - when he gets pressured, in particular - Eli makes tons of mistakes, and turns the ball over. Like the fourth quarter of the Pats game, for example. You cannot refute that with your fancy stats, Kris.
Bottom line: Eli is not a great QB. At his best, he is an average QB. Which in today's NFL is actually not that bad. But the only way he gets better is if he gets consistently average.
Again Dan, I am going to use stats to help my side. One thing is clear, people who don't think Eli is any good won't ever think so, so I am sort of beating my head against a brick wall.
But again to say Eli only played okay is false, he played excellent, in fact better than any QB did this weekend. His rating was 117.1, that is excellent.
And you flipped the argument and talk about Tampa's bad offense (ranked 18th), well the Giants aren't exactly world beaters (ranked 16th). But the Tampa Defense was third in the league and first against the pass, whereas the Giants defense was ranked 15th in the league. Eli was the difference for his team, above and beyond his counterpart Jeff Garcia who threw two costly interceptions.
I agree with you though that QB's get too much credit and too much blame, but again the people that constantly blame Eli are never willing to give him credit. I am also pointing out that his career development as far as winning games, which is ultimately what QB's are judged on, seems to be ahead of the curve though people would have you believe the contrary.
Again Ia pologize for using stats and facts to backup my argument rather than just saying things like Eli is average or pointing out example of singular poor throws.
Eli did play okay. He didn't make any huge mistakes, and he played within the offense. He made mostly good throws, but nothing huge. Thus the 180 or so yards. He didn't have to lead them on any comeback drives, and he was helped by very solid running by Bradshaw and a nice day for the offensive line.
Again, nothing wrong with okay, especially in today's NFL, and with the defense having a good game.
But, the way you're talking, you're saying Eli didn't lose the game to the Vikings all on his own, throwing those interceptions that were very much his fault?
You're saying Eli should get credit for winning the Bills game, since even though his stats were horrible, hey, the team won, so that's all that matters?
You're saying Eli didn't choke away that Pats game, after he started getting pressure late in the game, throwing a pick and fumbling a snap and making several bad throws?
Look, you can also take Chad Pennington's numbers and make him look very good. But if you watch Jets games, you get the distinct feeling that he loses games for the team all the time. Same with Eli. That's what people are saying.
Eli is inconsistent. In games, and across games. Maybe he'll be fantastic against Dallas - he certainly has enough ability to be so. Maybe he'll be awful - he certainly has shown that he knows how to do that, too. Maybe he'll be both - start good, end bad, or something in middle.
The best you can hope for is consistently okay.
Eli had a damn good game against the Bucs. Let's see if he can put two good games together in a row, in the playoffs, on the road. If the Giants lose but Eli plays well against the Cowboys, I will admit he is showing signs of development. But I won't bet my balls and shake on it (name that movie) that he will do so.
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