Monday, September 21, 2009

The Continuing Evolution of Eli

As everyone who read this blog knows I am a continual defender of Eli, he is my man crush. Eli is a work in progress, as are all careers. Yes there are flashier QB’s (Peyton, Brees, Rivers) there are QB’s who the chicks fawn all over (Big Ben, Brady) but non of that is what Eli is about. He is about leadership and winning as a team, and not to say those other guys arent and I am not saying Eli is the best in the league. I have argued that since his playoff run he is in the upper echelon of QB’s and he keeps making improvements every year.


Last night midway through the 2nd quarter I was embroiled in a text-a-thon with my good friend Mr. Reinitz and all he was doing was complaining about Eli. This throw was bad, and that throw was bad, he needs to play better blah blah blah. I tried to calm him down and tell him to wait until the end of the game to completely analyze his performance. He complained about the Giants red zone inefficiency (which is a concern), and as always blamed everything on Eli. Not to say anything of the offensive line who for some reason cant block inside the 20 or some of the most uncreative play calling in the world by Kevin Gilbride. All that, along with Eli’s pkay inside the 20 has contributed to a heavy dose of Lawrence Tynes FG’s, but it is not Eli exclusively. The people who hate Eli always make him the blame for everything. Damn him for interrupting Taylor Swifts speech.


Again, what we all forget is the harder the spot, the more hectic the situation the type of guy you want in the pocket is a guy like Manning. Calm, cool, collected, trusting in his line, backs, receivers, all of them. He threw a ball last night after scrambling to a guy I have never heard of. His overall numbers were excellent, 25/38 65% 330 yards and 2 TD’s. His fourth quarter numbers were even more ridiculous, 10-12 83% 140 yards and 1 TD and the game winning drive with under 4 minutes to go.


Below are his numbers from 2005-2009, his totals, his 3rd down numbers and his 4th quarter numbers. They are completion %, INT’s, and QB Rating
As you see he just continues to improve (obviously this year is a small sample size).


Totals
52.8---17---75.9
57.7---18---77.0
56.1---20---73.9
60.3---10---86.4
67.2---1---103.2


3rd down
51.2---7---71.5
47.6---7---64.9
58.3---7---73.3
62.0---2---93.1
73.9---0---146.9



4th quarter
57.2---4---85.7
61.2---8---72.1
55.7---6---74.3
63.6---2---93.8
77.3---0---123.3

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eli sucks, blah, blah, blah

zman said...

Sanchez is better.

THE INNOVATOR said...

I was waiting for the inevitable Sanchez is going to the Hall of Fame response.

Anonymous said...

I think the better aspect of the game to talk about, and the one I think is more important is the line of scrimmage. Both Side sucked last night. I think offensively we got pushed around and were never able to run the ball effectively with Jacobs which would open up the passing game for Eli. Also defensively ,I know we lost Tuck (not until the second half I believe), and were without Canty, but Robbins, Cofield, Kiwanuka, Osi, Tollefson, Bernard and anybody else they have need to do a better job against an over rated Cowboys line, and better for the rest of the year if we are going to be as good as people think.

The Regulator

zman said...

Sanchez is undefeated as a pro QB. Who else in the league can say that?

Dan Filowitz said...

He sure did throw a lot of interceptions between 2005 and 2007.

This is why people complain. He was mostly a not-quite-better-than-average QB during those years. He's admittedly been better the last two.

This is the part Kris won't admit:

Eli was a big part of the problem from 2005 - 2007. Starting around the playoffs of 2007, he stopped being part of the problem, and has played very well ever since.