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Eli moving up the QB food chain
By Ed Valentine on October 17th, 2007 7:12 AM |
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Just how good has New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning been so far this season?
During Monday night’s broadcast of the game against Atlanta ESPN’s Ron Jaworski, who is to quarterbacks what Mel Kiper is to the NFL Draft, said he would rank Eli 8th currently among starting NFL quarterbacks.
I don’t have the list of the seven QBs Jaworski puts in front of Eli, but where he ranks on the quarterback food chain is always a fun game to play. So, let’s do that.
During the off-season Sports Illustrated’s Peter King told us Eli was the 22nd best of the 32 projected starters. To me, that was just further evidence that King is off his rocker. Not a chance there are 21 better quarterbacks around the NFL than Eli.
But, fast-forwarding to right now, are there only seven in the league who are better?
If you go by the NFL’s screwy Quarterback Rating System Manning is not even close to the top 10. By that measure, he has a QB Rating of 83.7 thru 6 games, 17th in the league. Such luminaries as David Garrard, Matt Schaub, Derek Anderson and Damon Huard are ahead of him.
If you’ve watched the games, you know there are not 16 quarterbacks in the league playing better football than Eli.
I was critical of him Monday for the two interceptions he threw. The fact remains, though, that he completed 12 consecutive passes at one point and passed for more than 300 yards.
He is playing with more confidence and throwing the ball more accurately (60.7% completions) than at any time in his career. He has also become the unquestioned leader of the Giants offense.
When I chat with bloggers from other teams around the league they always ask about Eli. Mostly, they want to know if he will ever be a star?
To that I say, watch the games. In my mind, he already is one of the league’s best quarterbacks. He may not his brother, Peyton, or Tom Brady — but nobody else is, either.
Eli is an upper echelon quarterback, without question.
Who is ahead of him?
Peyton, Brady and Brett Favre, of course. Then, I’ll give you Tony Romo and Carson Palmer. After that, I would give you an argument on just about quarterback you name.
Jeff Garcia? Please. He’s having a nice season, but he’s still a retread.
David Garrard? No interceptions, but Jacksonville still hardly ever scores. He can’t be that good.
Ben Roethlisberger? No, sorry. He is still more of a caretaker. He throws the ball about 10 fewer times per game than Eli. The Steelers hardly ever ask him to win, they just don’t want him to mess games up.
Drew Brees? Having a terrible year.
Donovan McNabb? You can’t be serious if you want McNabb instead of Eli right now.
Matt Hasselbeck? Philip Rivers? Jon Kitna? Derek Anderson? Matt Schaub? Alex Smith? No, no, no, no, no, no.
I don’t think you can say that any of those guys is clearly better than Eli.
So, conservatively, you would have to put Eli in the top third of NFL quarterbacks. You might even have to put him in the top 25%.
I can live with that.
(– Ed Valentine is an award-winning columnist and former sports editor of two daily newspapers. His work can be found at Valentine’s Views or Big Blue View.)
There are currently 2 responses to “Eli moving up the QB food chain”
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Pennington doesn’t make the list???
I kid, of course. Seriously though, the Giants are in a “nice little rhythm” right now, but I think fans would feel differently about their quarterback if those 2nd-half interceptions came in tighter spots. Eli’s defense has been putting him in a position to succeed over the last 4 weeks. Contrast that with the Jets, who seem to be battling from behind in every single game.
I’m not convinced that Eli is vastly improved from a season ago – this just looks like a better football team overall to me. Eli’s biggest problem continues to be his lack of consistency, and I’ve yet to see him string consecutive good halves together. With the game on the line and time running out, I personally don’t feel comfortable with Eli leading the charge – especially not if he was throwing the ball well in the 1st half!
We agree on one thing. I think this is a better football team than it was a year ago. I agree that the two picks he threw Monday were bad and the Giants were lucky they didn’t come against a good team.
I do think he is improved, though. His completion percentage is up and he has stepped up more as a leader.
I also don’t see him bailing out of the pocket the way he did a year ago. We’ll see.
Eli will never get credit because he will never be Peyton. I just feel he is better than people think.