Eli Manning: The Perpetual Little Brother

Eli: The Perpetual Little Brother

The NFL season only ended a couple of weeks ago, but for the New York Giants it was pretty much over before Halloween. I still can't wrap my head around what happened to their season, and in particular Eli Manning. He wasn't great this year, but you wouldn't be either if you lost your top 3 wide receivers for the large majority of the season, and one of the was Odell Beckham Jr.

With only a few games to go in the season the Giants decided to bench Eli Manning for, get this, Gen Smith. Same Geno Smith who got his face broken by his own teammates when he was on the Jets. Even though the benching only lasted a week, Eli got hosed by the Giants. He was never going to catch Brett Favre’s consecutive start record. But to end the streak to start Geno Smith for one game against the Raiders is just disrespectful.

Eli’s been an easy target over the years. He has the face of Jay Cutler and the body of Jim Belushi.  As someone who has no rooting interest in the Giants, other than a brother who’s an Eagles fan, I’m not arguing that the guy is as good as Peyton. But he does have the same amount of Super Bowl championships as his brother as a starting quarterback. More than Steve Young, Dan Marino, Brett Favre, Jim Kelly, Kurt Warner and multiple other Hall of Fame Quarterbacks.

He also has been named Super Bowl MVP twice. Here’s the list of other players who have won multiple Super Bowl MVP awards: Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, and Bart Starr. That’s it. In the history of the National Football League only 5 players have won multiple Super Bowl MVPs, and Eli Freaking Manning is one of them.

Most NFL experts argue that he’s the third best quarterback in his draft class behind Rivers and Roethlisberger. There is some debate between Eli and Rivers, but Roethlisberger is consensus best quarterback from that class. Roethlisberger has won two Super Bowls as well, while Rivers hasn’t even played in the Super Bowl. Since Eli Manning entered the NFL in 2004 the Steelers have equaled the Giants in Super Bowl trophies and the Patriots have won more. That’s about 6% of the league that has done better than the Giants have done with Eli at Quarterback.

Despite being statistically one of the best playoff quarterbacks of all time, his teams have been the definition of average in the regular season. Since entering the league in 2004 the Giants have posted a .518 regular season winning percentage, going 116-108 over that time period. That winning percentage ranks 13th in the NFL since his rookie year, which is only 3rd in the NFC East behind the Eagles and Cowboys. The Giants are also behind the Chargers and Steelers in terms of wins, which must feel great for Chargers fans who feel like Eli pulled a no-no on them on draft day by forcing a trade to New York and refusing to play for the Chargers. But they’ve only won 11 more regular season games than the Giants over Eli’s 14 year career, I’d bet that Chargers fans would trade those for even playing in a Super Bowl ever.

You can make a legitimate argument that at any given point he’s never even been the best quarterback in his division with Mcnabb, Romo, Vick, Cousins (not really, but I felt bad leaving Washington out) and Prescott’s rookie year. But, since Manning came into the league the Eagles played in a Super Bowl once, and that’s it. Eli’s bad is really bad, but unless you live in Boston, East Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin you’d trade your team’s Quarterback play for Eli Manning’s career. Next time you run into a Falcons or a Lions fans check in with them on when they last had a Super Bowl party to celebrate. Jets fans make fun of Eli as much or more than anyone, but they haven’t done anything since Joe Namath was in town.

Point is I’d take Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Matt Stafford, and lots of other quarterbacks over Eli without hesitation. But sometimes Eli is talked about like he’s Rex Grossman, which is an insult I wouldn’t throw out to my worst enemy. Long story short is that as bad as Eli’s bad play has been, 94% of the league would learn to deal with Eli’s frustrating moments if it meant that their team got two Super Bowl parades through their city.

- Jake Cowden