Just for S&G, here’s a roundup of where various pundits have these teams on their respective Power Rankings:
ESPN:
1 - Cowboys
2 - Giants
3 - Eagles
15 - Redskins
USA Today
1 - Cowboys
2 - Giants
3 - Eagles
12 - Redskins
Yahoo Sports
1 - Cowboys
2 - Giants
5 - Eagles
12 - Redskins
CBS Sportsline:
1 - Cowboys
2 - Giants
5 - Eagles
12 - Redskins
Sporting News
1 - Cowboys
2 - Giants
7 - Eagles
14 - Redskins
Fox:
1 - Giants
2 - Cowboys
9 - Eagles
14 - Redskins
I have rarely if ever seen such a consistant 1 & 2.
Shows what Fox knows!
Very much so. I kept thinking to myself: “Eli, you can’t really be this good, can you?” Then zing, the exact same pass he threw to Toomer in that fantastic 2005 comeback win over the Broncos. In overtime, though, no; there was never any doubt.
He’s been doing it his entire career. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to learn that he had the most game tieing/winning drives in the 4th quarter or overtime in the league since the middle of the 2004 season. Even as a rookie he did it with the Steelers and Cowboys, and at least one other team. (Falcons, maybe?)
The big knock on McNabb is that he chokes in the clutch. During the first three quarters / regular season, he’s the man, chucking it all over the field at will. Get down to crunctime, though, and he folds. Happened again versus Dallas a couple weeks ago, much like his Superbowl loss. (For a direct comparison, Kornheiser even pointed out as the Eagles took the field against the Cowboys that McNabb was in the same situation Eli was in during the Superbowl, and the results couldn’t have been more different.)
Eli is the anti-McNabb. He very much does NOT chuck it all over the field with impunity during the first three quarters / regular season. But goddamn that guy is a friggin’ force of nature in crunch time.
Note that half the time he mounts those clutch drives, the defense proceeds to give the game away. If it weren’t so time consuming and tedious I’d go through his history and see just how many he has.
I’m less inclined to mock them over putting the Giants at #1–they’re the defending champs & undefeated, aren’t they #1 until someone proves otherwise?–than that they have the Eagles at #9. Did they even watch the Cowboys-Eagles game? It was nearly a tossup! Totally bizarre.
The fact that they’re the defending champs is the reason everyone else has them ranked so high. If not for that, the prevailing attitude would be “yeah, they’re 3-0, but they’ve only played scrub teams…rank 'em 6th”.
The Redskins aren’t scrubs.
Maybe somebody confused them with the Chiefs.
Full agreement…I have the Redskins picked to be runners-up to the Giants in the division. But if you ask the average pundit, the Giants “haven’t played anybody”.
In other news: Crap. Giants Suspend Burress For Seattle Game. Ok Plax…you earned, and received, your big contract extention. Please don’t turn into a douche now, m’kay?
I doubt it, because again, the Redskins aren’t scrubs.
Doh!
On an unrelated note, on Monday’s SNY Sportsnite they claimed that Toomer’s OT catch along the sideline to set up the game winning FG was “controversial” because it looked like Toomer’s second foot came down touching the sideline. I thought they were smoking crack, but the camera angle they showed while making this claim was from the far side of the field so you couldn’t really see anything.
Here is a great shot of his millionth career circus toe-tap, courtesy of Sports Illustrated.
Really? You still want to play the McNabb coward card? Your call.
Anyway, this is almost all nonsense. If you’d like to quantify it you ought to.
----DISCLAIMER - I DON’T THINK CLUTCH IS EVEN A REAL THING, SO I’M GOING TO RANDOMLY PICK OUT SOME STATS AND PRETEND THEY’RE MEANINGFUL----
Just for shits and giggles, as a bit of a teaser, though, I know you’re a QB rating man, so let’s have a look. QB ratings in the following situations last season (which we’ll note was Eli Manning’s rise to superstardom, and the year where he very clearly, indisputably, and without hyperbole cemented his status as Mr. Goddamned Superclutch):
4th Quarter leading or trailing by 7 pts. or less:
McNabb: 88.8
Manning: 68.8
In games where the final margin of victory is 7 or less either way
McNabb: 85.2
Manning: 82.7
In the last two minutes of a half
McNabb: 60.4 (oh here we go)
Manning: 59.2 (aw, well, damn it!)
In the 4th quarter
McNabb: 86.2
Manning: 74.3
By way of refreshing everyone’s memories, McNabb’s QB rating overall last year was 89.9. Manning’s was 73.9.
Of course, the magical thing about “clutch” is you can just pick through the stats looking for one to match your anecdotal experience (i.e. a pass that went straight up in the air and was caught by a shitty receiver against his helmet). I’ll just note that it appears to my untrained eye that Eli is only the anti-McNabb in that McNabb is statistically a better than average quarterback.
The problem with QB rating is it doesn’t take into account puking on the field while the clock ticks away your chance at winning the Superbowl.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I figured.
Cheap shots aside, it would appear that your stats show McNabb performs worse than his average in your definitions of clutch, while Eli performs better than his.
[McNabb](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/4650/splits;_ylt=AqTZt9YTQ5OsU01rmAwlabn.uLYF?year=career) [Eli](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/6760/splits;_ylt=AqTZt9YTQ5OsU01rmAwlabn.uLYF?year=career)
Career 86.2 74.4
One-Sided 90.6 72.5
Not Close 91.9 73.3
Close 78.8 75.9
Late&Close 79.5 86.2
Playoffs [80.1](http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McNaDo00_playoffs.htm) [84.2](http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MannEl00_playoffs.htm)
McNabb Eli
Career 86.2 74.4
One-Sided +4.4 -1.9
Not Close +5.7 -1.1
Close -7.4 +1.5
Late&Close -6.7 +11.8
Playoffs -6.1 +9.8
McNabb is at his best during regular season blowouts. Eli is at his best late in close games and in the playoffs. Despite the fact that McNabb has a better career rating than Eli by nearly 12 points, Eli has a significantly better rating than McNabb in the clutch.
Yeah, I’d say my eyeball evaluation is supported by the facts quite nicely. Thanks for inpiring me to look them up.
EDIT: “Mr. Goddamned Superclutch” seems like an appropriate nickname for Eli based on his performance.
Ok, ok, ok. I know that McNabb isn’t exactly the most “clutch” performer, and anecdotal evidence supports that. But to say Eli is clutch is kind of ridiculous, and I’m guessing it’s based equally on anecdotal evidence (The Helmet Catch, only half his doing, mind you). There are other stats that show that perhaps Eli isn’t as clutch as Giants fans seem to want to believe.
Being “clutch” (if there is such a thing) isn’t only about how you do in close games or at the ends of games. It’s also about turning it on when it matters, when your team is pushing for a playoff spot. Eli is absolutely terrible in this regard, and he routinely fals apart during the difficult months when his team is pushing for a playoff berth.
Check out his career averages, not counting the incomplete 2004 and the in progress 2008.
Weeks 1-8, career average:
Comp%: 57.03%
YPA: 6.82
TDs: 14
INTs: 7.67
TD/Int: 1.83
Weeks 9-17, career average:
Comp%: 54.03%
YPA: 6.04
TDs: 9.67
INTs: 10.67
TD/Int: .91
Some of those are more telling than others, I agree, but all represent a significant decline given a period of 3 full years of 16 games each. This is systemic; he has not yet had a season in which he performed as well in the second half as he did in the first.
And by the way, his TD/INT ratio when the game is in the 4th and the score is +/- 7pts is actually below his career average, too. He isn’t exactly dominant in those situations either. I think the “Mr. Goddamned Superclutch” is extremely unwarranted, and reeks of fan bias.
How are career stats “anectdotal evidence”?
As for pushing for a playoff spot, Eli has lead his team to the playoffs in every season he entered as the starter. Also, I’m not sure if you realize this or not, but several of those “Close&Late” games were during the second half of seasons. Not to mention that I’m fairly sure last year’s Superbowl run in the playoffs doesn’t count as the first half of the season.
In 2005, there was the last-minute comeback win against the Eagles in week 14, the win over the Redskins in the final week of 2006 to get into the playoffs, plus close wins against the Lions, Bears and Eagles in the second half of 2007. There were also many games when Eli lead his team down for a game-tying or lead-taking score in the final minutes of the game, only to have his defense let up the game-winning score to the other team. Maybe you remember when it happened against the Eagles in the 2006 Wildcard round, for example.
Hey, speaking of that Wildcard game, that was an example of the Eagles winning the game in the clutch with a crucial game-winning drive to end the game. The football equivalent of a walk-off homer. Maybe McNabb has some clutch in him after all. Oh wait, that was Jeff Garcia.
How many walk-off wins does McNabb actually have? I wouldn’t go looking too closely at overtime games, where his rating is a pathetic 48.5 compared to Eli’s 80.5. Damn, should’ve added that one to the chart. Here, it’s not too late:
[McNabb](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/4650/splits;_ylt=AqTZt9YTQ5OsU01rmAwlabn.uLYF?year=career) [Eli](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/6760/splits;_ylt=AqTZt9YTQ5OsU01rmAwlabn.uLYF?year=career)
Career 86.2 74.4
One-Sided 90.6 72.5
Not Close 91.9 73.3
Close 78.8 75.9
Late&Close 79.5 86.2
Overtime [48.5](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/4650/situational;_ylt=AlIdX8hGdxRmZIpAerEIi17.uLYF?year=career) [80.5](http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/6760/situational;_ylt=AlIdX8hGdxRmZIpAerEIi17.uLYF?year=career)
Playoffs [80.1](http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McNaDo00_playoffs.htm) [84.2](http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MannEl00_playoffs.htm)
EDIT: Eli may or may not be “Mr. Goddamned Superclutch” in general, but he certainly is in comparison to McNabb.
(never mind)
Of the two of us, I’d say my data was less cherry-picked because I took entire career numbers. Isn’t using the entire dataset the direct opposite of cherry picking?
4 points for playoff games, 7 points for Late&Close situations, and 32 points in overtime.
And yeah, six games is plenty. How’s McNabb looking this season? I’d say he’s looking pretty damn good despite there only being three games on which to judge. After three more games will you be saying that there is simply know way to judge because it’s only a sample size of six games?
hehheh, love those Eagles fans. I’d probably agree that there is no such thing as clutch if my guy kept choking in it.
Totally justified on using the irony quotes there. Eli clearly didn’t earn the the Superbowl win. Not like, say, Roethlisberger. I mean, leading two different lead-changing touchdown drives in the fourth quarter against a defense that held him to a single field goal through the first three quarters is pure luck.
And McNabb’s lack of a Superbowl ring is clearly just luck. It has nothing to do with anything he’s done.
In fact, Superbowls are completely meaningless when it comes to QB performance. Yeah, that’s it. All that matters for QBs is how they perform in the regular season, because that is the true measure. Except for late in close games, or in overtime. Those don’t matter even in the regular season because, uh, it’s cherry picking! And a small sample size! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Well…
…fits pretty much perfectly the definition of anecdotal evidence.
No, no, no. The Giants made the playoffs *despite *Eli Manning, I’ve already shown how much worse Eli is over the second half. The Giants start out strong, then fade late, and make the playoffs because the team is just good enough that Eli can’t ruin it. And another thing, there was no leading going on. For years people have questioned his leadership skills, and even his former teammates have!
Eli Manning had a terrific 2007 postseason. No one can argue that (well… some can, but I won’t, really), but the gushing is out of bounds. Eli had been 0-2 in 2 playoff appearances before '07, and he wasn’t exactly spectacular in that Super Bowl by the way. You remember it fondly for being a Giants fan and for the Helmet Catch, but he was 19/34 (55%) with 2TDs and 1INT. Good, but not great.
Anecdotal evidence, again. I showed his second half numbers over every season in which he entered as a starter, and he was demonstrably worse. You can cherry pick several close games (a few of which had nothing to do with him, for instance, the Eagles were in position to win that game last year when Akers’ missed a field goal as regulation expired) but it doesn’t change the facts already provided. Eli Manning collapses in the second half of every single season he has played in.
You might remember that the topic at hand is Eli Manning. I already conceded that McNabb has had a less than stellar collection of performances in crucial situations, so bringing him up is irrelevant and a desperate reach.
Yes, in the specific circumstances of close and late games, Eli has performed much better than McNabb. No argument. Why you keep up this tired comparison is a little curious, though. Aside from a terrific '07 postseason, Eli Manning has been an average QB. You’ve already seen how much better McNabb’s career numbers have been, and McNabb has never had a Plaxico or Amani to throw to, hell, not even a Shockey. That counts for something.