Eli has half again Flacco’s career numbers as well. Rate stats are more relevant, but total stats aren’t irrelevant.
Eli Manning is not even the best QB in his immediate family, might not be the 2nd best, and in a little over a decade we might learn not even 3rd best. But he is clutch AF in big games. That puts him ahead of a lot of QBs. Just not those at his thanksgiving table.
But will he be in the Hall of Fame? I’m guessing yes.
'66 to '83 and '92 to '95, I would say. And in my opinion '92 to '95 probably never would’ve happened if not for the infamous Herschel Walker trade (way ta go, Vikings!).
QB’s with a higher passer rating than Eli in the playoffs:
1 Bart Starr 104.8
2 Kurt Warner 102.8
3 Matt Ryan 100.8
4 Drew Brees 100.0
5 Aaron Rodgers 99.4
6 Nick Foles 98.8
7 Alex Smith 97.4
8 Joe Montana 95.6
9 Russell Wilson 94.9
10 Mark Sanchez 94.3
11 Ken Anderson 93.5
12 Tony Romo 93.0
13 Joe Theismann 91.4
14 Tom Brady 90.5
15 Joe Flacco 88.6
16 Troy Aikman 88.3
17 Cam Newton 87.7
I’m guessing yes too. He’ll have a lot of career numbers, he’s a New York City QB, and his team won two Super Bowls.
The real question is should he be. And that answer is no.
That’s mostly a HOF list (or future HOF), right? Eli in good company there.
Eli Manning has always struck me as being terribly inconsistent. During those two S.B. runs he looked like an All-Pro but at other times I swear he looked like someone that Los Gigantes grabbed off the street and stuck behind center (I’ll leave it to you to decide which he looked like more often). My personal opinion is that he doesn’t belong in the P.F.H.o.F. but one of my fellow “football nerds” (who appears to be a Cowboys fan and who’s made it quite clear that he’s not a fan of E. Manning’s) has conceded that “rings matter” and that Eli might just find himself in the P.F.H.o.F. someday.
And as much as it makes me want to toss my cookies, I have to agree with your friend. As a Cowboys fan, I personally can’t stand anything NY Giants-related. But it seemed like every time I was watching a “this game *really *counts” contest, goddamn Eli Manning pulled it out. Perhaps it is confirmation bias, but he seemed to play at a HOF/elite level *every *time I desperately wanted the Giants to lose (or I had money on the game). Ha.
You think Matt Ryan, Alex Smith, Nick Foles, Joe Flacco, Ken Anderson, Tony Romo, and Mark Fucking Sanchez are HOF worthy? Of, course a list of "people who have a better passer rating in the playoffs than Eli Manning, is going to have HOFers on it. It’s the ones who aren’t, like Foles, Flacco Smith, and Sanchez, that tell the story.
The Browns have good players but are a bad team. They have a a lot of talent and if they can get their crap together they can beat anyone. That’s how they beat the Ravens. It’s just rare that they actually manage to play to their potential.
As for Eli Manning, I think of him as a high ceiling low floor QB. He can be great (winning two rings!) and absolutely awful. I saw him lose 23-0 to Seattle in a 2013 game where he threw 5 interceptions and fumbled twice, and ended the game with 154 yards passing and a 31.9 rating. Yes that was the legendary Legion of Boom at their best but even taking that into consideration it was sad. Eli is judged often by the average of his efforts, which seem middling overall when you balance his highs and lows.
I didn’t see this specific play, but this year the spotting of the ball seems to have gotten a lot more random. It’s always been a crap shoot, and it’s possible this is just confirmation bias as a result of increased scrutiny, but this season seems to be bringing out the worst.
It’s one thing when they gag the spot on a 20 yard pass which resulted in a easy first down, but on relative short yardage they’ve barely been +/- 1 yard on anything tackled close to the sticks. This is where I’d most like to see technology leveraged to fix this problem, that and sideline calls.
I didn’t like him as a prospect coming out because I thought he’d either be a Sproles type who didin’t produce between the tackles or a guy that went down on first contact. But he’s been incredible and I almost never see him taking a real serious hit. That feels like a underrated skill.
Passer rating is heavily influenced by system. For example, I see Chad Pennington in that list, the poster boy for system-inflated passer rating.
Under Tom Coughlin, the Giants ran a more vertical passing attack, the opposite of the West coast system. In the mid-aughts it was sometimes even referred to as an east coast offense.
He’s played 4 years longer too - not quite half again as much, but enough to make the comparison difficul. The two have the same number of attempts per game (34.6 for Flacco, 34.4 for Eli), so the total stats will tell the same story that the rate stats do when you take that into account.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. The total stats tell us that Eli played longer, which is its own achievement. (Which, of course, Flacco can match in the future. But he hasn’t yet.)
What stats or any objective measure do you think we should be using to determine how good (or how “clutch AF”) a QB is? And, please, don’t say number of rings.
One potential “clutch AF” measure would be differential between regular season passer rating and playoff passer rating. Since you play better opponents in the playoffs, your passer rating could be expected to go down a little. (Also worse weather.) If instead it goes up, maybe you are a little clutch.
Your tone seems skeptical, though. Does that mean you disagree that system influences passer rating?
To your original point about Eli being overpaid, let’s stipulate that you’re 100% right. So rewriting history, the Giants don’t overpay him, but instead pay him exactly the amount you personally feel was appropriate. What’s the result? Do you think the Giants win more, fewer, or the same amount of Superbowls?
Or are championships not the important thing?
Which greatly rewards being mediocre in the regular season. And you were just saying passer rating shouldn’t be a measure of QB’s because of systems.
Not at all. It’s just in most of our discussions about Eli, I offer up statistical evidence, and you attempt to argue it away and point to the rings. I’m trying to figure out what kind of evidence you would accept.
I’m a fan of Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt for quick and dirty stuff. Others like Passer Rating or QBR or TD to INT ratio or completion percentage. I’m just wondering if you find an objective measure to determine a QB’s value.
Personally, I found this article about ANY/A and the Hall of Fame. I’m wondering what you look at other than the number of rings.
Jim Plunkett? Hall of Fame?