Hey! We called Wanny this up in Chicago as well. Good times!
Thanks to the Pats for keeping Moss out of Green Bay - that had a snow ball’s chance in hell of working.
I’m not overwhelmed with the Mastermind’s picks. Two guys from Florida with marijuana records? While I am personally pleased that Shanahan doesn’t care about pot use any more than I do - the NFL does.
I dunno, I’m as happy as I was going to be. My Chargers went into this thing needing a safety in a draft that barely had any, and came out of it with Weddle. They needed a wide receiver; they got Davis. They kept Turner, which nobody expected, but hell, I wouldn’t pay the asking price for him either. Besides, they don’t want a second-string RB, they want a second-string Tomlinson, and that probably ain’t happening on the best of days.
14-2 last year; this year, all the way. Five years ago everyone laughed at me for rocking the purple and yellow fan getup at Buffalo Wild Wings. Not so fucking funny now, is it? 
This is driving me crazy. I’m guessing they’re thinking that they traded a pick with which they would have chosen someone who might or might not make their opening weekend roster for a 6’4" freak with downfield speed, who will occupy the other team’s best cornerback and safety on most plays, leaving Donte Stallworth in single coverage against #2 corners who can’t run with him, Ben Watson over the middle against a linebacker, and Wes Welker to catch about 312 nine yard outs against coverages that will have forgotten he exists.
They’re probably thinking that they’re getting a receiver whose production last year, despite being unhappy and pissy and catching passes from Aaron Brooks and Andrew Walter, was just about as good as what the Patriots top receiver managed with the second best quarterback in football.
They’re probably guessing that Moss, who is in the last year of his contract and clearly knows this is his last chance, will be incredibly motivated to get a ring (or two) and improve his flagging Hall of Fame credentials. They’re also thinking that if he makes one single peep between now and September 10, they can cut him and not pay him a single cent, and his chances of getting a decent contract with a better team will be nonexistent.
This is an outstanding deal for the Patriots, and a great opportunity for Moss. If he has a subpar season, or acts up in any way that disrupts the team to the detriment of their W-L record, I will happily eat any kind of crow you please.
Oh, the draft? Right. My team is the Giants, and we picked up a cornerback who might be fine, but this team’s record with 1st round corners has been not very good so far. Still, it was the only pick that made sense given where the team was drafting. Right now this team is still suffering from trading Phillip Rivers, Shawne Merriman, and Nate Kaeding for Eli Manning, and if Manning doesn’t get better, the rest of it just doesn’t matter.
I would like to Pit the over-reacting drama queens shown on ESPN’s draft coverage who booed the Packer’s first round pick Justin Harrell, and did so in front of a bunch of young kids. I hope you so called Packer fans enjoyed your 15 microseconds of fame, that your kids grow up better behaved than yourselves, and that Harrell gives you a boot in the ass.
This is not true. The Giants aren’t “suffering” from that trade at all.
The Browns (and 49ers?) will both experience the free agent frenzy that the Giants enjoyed in 2005, since they (like the Giants that year) won’t have to pay a first round draft choice. That year, the Giants aggressively pursued and signed Plaxico Burress, Kareem McKenzie, Antonio Pierce, Kendrick Clancy and Jay Feely, all who contributed immediately and three of hwome are still part of the core team. This would not have been possible had they just stuck with Rivers.
If they had stuck with Rivers, they would not have draft Merriman in 2005. No way in hell. They would have drafted the RT that went a couple picks later. Instead, with all that money they had to toss around, they brought in Kareem McKenzie.
Works for me.
If I would have been there I would have booed, but I’m not THAT loony about football. I don’t think they were booing Harrell, they were booing Ted Thompson for drafting a defensive tackle, which the Packers have in abundance, when they don’t have a starting running back or a tight end that’s worth a pinch of piss.
Obviously Ted had his reasons, but it was a completely unexpected pick and it is being universally panned here behind the Cheddar Curtain
I’m just going to not agree with you here. First and foremost, Manning has been (so far) a spectacular bust. Just keeping Rivers and literally passing on the other draft picks involved would have engendered a better outcome, at least to date. Sure, Eli might stop throwing knuckleballs seven feet over his receivers’ heads, making stupid decisions, and so on. But he has been not good so far.
As to the rest of your point: if you ran an NFL team, would you then be in favor of passing on all draft picks (or least, all first round draft picks), just in general? After all, if you pass on your first round pick, it frees up more money to spend in free agency. I ask this question not to be difficult, but genuinely; do you think that would be a beneficial approach? Because if the Giants actually benefitted from not having a first round pick in '05, why not voluntarily get that benefit every year?
It depends on the free agent class. Since you can’t predict that with certainty, I would instead opt to trade down out of the top ten. Notice how nobody has been trading down out of the top ten lately? That’s because nobody wants to trade up to the top ten, because the top ten picks cost too much to sign.
Eli has so far been a “spectacular bust”? Are you kidding? By what metric are you judging?
I think he’s going to have a tough time getting better with that big hole at LT they didn’t seem to want to address yesterday. Or earlier in free agency. Who’s out there?
I’m glad you asked.
Last year, in his second full year as the starter for the New York Giants, Eli Manning threw all but two of the Giants’ passes. Now, unfortunately, football stats are not nearly as advanced or useful as baseball stats have become for analyzing performance, but let’s look at a few stats anyway:
Manning’s completion percentage was 57.7%. This makes him one of 13 starting quarterbacks to finish with a completion percentage under 60% - the others were
Vince Young, Joey Harrington, Jake Plummer, Aaron Brooks / Andrew Walter, Matt Leinart, Alex Smith, Matt Hasselbeck, Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre, Rex Grossman, Bruce Gradkowski, and Michael Vick. Of his company in this club, Young and Leinart were rookies, Harrington, Brooks/Walter, and Grossman were basically dreadful, Plummer lost his job, Smith might well be a bust, Gradkowski was a second/third stringer, and Vick and McNabb contribute in ways that Manning obviously does not (but have received substantial criticism themselves all the same).
Manning threw 18 interceptions in 2006, tied with Favre, again, for fourth, and behind only Ben Roethlisberger, Grossman, and Jon Kitna.
In spite of the fact that only five players threw more passes, ten threw for more yards.
He did throw for 24 touchdowns, which is quite good but can easily mask bad passing
He did all of this under relatively average pressure, taking only 25 sacks; 16 starters were sacked more often. Kitna’s 22 picks and Roethlisberger’s 23 came under pressure severe enough to result in 63 and 46 sacks, respectively.
Overall, the Giants offense, in spite of another good season from Tiki Barber, solid middle-of-the-pack line play, and a top ten tight end to go along with Burress, was 21st overall in passing offense, and a horrific 28th in yards per pass attempt. And then there’s the anecdotal evidence; I watched every Giant game last year, and only once (the first Philly game) did Eli look like a franchise QB (and then only in the second half). Otherwise it was wobbly, off-target throws, wide open receivers missed by miles, forced throws into tight coverage, and so it goes.
What more do you want? Eli Manning has been, at best, a 50th percentile quarterback for the Giants. Any number of replacement-level players could have produced at the level Eli has managed so far. In 2007 Manning will account for approximately $13 million toward the salary cap. Hall-of-Famer Michael Strahan will make $7.5 million and Kareem McKenzie $5.3-ish; no other Giant will make more than $5 million.
So he’s become a barely average quarterback who eats up almost twice as much cap space as the next-highest-paid player on the roster. This is after two full years as a starter (with half of a third year as a rookie). And he was chosen number 1 overall in the draft, then traded for a QB who has outperformed him and two additional value picks.
Under what definition of the word “bust” does Manning not qualify?
I’m glad you asked.
The Giants made the playoffs in both of Eli’s first two seasons. The last time the Giants made the playoffs in consecutive years was 1989 & 1990.
The Giants ranked #3 and #11 in scoring offense in the past two seasons. They have only ranked in the top 11 in scoring offense four other times since realignment. The last time (before Eli) was 1988.
Much of that was attributable to Eli’s 24 TD passes both seasons. No Giant QB has thrown 24 touchdowns in a season since Fran Tarkenton did back in 1967. Y.A. Tittle was the last Giant before Eli to do it twice. (1962 & 1963)
Eli’s rookie year was abbreviated, but even still, his completion percentage has climbed 4+ points per year during his first three years: 48.2%, 52.8%, 57.7%. This is not the progression of a bust.
Speaking of completion percentage, you kill him for being one of the few below 60%, and then kill him for not having as many yards as other guys. Completion percentage has a lot to do with that, you know. Incidentally, since you watched all the games, you should know that the Giants offense under Hufnagle – the OC through almost all his career – is predicated on long-developing deep routes, which means Eli has to hold the ball longer than you normally see in the NFL. The fact that he only had 25 sacks (8 of those in a single Eagles game that the Giants won anyway) is impressive as hell. It’s no surprise that a vertical passing attack like Hufnagel’s translated into a low completion percentage.
Rivers did have better numbers last year. I wonder how those numbers would have been were he put into Eli’s situation? The media glare is a minor factor; Eli has been given the entire field ever since his first start, whereas to date Rivers is only given half the field to read. (Roethlisberger just started getting to read the whole field last year.) We’ll see how the two shake out.
I would normally totally agree with you about the ridiculous $13 million cap albatross, but ever since last year’s CBA that’s pretty much a non-factor.
If the Giants had kept Rivers, here’s how the team would have been different:
- Philip Rivers instead of Eli Manning
- Bernard Berrian instead of Plaxico Burress
- Jammal Brown instead of Kareem MacKenzie
- Nate Kaeding instead of Jay Feely
I wouldn’t exactly call the current situation a huge dropoff from the alternative.
Your anecdotal evidence is shit. Try watching the games a little more closely and then get back to me. (His passer rating in the first half of that game was over 100.) If all losses are by definition bad performances by the QB, then by definition all wins must be good performances.
If you’ll allow for good performances in losses, Eli outplayed Peyton in the season opener, he picked the still-blitzing Seahawks apart in the second half of that game, he was damn near perfect against the Cowboys late in the season, etc…
I would also point out that so far in his career Eli Manning has been better than Phil Simms was at this same point. (Phil didn’t crack 57% completions until his 8th season, never threw for more than 22 TDs in a season, threw more picks than touches in each of his first three years, and didn’t even start a full season – for whatever reason – until his fifth year.)
Eli is the best Giants QB in 40 years, and you’re calling him a bust? Overly critical much?
Wow. Well, I’ll obviously be back to answer this one later - running in and out this afternoon and don’t have the time to write a coherent reply yet - but I just wanted to post this bit of analysis, based on what is quoted above:
You are insane.
Wow, I think I said that same exact thing to Raiders fans a couple years back!
You know what, I can’t take it; I’m doing this now.
The Giants made the playoffs last year with a record of 8-8. That they made the playoffs with this record is a testament to blind stupid luck; it is fairly rare that this happens. In 1997-1998 the Giants were 10-5-1 and then 8-8, or exactly one half game off the pace that Eli “Best in 40 Years” Manning has managed in the last two years (with little of the offensive talent that the current team has). Their quarterback at that point was Danny Kanell.
Any particular reason that you attribute this entirely to Eli, as opposed to the team’s outstanding running game in the past two years?
Yes, I do. That was actually my entire point. He throws lots of passes, but because he has been atrociously bad at throwing the ball to the place where he wants to throw it, he completes relatively few of them and so compiles way fewer yards. This is particularly damning in light of the fact that:
…because a deep-ball offense, well executed, should generate more yards even if it depresses completion percentage.
I’d submit that giving Manning the lion’s share of the credit for the relatively few sacks he took, as opposed to the people doing the blocking, makes no sense.
I admire your ability to magically predict what the Giants would have done in 2005; I think there are a bunch of possibilities. With Rivers on the field, the Giants might have done better or worse in 2005, changing their draft position. If they still had the #12 in 2005, they might have taken Jammal Brown instead of signing Karim McKenzie. Unless I am mistaken, Jammal Brown went to the Pro Bowl last year. They also might have traded up to try to get a better corner then the one they took when they finally did pick. Or taken a shot on Merriman. Or traded down. We will never know. What we know is that in order to exchange Manning for a quarterback who has outperformed him, the Giants sacrificed their ability to take a shot at it.
Dude, with all due respect, fuck you. I’d be real careful about setting yourself up as Football Seer, especially since in about two paragraphs you’re going to tell us that Eli Manning is a better quarterback than Phil Simms. And passer rating is about the stupidest stat of all time, which is why I ignored the fact that just about every starter in the NFL had a better rating than Eli last year.
Who the fuck said that all losses are by definition bad performances by the QB?
Sure, he had a few good games; just about every NFL-quality quarterback can manage a few quality games. But he is unable to sustain good performances for more than a few weeks, and his stinker percentage is way higher than a third year quarterback’s ought to be.
This all is some bullshit. And intellectually dishonest. Phil didn’t crack 57% completions until his 8th season, true - because completion percentages were lower across the board. The game was different. In 1984, only the elite passers in the top offenses were routinely throwing for 60% or better. Shit, that loser Stan Musial never cracked 40 home runs in his entire life; Greg Vaughan did it three times. That explains everything, right?
This statement is just insane. You want to crown Eli Manning god of New York because he made the playoffs one year and squeaked in by the skin of his ass the second? Simms had them in the playoffs time and again, and walked away with two rings. He stood up against his contemporaries statistically a hell of a lot better than Eli stands up against his so far. Hell, Kerry Collins managed two playoff appearances and his stats look an awful lot like Eli’s, except Collins managed more yards because he actually could throw the long ball on target once in a while.
I don’t think Eli is Dave Brown, or anything. He’ll be a serviceable, league average QB for as long as he’s healthy. It’s just for $13 million a year and the first pick in the draft, I was hoping for better than league average.
Mike Williams crossed swords with management over his weight. They refused to give him a chance until he got down to what they determined to be his playing weight. After endless injuries when they put him in he got open and made some plays. He did drop an easy TD pass which got him vilified. I think he can play.They used McCown as wide receiver one day.
Hopefully reuniting with old USC coach Lane Kiffin will help too. Heck, it’s April. Everyone thinks they are going to the playoffs now.
Even the Lions?
Especially the Lions.