Eli Manning is Underrated

         I understand that there are those who refuse to change their mind about him nevertheless to those still with an open mind here it goes. The Eli bashers-many of them are Giant fans, in fact maybe all real Eli bashers are Giant fans, non-Giant fans have less reason to exaggerate his mistakes and errors.

     Eli has always been discounted or underrated, this has been his condition his whole life. That comes with the territory of having a dad in the Hall of Fame-Archie Manning-and an older brother headed there-Peyton. So he's used to it. Then there is the issue of his communication skills. In his first few years at least many found his "demeanour" in interviews, press conferences, etc. unimpressive. Tiki Barber famously went as far as to describe Manning in his biography-after his way too early retirement after the 2006 season-that when Manning tried to address his teammates in the locker room it was "laughable."

    The very next year of course Manning led the Giants to an upset over the undefeated Patriots in Superbowl XLI. His success that year-in the playoffs he had just one interception against 8 TDs-did give him a certain gravitas he had previously lacked. And he did improve before the cameras. What's clear is that his team clearly has believed in him unshakably since that season.

    Still the boo birds may have hibernated some after 2007 but not much, and as the Giants have failed in the past 3 seasons to return to the Super Bowl-they have won a fair share of games but fold late every year after a lightening fast start-and his struggles last season in particular, they are back in force.

    Last year was a rough year in one important respect: he had a career high 25 interceptions. This is the main knock on him, he has shown a propensity to force things when they aren't there. He has cost the team a number of games over the year. I still remember the 41-13 loss to the Vikings at home in 2007 where he threw 4 picks, three were run back for TDs, the fourth was run back to the Giants 1 and run in on the next play. Though these were tipped passes it was one for the books.

    Of course he and the Giants regrouped that year to win the Super Bowl. Throughout his career though, while he has always shown this certain propensity for throwing picks, he has always thrown more TDs than INTs. The Super Bowl year was actually at the time his highest year for picks with 20 against 23 TDs. But then he totally shut it down in the playoffs with only 1 interception.

    Last year he broke the 2007 record with 25 picks and clearly he beat himself a lot. Several things should be kept in mind however. First in the previous two years-2008 and 2009-he had really bought down the interceptions with a total of 25 in two years and a solid TD-INT ratio of close to 2 to 1 for the two years-21-10 in 2009 and 27-14 in 2010. And in 2010 he also did set a career high for TDs as well. He also threw over 4000 yards for the second straight year. Finally his QB rating which had risen since 2007 where despite winning it all, he had a rating of only 73.9. At this point he had never had a QB rating higher than 77.0-in 2006.

   In 2008 and 2009 he for the first time broke out with an 86.4 and 93.1 respectively. In 2010 despite the spike in picks his rating was 85.3-12 points higher than his Super Bowl year.

   For his full career stats please see http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/6760/career;_ylt=AuSJ6gOChrKo.GHhol4If0z.uLYF

    This year he is very quietly out to a great start. Through 4 games his rating is 105.6, for the season he has 7 TDs and only 3 INTs, in the past two weeks the ratio is 6 to 0. In fact not only is the problem not Eli, to the contrary if there is a concern for a team that is confounding expectations at 3 and 1 with a victory over the favored Eagles now languishing at 1-3, it is the rushing game on both sides of the ball-usually a Giants strength. Yesterday they were able to come back despite being out gained 156-54. While Bradshaw and Jacobs both had a TD run, they gained a total of 39 and 18 yards respectively. Jacobs in particular has been missing in action this year. So maybe the 2011 Giants will depend more than ever on Eli Manning. The silver lining is that he seems up to it.