MITCHELL BLATT

Eli Manning, the Super Bowl MVP, has no leadership ability, isn’t a good New York quarterback, and was a “Giant Mistake” when the Giants drafted him. All quotes from various critics, ranging from the entire New York Daily News sports staff, to the entire population of New York City, to most of the New York Giants front office, most NFL fans, and Tiki Barber.

Tiki was fed up with the young QB, only in his third year, not being able to win playoff games, so he retired because he new Manning’s lack of leadership would never get him to the Super Bowl. How can someone not make it to the Super Bowl in their first three years??!!!

Most quarterbacks take a lot longer to make a Super Bowl than three years. Now, granted, Manning didn’t have a great season this year, and he relied a lot on the Giant’s defense. Manning actually had a worse rating, worse completion percentage, less touchdowns, and more interceptions that any season he has started all 16 games. I certainly don’t think he had assumed the status of franchise QB yet, but he is well on his way.

The New York media overreacted in favor of Manning at one point.

The mistake the New York media made was thinking that just because he was a Manning and a number one draft pick (and a New York player), he should be a franchise QB right away. The fact that Phil Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger were having success early furthered that perception. Despite the fact that Manning had made the playoffs in each of his two seasons as a full-time starter, the Daily News was putting out headlines like this:

SHOULD HAVE PASSED ON ELI DEAL
WHAT KIND OF MANN IS HE?
STRUGGLES FUELING QUESTION OF GIANT MISTAKE

How bout:
YOUNG QB PLAYS MEDIOCRE AS HIS DEVELOPMENT PROGRESSES?

Of course, the venom wasn’t fired at just Eli. Tom Coughlin got his share, too:

KEEPING COUGHLIN WOULD BE BIG BLUE BOO BOO

Eli’s brother missed the Super Bowl a lot more times than Eli did, and people called him a choker, but there weren’t many people calling him a “mistake” in his third or fourth year.

Going into the Super Bowl, his own dad wouldn’t even give him much support. Archie said,

“We’re not saying he’s Phil Simms or anything. I just never thought he was as bad as some people thought he was.”

Winning the Super Bowl doesn’t make him any better. He just happened to have an above-average game against a great team in a big game. He isn’t suddenly going to throw for 4,000 yards next year. But, he might a few years from now.

Of course, he isn’t a big play quarterback, anyway. He has been noted more for not making mistakes than for making the big throw. Throughout the playoffs, he did just that, throwing no interceptions until the Super Bowl. But, it was also in the Super Bowl that he took the game on his shoulders and made the big throws–and bad throws–just when it counted.

He looked like Brett Favre in the fourth quarter, throwing wild passes, eluding sacks, as he drove down the field for the game-winner. There was one series where he threw a bad pass down the sidelines that was almost picked off. On the next play, he somehow pulled out of a sack with a Matrix-like move then threw another terrible pass. “This guy is a complete moron,” I was thinking. It was caught for a big coversion just over a Pats defender’s head. That doesn’t change the fact that he was a moron for throwing it, but now he has Brett Favre’s luck.

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