Super Bowl XLVI: A Giants' Win Would Make Eli Manning the King of New York QBs

Eli Manning is one of four quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl title with a New York team, joined by Joe Namath, Phil Simms and Jeff Hostetler.

It’s not a lot of championships for a city with two franchises to show for 45 years of the Super Bowl era, to be sure.

Namath became a legend for delivering on his famous guarantee in Super Bowl III. He led the upstart Jets to the victory that legitimized the old American Football League, a 16-7 triumph over the Baltimore Colts in Miami in January 1969.

One could argue that it was that performance alone that got Namath into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

How else do you explain a quarterback who lost more games in his career than he won, completed barely 50 percent of his passes and had 47 more interceptions than touchdown passes in his 12 years with the Jets and his final season with the Los Angeles Rams making it into football’s Mecca in Canton, Ohio?

For his part, Simms is sometimes overlooked for just how good he was while playing for the Giants from 1979-93. There were just 13 quarterbacks who threw for more than 4,000 yards in a single season prior to the NFL emphasizing the illegal-contact rule in 1994.

That decision by the league, as much as any rule change or policy shift, contributed to the video-game-like numbers that have been recorded by quarterbacks since then.

Simms, contrary to the popular belief that he was a Trent Dilfer-like game manager for a Giants team built on a great defense and a powerful running game, was one of those 4,000-yard passers. He threw for a then-franchise record 4,044 yards in 1984.

For the record, the other members of the 4,000-yard club prior to 1994 were Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, Warren Moon, Neil Lomax, Lynn Dickey, Bill Kenney, Don Majkowski, Jim Everett, Brian Sipe, Jay Schroeder, John Elway and Namath.

Manning broke Simms’ team record with his 4,933 yards this season.

Hostetler was never a great quarterback, particularly not during his time with the Giants. Filling in for an injured Simms at the end of the 1990 season, Hostetler had started just two games for Big Blue prior to starting the final two games of the 1990 regular season.

Hostetler then guiding the Giants to wins over the Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills on the way to the franchise’s second Super Bowl championship.

More than 40 years after his Super Bowl win, Namath is still the most revered quarterback in Gotham.

But with a win in Indianapolis on Feb. 5, Manning would be the first two-time Super Bowl champion signal-caller in New York, going a long way toward wrestling that title away from Broadway Joe.

New York loves bigger-than-life personalities and Namath always filled that bill.

But what it likes even more are winners. If Eli can add a second ring to his collection, he would jump to the top of the Big Apple quarterbacking class.