Eli Manning: The Ultimate Closer

For New York Giant fans, the scenario is starting to seem familiar. It's late in the game, and the Giants are behind. They get the ball back, and Eli Manning leads his team down the field to another come from behind victory, this time over the Cincinnati Bengals.

There have been many knocks against Eli Manning. He holds the ball too long, he forces too many passes, he isn't accurate, he'll never achieve the stats the great ones have. Hell, they even say he's not as good a quarterback as his brother, or his father for that matter.

That all may be true, but it doesn't matter. The one thing that is becoming crystal clear is that come crunch time, this guy is a stone cold killer. Of all the quarterbacks presently playing, only Brett Favre, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning have consistenty produced late game heroics like Eli has.

Give this kid the ball with two minutes left and the Giants behind by less than a touchdown and it's Katie bar the door for the opponent. In his three and a half seasons as a starter, Manning has brought home the W nine times in the fourth quarter or overtime of games for New York.

He earned his first victory as a starter with last minute heroics, a touchdown drive to beat Dallas on the final day of the 2004 season and he hasn't taken his foot off the gas since. The bigger the game, the bigger he plays. Regular season, divisional playoff or, the Super Bowl, you name it, Eli has delivered.

Everybody is starting to understand why Ernie Accorsi made the big trade to get him in 2004. Manning clearly has got "it", as Ernie was fond of saying back then.

Not to knock Ben Roethlisberger or Phillip Rivers, both great young quarterbacks from that same draft, but Eli has done something special. Against all odds he delivered on the biggest stage, in the toughest place in the world to play, when no one expected him to.

He may never have the career stats of Peyton Manning, the charisma of Tom Brady or Brett Favre, or the touchdown passes of Dan Marino, but he has already earned a place in New York Football Giants history as a leader and a winner.