Eli Manning: 4 Things We've Learned About the New York Giants QB in 2011

Eli Manning didn’t waste any time in 2011 putting the microscope on himself. The former No. 1 overall draft pick who is finishing his eighth season in the NFL raised some eyebrows in August when he said he sees himself in the same class as New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, he of the three Super Bowl titles.

“I consider myself to be in that class,” Manning said as a guest on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN New York 1050 in August. “Tom Brady is a great quarterback, he’s a great player and what you’ve seen with him is he’s gotten better every year. He started off winning championships and I think he’s a better quarterback now than what he was, in all honesty, when he was winning those championships.”

Manning has a Super Bowl title on his own resume, winning Most Valuable Player honors in Super Bowl XLII for leading the New York Giants past Brady and the previously undefeated Patriots.

Even though Manning won a Super Bowl and led the Giants to four playoff berths in his first seven seasons in the league, there has always been some hesitation about including him in the league’s elite class of quarterbacks, a group that for my money includes a Mount Rushmore of signal-callers: Brady, Peyton Manning (when healthy), Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers.

So what have we learned this season about Eli Manning? With older brother Peyton sidelined all season with a neck problem, this is our first real chance to examine Manning without viewing him through the prism of what Big Brother has been doing in Indianapolis.

Here are the four lessons about Manning that I’ve taken from the first 16 weeks of the 2011 season.

If Eli’s Not at That Top Level, He’s Awfully Close

Manning has certainly made significant strides in 2011. His passer rating of 90.3 is only ninth best in the NFL, but it’s also a full 10 points higher than his career mark through last season (80.2). With one game left in the season, he’s one pass attempt off his career high of 557 that he had in 2005 and just four off the career high of 339 completions he had a year ago.

Manning has thrown 10 interceptions in the seven games since leading the Giants to a comeback win at New England on Nov. 6, but even with that, his total of 16 picks this season is well down from the 25 he led the league with last season.

He has thrown 26 touchdown passes, good for a share of sixth place in the league, and his 4,587 passing yards is already a team record. Only Brady, Brees and Rodgers have thrown for more yards this season than Manning.

He’s Cool Under Pressure

Manning is tied for the league lead with five fourth-quarter comebacks this season; only San Francisco’s Alex Smith (really?) and Denver’s Tim Tebow have been as successful turning deficits into wins in the final 15 minutes.

This is also the first year that Manning has been called upon to win games on his own. The running game, a staple of New York Giant football dating back to the franchise’s roots in the 1920s, has been missing in action for much of the season. Even with three 100-yard efforts in the last four games, the Giant rushing attack is still ranked 32^nd—dead last—in the league.

That means for large chunks of the season, whatever offense Big Blue was generating came off the right arm of Manning. I’m not sure which statistic startles me more: New York being dead last in the league in rushing yards or having a piece of the division lead with one game to play despite being dead last in the league in rushing yards.

He’s Learning To Manage the Occasional Clunker

Sunday’s Battle of New York was not a vintage Eli Manning performance. He was just 9-for-27—by far his worst completion percentage in a game this season—and he was picked off once.

But Manning being off his game wasn’t enough to doom the Giants to defeat, something that may not have been the case earlier in his career.

Victor Cruz gave the Giants a big shot in the arm with his 80-yard run after the catch for a 99-yard touchdown in the third quarter against the Jets. But part of the reason Cruz was in a position to turn an 11-yard pass into a huge play was because the ball was right where it needed to be to get Cruz away from the first defender.

Even in his three-interception game against the Washington Redskins two weeks ago, Manning wasn’t terrible. One of the picks bounced off a receiver’s hands and a second one happened when Mario Manningham broke off his route for no apparent reason.

Manning’s Not a Kid Anymore

The baby face can be deceptive. I know I have to remind myself sometimes that Manning’s not a kid anymore. He’s a 30-year-old veteran who will be making his 119^th career regular-season start when the Dallas Cowboys come to MetLife Stadium on Sunday.

Among current starting quarterbacks, only Tom Brady, Matt Hasselbeck and Drew Brees have more experience (Peyton Manning goes back to the top of the list when he’s healthy, of course).

So there’s really nothing left that Eli hasn’t seen. He’s taken a team to a Super Bowl title from the No. 5 seed. He’s led a team to the top overall seed.

Is Eli Manning in a class by himself as a quarterback? No. But as Bum Phillips once observed,  if he’s not in a class by himself, it sure don’t take long to call the roll.